Paul, over the past few years I've pretty much gone exclusive to indoor training; 20,000+ miles on zwift, and 1,500 miles ran on zwift. I'll say this about your question. I do it for time efficiency and getting in a better quality of workout. I have people usually ask me if I want to do a group ride or run, and most of the time I decline because it just takes too damn long. Someone always has something wrong, or you've got to drive 30 minutes to meet up with people. Everyone in Atlanta is so spread out. I used to do a group ride on Tuesdays, but to get in 25 miles that took me away from the house from 5:30 to almost 9. I could jump on the trainer and do a virtual group ride or workout and get in a much better ride. I still jump into training camps or long training weekends with friends, but mostly do all my training indoors for biking, and running. Swimming is still with a masters group. I guess that's my group workouts.

As far as staying connected, all of the people I race against are on FB and we try and show up for the same races. So, even though we're not training together, we still pushing each other and racing against each other.

I personally have no desire to train with anyone in the real world. I'm perfectly happy on my trainer and only did one group ride all year, with 5,000 miles on the trainer.

Just my n=1 but what I've built and will contiue to build is group training 6 days a week (not everyone meets every session mind you), and I'm just going to add onto it with "virtual" riding together online through group text/call during the session etc. I've seen the success and motivation from group training and that's one of the advantages that I use in my own coaching program. I'm a "hands on" coach, and yes I do coach online (my fastest athlete now moves in Delaware with a new career job), but much prefer working with local athletes to see them, etc.


I think you'll just seem more and more riding buddies meet online with other "virtual" friends.


ETA: I'll also say I dont "suggest" any of my athletes ride outdoors on their own. We either do rides that I sag as a squad ride or local group rides. No one rides "alone" anymore, just too many stupid drivers out there (I was hit/bumped by an distracted driver a month ago with one of my juniors).

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Brooks Doughtie, M.S.
Exercise Physiology
-USAT Level II

So many months of the year I don’t have the light or quality temps to ride outside when I get home from work. Plus when I get home I feel bad keeping my dog in the crate longer.

It’s more time efficient for me to train on Zwift. I don’t have to be outside in the cold and I can control the intensity of the workout. Group workouts get boring sometimes.

Group stuff has it’s place but I love Zwift.

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Make Inside Out Sports your next online tri shop! http://www.insideoutsports.com/

Resonating what other folks have brought up, I find I can do much more/better work inside.

The folks in my Masters' group kick my butt up and down the lane, but as far as running and cycling is concerned--having moved to a new area recently--I haven't been able to find a group that does that, and it often feels like socializing rather than a workout. That being said, I make time to ride with folks back home (House of Pain in Bay Area) or with my old team in LA when I'm in the area because our abilities are much more aligned.

I don't know how much training would change if I lived in an area with a stronger run/bike community--maybe weekend rides, tempo/long runs with folks.

I dunno, I’ve always felt there have been plenty of indoor options for swimming. Not many virtual options though

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Matt

I ride 85% solo outdoors, the rest group rides. In winter 100% computrainer indoors, so obviously no virtual group bullshit. I'm glad people like it, because I like seeing people motivated to train and workout. It's not for me personally but it's better to have people doing something than nothing. To your point yeah I think you're going to make more meaningful connections via actual group riding than virtual.

I live 45 minutes from civilization so I’d be wasting an hour and a half to go for group rides. I’m one month in on zwift and have gotten both my brothers, one sister in law and a couple of friends into it. I have more social opportunities through zwift than I would outdoor riding where I live.

I like riding my bike outdoors with my friends and when I can do that (a lot during the spring/summer/fall) I do that. I know it's not as good training wise as an indoors sessions but who cares--I do it for fun.

fun means in part being as good as I can be and so I'm pretty serious (I have over 11,000 miles on my bike this year and I'm 61) but I always seek to ride outdoors with my friends or by myself vs. indoors. Life is is not virtual (for the most part)

Its the means and not the ends that ultimately matter...I've been lucky enough to get to Kona 3 times but that ultimately has not been my main motivation...

the sun, breeze, shooting the shit for 3 hours with good friends, feeling great, getting back, shower, eating some grub and a nice nap--that's living in my book

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Randy Christofferson(http://www.rcmioga.blogspot.com

Insert Doubt. Erase Hope. Crush Dreams.

