I'm sure it can all be learned with practice, but I don't know when, or even why really, that I would practice most of that. Even if I switched to riding all outdoors, I'm still on a tri-bike, riding by myself.

I actually thought you might be joking with the doping comment. Interesting angle.

No problem with calling an unskilled rider strong. There are plenty of them around. I think my pet peeve is hearing someone say how "good" a rider is because they're fast or strong, particularly in triathlon circles. Neither has anything to do with being a "good" cyclist. And there are plenty of good cyclists that are strong riders and triathletes too.

Agree with the “acceptable” part in that if you get out enough, then your skills are probably fine. Don’t know if there’s actual evidence to corroborate that crashes are more common with indoor riders. I see as many crashes from those guys that take chances at the front of the pack (last lap heroes). The guys that can’t handle their bikes usually get spit out the back long before their ineptitude becomes a hazard.

---

Human Person

The basics of a lot of bike handling skills is being comfortable doing what you need to do when you can't do what you want to do. That is why group riding (and especially racing) enhances skills by default. If you want to eat or drink (or look behind you) you have to be able to ride one handed and get into you pockets without going off line or you'll hit someone. For that matter, if you want to just look at the pretty view you have to still hold your line. Once you are in a pack, you can not always swerve around that pot hole, you have to bunny hop it. You can't just randomly take your perfect line around a corner because there may very well be someone on either side of you. All of those things are pretty easy if you practice. Group rides make you do the practice.

Yeah, on that point we definitely agree. Being able to push watts most definitely does not make someone good.

Just like Kleenex, Xerox and Frisbee, Zwift is the name of a product that has migrated to describe all items in that category. All tissues in the store, even generics, are 'Kleenex'. All indoor riding is 'Zwift' as a catch all, even if you subscribe to Sufferfest.

If you aren't breaking [sic] in the turn up to the apex, you aren't taking the turn as fast as you can.

---

----------------------------------
"Go yell at an M&M"

Woops. Hopefully you aren't breaking anything. You should be able to take a 90 at 30mph without braking. Or breaking ..

The point was that you should be going faster into a turn (going straight) than you are at the apex, which means you need to brake between entering the turn and the apex. If you can take a 90 degree turn at 30mph, then you should be entering the turn at 35mph (as an example) and braking down to 30mph at the apex.

---

----------------------------------
"Go yell at an M&M"

Disagree on braking. You will slow down slightly due to force factors during the turn, but you don't have to touch the brakes to do so. "At speed" didn't mean "as fast as you can possibly go" - you'd be surprised how many riders won't even take a turn at their typical training speed, say 18-20 mph.

Riding with other people will make you a stronger, more skilled and less bored cyclist. You should try it.

I bet you would be hard pressed to find a triathlete that also road races crashing in a triathlon.

I'm not against group rides, but honestly, I wouldn't even know where to start. The people I know don't ride. I suppose I could ask around the bike shop (which I go to maybe 3-4 times a year, so not exactly a regular), but I would still show up on a tri-bike, which is probably gonna elicit some groans. (or maybe not, I dunno)

You can disagree with this guy :-)

---

----------------------------------
"Go yell at an M&M"

Is this actually a thing?

---

http://www.jt10000.com/

This guy rode Zwift so much, now he can't go anywhere because of his massive FTP!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=17PAUrE_-sM