Originally published at: ROUVY and IRONMAN Partner Up with ROUVY Acquiring FulGaz - Slowtwitch News
With over 1,500 routes and a riding experience that uses course footage and augmented reality to create a realistic cycling experience, the ROUVY indoor training platform has been growing dramatically over the last few years. Today the Czech-based company and IRONMAN have announced a five-year partnership that sees ROUVY acquire FulGaz from IRONMAN and become “the Official Digital Sports Platform of the global IRONMAN and IRONMAN 70.3 Triathlon Series.” IRONMAN had previously purchased FulGaz in 2021.
ROUVY has enjoyed lots of growth over the last few years and sees the deal as a way to expand its triathlon user base.
FulGaz
The first question that came to mind for us here at Slowtwitch when we got wind of the news was what will happen to FulGaz now? IRONMAN had acquired FulGaz at the tail end of the COVID pandemic as it looked to grow and move “into the connected fitness space,” then CEO Andrew Messick said at the time. The idea was to “integrate this versatile platform into our portfolio of digital offerings.”
At the time of that announcement, ROUVY and IRONMAN still had a running contract, but that deal expired at the end of 2021.
With today’s news, ROUVY and IRONMAN are back working together. What does that mean for FulGaz users? We asked that question of ROUVY CEO Petr Samek in an interview yesterday.
“For now, nothing is changing for them,” Samek said. “We have a big plan for the community – we feel that we’ll be able to make the FulGaz community happy and part of the ROUVY family.”
Samek admitted that it makes no sense to keep both platforms running. While the eventual goal will be to migrate FulGaz users over to the ROUVY platform, he says they want to ensure that features FulGaz users are enjoying will continue to be available to them.
“We will send surveys to understand the needs of the users and the biggest benefits of the (FulGaz) platform,” Samek continued. “We will identify the missing content we need to migrate into ROUVY. We want to ensure the migration is as smooth as possible.”
The goal will be to have the “migration” completed by “the next indoor season,” Samek said – presumably referring to winter in the Northern Hemisphere.
IRONMAN and IRONMAN 70.3 Courses
Samek points out that since its last deal with IRONMAN, the ROUVY platform has vastly updated its technology including more personalized content and workout prescriptions. While there are a number of IRONMAN courses already available on the platform, the plan is to digitize all of the IRONMAN courses as soon as possible – as many as two or three a week thanks to ROUVY’s ability to use GoPro footage and race coverage to create courses. (In the next few months users will be able to generate their own courses using the ROUVY course creator, Samek said.)
“We believe the combination of training efficiency and realism of IRONMAN courses will benefit all triathletes,” Samek said. “It’s a huge commitment for us, but we have a team and knowledge that is unique.”
According to today’s release, in addition to the IRONMAN and 70.3 courses, “ROUVY will feature the top 20 most popular FulGaz routes, with plans to add more in the coming months.”
ROUVY comes on board as the naming partner for transition areas at IRONMAN races, which means the company will be onsite at events to provide “an enhanced experience to athletes,” including a 30-day free trial to racers.
“Most of our community are cyclists,” Samek continued. “Through the IRONMAN community we’ll be able to offer workouts and efficient training in combination with realistic footage to triathletes.”
Samek is very clear, though, that the ultimate goal of the platform is to better prepare you for being outdoors.
“Our goal is not to keep you indoors,” he said. “Our mission is to get you ready for being outdoors. We are trying to help you improve your fitness level to keep you motivated.”