Pretty much this, I don’t like people enough to want to train in a group. Only person i ever train with is my brother, but that’s rare these days as he lives 5hrs away.

Most motorists think cyclists should stay indoors.

 A friend and I were talking about this yesterday - about there used to be so many group rides here but now it’s like there’s none. There are occasional group gravel rides but you have to drive an hour at least to get to the gravel.

Group runs here are very popular and there are a couple of really large running groups who have regular training runs. And the Masters group I swim with is large and has multiple options every week. But the group riding seems to have dried up for sure.

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clm
Nashville, TN
https://twitter.com/ironclm | http://ironclm.typepad.com

Zwift is worthless to me, but I definitely see buddies who I used to ride with every weekend that are less likely to ride outside because of it.

I think it evens out. You make a lot more friends online that are a lot more like you. But then those relationships are shallower because you don't know each other very well. The net result is sort of the same - more quantity of less quality equals the same sum of friendships. Slowtwitch forums are a great example. I know a ton more triathletes because of this place, but I don't know them very well. But now I know tons of triathletes that seriously compete in ultra distance endurance sports, which never would have happened without being online in these forums because IRL I live in a town of only 100,000 people. I think there's only about 3 of us where I live in real life and I see them maybe once a year.

Similarly, I quit training with the local cycling group 15 years ago because they want to stop at every gas station to snack and chat. Or you have newbies that constantly bonk or crash or go too slow or have equipment failures or flat tires (sheer numbers thing). I have a kid and a job, so if I'm taking the time to go ride, I can't be stopping all the time for stuff that other people are still figuring out. Virtual training groups are the same way - they start on time and no flat tires. And everybody has close to the same ability and also the same goals.

In a recent interview, some pro training coach or industry insider said he's noticed that indoor cycling is far bigger a thing with triathletes than other cyclists. This is because we also swim and run and we have less time to screw around. Bike goes on the trainer, ride had no flat tires or stops, ride done. Get social on your swim or maybe on your run, but go virtual on your bike if you want to be time effective.

I should have said we don't have indoor VIRTUAL options. I'll fix it.

The up side is we may see our real world friends online when otherwise we would not. Same as real world friends on facebook or ST.

Are you guys seeing a downside where you can't get real world friends out for swim or a run because they are opting to the convenience of the virtual group training at home?

I'll be getting back into the bike training soon so trying to decide if I just go erg mode solo until the snow melts when I can ride with others or add group virtual indoor now. My other problem is that I am better off training with no one for 80% of my training because the quality gets "too high" with others. If I train solo, I respect that I can't be in 'racing mode' every outing.

That was a real concern of mine when I started training indoors a lot due to security issues where I lived. However, I found a good group of folks on Zwift, and we train together multiple times per week, including group rides/races. A bunch of us use the Discord app so we can talk to each other during the sessions, so I don’t feel isolated in the least bit. I have moved twice since starting on Zwift, and my group still stays the same. Moreover, I have been able to tag more connected with training friends from those areas because of it.

The last thing I will add is that the indoor training, coupled with Discord has allowed me to train with friends who would not normally be good training partners due to the disparity in abilities. The faster ones push me, and I can push the slower ones. I find that I train more with people now than I did before.

Ian

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I’m working on a Masters degree right now, so I invested in a new smart trainer last year in order to facilitate training time. I simply don’t have time to waste with driving 20-30 minutes to meet people to train. I need to be in and out of workouts and getting on with work and school.

I was a fairly early adopter of Computrainer and used that in the winter months or when the weather simply didn’t permit getting out on the road. But I never really took to it as a heavy-duty training option. It just got me through when riding outside wasn’t an option.

The new smart trainers, with the connected training options, have changed that for me, with this year’s experience. I don’t do Zwift group rides or workouts, so it’s not about the pseudo-social aspect. But I do see a lot of friends online and we will say hi. Mostly it’s the trainer experience itself, and, for me, the Zwift worlds, that keep it interesting. The whole of the experience seems to have something for me that Computrainer didn’t. I can see myself continuing to use the trainer a significant amount even when I finish school in March. It’s just so time-efficient.

