On Zwift, for 3-6hr rides:
- I don’t use erg mode - prefer to do these sorts of ride by feel mostly as a way not to go too hard
- intersperse cadence drills and/or aero position drills
- intersperse low intensity intervals (e.g. x times 20mins in Z2 aero position, 5-10min Z1 sitting up chilled)
- join a group ride or robopacer group (and for longer rides be prepared to join more than one group ride)
- repeats of climbing Alpe ‘Zwift (use the trainer difficulty setting if need be to stay low intensity)
- set a target for completing all the routes in world ‘x’ (for longer rides tick off more than one route during the ride)
- set a target for achieving a certain amount of metres climbed in a ride without pre-planning it (just start riding and figure it out along the way)
- combinations of all of the above
- listen to a lot of podcasts and watch a lot of box sets or films!

Zwift pace partners.

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ECMGN Therapy Silicon Valley:
Depression, Neurocognitive problems, Dementias (Testing and Evaluation), Trauma and PTSD, Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI)

Long and steady, my wife watching Shopping Queen on the right flat screen and I watching CX or down hill bike racing or model trains or steam trains on the left flat screen.

I ride with Miguel on Zwift.

Do you stille need to stop the ride before you can start a new route or did they change that?

z1/2 is the easiest to do - literally anything works.

When I'm home, I'll use z1-2 to watch Netflix or other streaming services. I usually set it on erg mode to make sure I don't slack off, but I do set it on how I'm feeling that day.

When I'm at work, I use an Omnium Feedback portable trainer in my office (dumb trainer) and listen to podcasts while riding, still really good. Generally just ride steady.

I save the structured stuff for hard interval workout day or tempo day, usually in erg mode, and preferably with a workout video on whatever platform you like. Lately I've just been using youtube workouts like GCN - they tell you to go hard, and I go hard.

I loved zwift for awhile, but I rode it so much that I'm still sick of seeing the Zwift world open up in front of me for z1-2 day. It's still great for racing and hard stuff, but I'm so sick of riding the routes I've ridden SO many times that I've let my Zwift subscription lapse and haven't renewed it for awhile.

90 minute TrainerRoad erg mode while watching Cyclocross on YouTube.

Trainerroad endurance workouts minimized to the bottom of the screen while watching World Cup Nordic races on skiandsnowboardlive.com. As others have said these are the easy ones. Erg mode.

• Zwift
• Workout with ERG mode
• Watching Netflix or something similar

Ditto, using the teleport feature as required to move between levels.
Although much over 90mins I would just choose a long route and go solo turning off all the heads up display and messages of nearby zwifters constant humble brags.

What I don't do is Z1/Z2 indoors on the trainer. I find riding indoors, even on Zwift, absolutely mindless and soul crushing. I can only do it if I'm doing a specific, higher intensity interval session lasting 90 minutes or less, or once in a blue moon might do a Zwift race. My A race for the year isn't until August, so I basically follow a somewhat 'reverse' periodization program, doing either high threshold or VO2 intervals in January/February, and bringing in volume to the plan when the weather and extra daylight allows for riding outdoors. Any Z2 I do in Jan/Feb is done on a rowing machine or the odd day when the weather allows me to get outside for 2-3 hours or more.

I usually ride with Miguel also. Seems to be right at my zone 2

I setup a workout on training peaks. A short warmup followed by an interval workout. The "interval" is 6 minutes in the middle of Z2 and the "rest" portion is 3 minutes in Z1 or low Z2. Repeat until I have the duration I need. This provides just a little variation that makes the workout a little less monotonous. Since it is a TrainingPeaks workout, I run it from my Edge bike computer so there is no additional cost of a zwift or trainerroad.

Sadly, you still need to stop and start again. They have the feature for robopacers where you can leave one and join another within the same ride (which means they already have a solution for jumping locations within a ride) so maybe they’ll add at some point.

In the spirit of the John Stamstad School of Cycling, I stare at a blank white wall for 5 hours. It's 5 hours of physical and mental training.


On a serious note, I watch videos of ultra-running and/or cycling videos (Vegan Cyclist's Impossible Route series being some of the favorites), UCI CX races, backcountry hiking videos with great drone footage and listening to Spotify playlists. The only metrics I track during the long Z1/Z2 rides are elapsed time and HR (making sure not to push the effort). I will adjust the resistance and the cadence to mix things up.

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Tad

It took awhile, but I finally discovered that its not the destination that's important, but rather the journey.

Thanks for your reply, that's definately something I miss in Zwift.

How do you leave one and join another during a ride?

Never mind.

Google found it better than zwift help did

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mvls_K50VjI

put someone on a bike and they revert to the attention span of a 1 year old. ever heard of swimmers watching netflix while doing laps?

With that in mind, before Zwift I would watch the short skits on Robot Chicken. Most were less that 30 seconds long.

I use a Stages SB20 indoors with a tablet. I used to create a Z2 erg mode workout and watch movies, but I found that watching videos gives me a mild headache on the trainer. Now, I just turn on Zwift, set it on a Watopia course with mild hills and start pedaling. I don't use erg mode and I watch my heartrate. I listen to music and try to zone out.

I loved robot chicken…. And you’d have to watch a tonne of them for a long ride !!

Uh, I just go in the garage on my 20 year old aluminum dedicated trainer bike on my non smart trainer, put my watch in chrono mode hit start and pedal.
No tv, no zwift , no nothing.......

The same way I do them outside.

Just go ride without stressing about it. If the zwift route has some hills I ride up them without killing myself, if it has a sprint I'll probably make a decent stab at it, if it's got a downhill I'll just keep pedaling it.

Don't worry about watts or hr just pre and keeping that lower than higher, 5.5 to 6 max on a 1-10 scale

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Brian Stover USAT LII
Accelerate3 Coaching
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