That said, during this break from school, I’ve enjoyed having time to get out with some groups and train. I didn’t mind the drives to-from the training. Sharing experiences and just relaxing into the training has a lot of attraction, especially in the offseason, when my training is much less structured.

I like both in my life. I like to be outside whenever possible. But there is definitely a place for indoor training in the time-challenged adult life, if you’re trying to get to your best performance. If I ever stop competing, though....I think I’d be loathe to do anything indoors. I hate gyms. I’d rather go for a long hike, run, paddle, whatever...

As for the social aspects...I don’t know that it is making me any more or less socially inclined. I’ve always done a tremendous amount of solo training, mostly because it’s always hard to sync my scheduled training with someone else’s. I’m just not going to join a group ride for 2-3 hours of stop-sign sprints when my day calls for 4-6 hours, 45 min tempo/15 minutes easy or something. Those are entirely different types of rides. Maybe if I were training for cycling racing I’d be more inclined to group rides than I am. I just rarely join the competitive cyclists’ rides because their training purpose is so different than mine. Group runs are the same. I have a weekly tempo run group that I try to hit, but that’s about it. We do the same 3-4 mile tempo route every single week, without fail. Very rarely are track workouts doing the same work I need to do. Long runs often have the same issue as the long rides. I’m doing structured work and others are just banking miles...so I end up running solo anyway. Why drive to just end up running solo? My group training is almost always easy and/or unstructured workout days when I can just go with the flow of whatever the group is doing (and let the stop-sign sprint heroes do their thing).

Other than weekend gravel rides I’ve been doing all my bike training on Trainer Road watching movies. Yesterday I decided to do a 2 hour road ride with a group of friends. Honestly I got bored and even though it was supposed to be an easy ride. Back on the trainer in a bit today.

I much prefer riding outside, either in a group or solo, but I simply don’t have the time to do it. The virtual training model lets me train where otherwise I would not.

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Swimming Workout of the Day:

Favourite Swim Sets:

2020 National Masters Champion - M50-54 - 50m Butterfly

What I am really trying to get to is whether we will make less friends through live group training because we think we are around other people but only electronically connected (kind of like fb friends, or ST friends).
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Maybe it's just the introvert in me, but I've never made any friends during a group training session. I've met people, sure. We were friendly, yes. But they were just people that I see only during the group ride/ run and that was it. They weren't people that I've interacted in a different, non-athletic venue. I rarely do them anymore (I don't like to be that scheduled).

As far as the virtual training is concerned, it's not my thing. But, anything that gets people moving and training is a big bonus. Plus, it gives them a chance to feel like a member of a group, especially when the conditions aren't that conducive to exercising. And, it sure beats spin classes.

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Take a short break from ST and read my blog:
http://tri-banter.blogspot.com/

So? If cyclists stay off the roads because motorists don't like them, what makes you think motorists aren't going to say we don't want them racing on our roads either?

I see the pros of training inside. My concern is what happens to racing outside if nearly everyone starts to enjoy riding inside more? Gravel tris are fun, but I don't see them becoming more popular than road tris have been. Closed road tris? Jack up the entry fee and/or decrease the fun for most participants.

I ride less with my mates in real life than I used to, but that is due to kids and the fact that I have to ride in the time available to me vs planning to ride with others. Zwift hasn't taken anything out of my life, but it has given me a viable alternative that fits my ad hoc and unsociable timetable.

Main thing I love about Zwift that isn't readily available IRL is twice weekly racing. A genuinely hard race experience pretty much whenever I need it, with no prep or travel. Not gonna get that anywhere else IMO. I'm finding it extremely motivating to try and compete in the next group up (currently making progress in category B), and the bike fitness gains have been big for me, even moreso than when I've tried to do structured training in the past e.g. trainerroad.

Loving me some Zwift. But I will still go and ride to the pub with my pals when the opportunity arises.

Rich