I’ve used TrainerRoad for years and would likely continue with it but I do see the benefits of Zwift especially for racing friends in a different location. I’ve tried Zwift a few times but do not really enjoy the experience. Wondering if anyone has had the same experience but stuck with Zwift and now enjoys it and how long did it take?
I enjoyed it immediately
TR is great for workouts but boring. Zwift is more interactive and the racing is a lot of fun. To each their own though
In my case, I loved it from the first ride. I used to absolutely hate using a trainer, and even with videos or music about all I could tolerate was about 20 minutes. My first ride on Zwift was about an hour…
I’ve used TrainerRoad for years and would likely continue with it but I do see the benefits of Zwift especially for racing friends in a different location. I’ve tried Zwift a few times but do not really enjoy the experience. Wondering if anyone has had the same experience but stuck with Zwift and now enjoys it and how long did it take?
I’m like you, loved TR (Sufferfest even more). I tried Zwift many times and just can’t make myself like it.
Liked it from day1, but it did get a bit tired to ride solo. These days I’m on it for group rides: races, fono-esque rides (ex. Tour of Watopia), and Pace Partners.
I’ve used TrainerRoad for years and would likely continue with it but I do see the benefits of Zwift especially for racing friends in a different location. I’ve tried Zwift a few times but do not really enjoy the experience. Wondering if anyone has had the same experience but stuck with Zwift and now enjoys it and how long did it take?
Should be immediate that you find that you like it. It’s not for everyone, and even for myself, after gushing about Zwift in my early honeymoon phase where I could see it replacing my entire outdoor bike regimen (the races! the routes! the convenience!) I got a more balanced take on it after several months and now see that things like Trainerroad (I actually use TrainerDay to get my Trainingpeaks workouts) are different and better in some ways and worse in others. For sure, if you’re into structured training, Zwift may not be the best way to go - you can absolutely do structured workouts on Zwift, but if they’re ones from your own training plan, all the graphics, course selection, etc., just gets in the way of what should be a straightforward interval workout. It’s a lot easier and less distracting to pop on Trainerroad and take care of business than try to get that workout fitting into Zwift, with all the courses and competing offerings.
The best things for me on Zwift were absolutely the big mega group ride/races. Like the ones that are special events (Tour de Zwift) where typically 500-2000 riders will show up to ride a route at the same time. Those were great - got into small pelotons and worked the course with them, trying not to get dropped. Helped me ride harder than I ever would indoors (that’s also not clearly a good thing on training plans, unfortunately!)
zwift is great for racing, rouvy for solo rides
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It really depends how you use it. Getting route badges, new kits, etc can be fun for a lot of people. The same can be said for doing the challenging climbs, races, group rides, pace partners.
I enjoy all that but the team time trials races and team races is what I enjoy the most.
I am also part of a large team and every morning a few of us join discord and talk while riding. This is great, sometimes 1-2 hours go by like it is nothing.
Having a good set up can be helpful too
It took me several attempts to like it. For some reason, I thought you had to “race” to use Zwift and I never enjoyed the racing. However, I tried it again about 3.5 years ago and simply focused on group rides and then pace partner rides when those came out. I’ve loved it ever since. The few times I’ve done the races (even while on the ST team), it just wasn’t for me.
It took me several attempts. I think I uninstalled it three times before enjoying it. I just found riding around really boring, and the erg mode has issues with a Wattbike. Due to time constraints I wanted to do high intensity stuff and decided to try racing once more. I ended up loving it, and atm it’s the only indoor riding I do. I like the zwift racing TT and climbing leagues and I try to do both twice a week.
Zwift is just entertainment while riding indoors.
It’s for some people and not for others.
The workouts (on most platforms) just make you a better 20 min rider since that’s what most people test.
Tried TR for years, most I could tolerate was about 100 minutes. The first ride on zwift I told zwift “here, take my money.”
have ridden up to 6.5hours on zwift and multiple 5h+ rides. Coolest thing is I can ride with my sis who lives in AUS one day, my athletes the next & my BFF in NC the third day.
Zwift is just entertainment while riding indoors.
For some it might be for entertainment. For me it’s competition. I can do “graph staring” interval workouts, but take myself to places in competition that I simply can’t while staring at graphs. This is why it’s also dangerous - competition-as-training can go very wrong. But when I want to test what my current absolute limit is while indoors, I prefer Zwift to graph-staring.
zwift is great for racing, rouvy for solo rides
I didn’t like Zwift and after the trial period never went back. As above prefer Rouvy for the less structured rides and TR for the targeted rides (But I’m always watching something on the TV as well - usually bike racing).
I can see that for a lot of people.
At least for me I think riding around in Zwift’s virtual world is equally mind-numbing to staring at a wall. I’d prefer to watch TV one hundred times out of one hundred for a regular ride. For me, Zwift only has merit for racing and fitness testing (e.g. probably going to do a better 20min time riding Alpe D’Zwift or whatever compared to just staring at a wall), but that’s not enough to keep a subscription to it.
At least for me I think riding around in Zwift’s virtual world is equally mind-numbing to staring at a wall.
Same. I like the competition aspect. But it could be just 1980’s Tron graphics, and it’d have the same value. The novelty “Oh look, a bear fell out of the tree!” wears off real quick for me. I once tried to use Zwift for training, but caught myself putting in the background to YouTube stuff, and realized I was Doing it Wrong ™, and switched to TR for that stuff. Only use Zwift now for competition or the occasional social deal, virtual memorial rides, etc.
+1 to falling in love with Zwift after doing my first race. It was inconvenient though with distances/profiles/start times that did not fit the training. Since they added, and added, and added pacer rides it is perfect. I jump into the group doing the effort level I want, its much more fun and I get a good quality workout at the desired pace without the monotonous boredom of using ERG workouts.
I’ve tried a number of times again on Zwift and at this stage its not for me I guess. Music on, no changing gears and head down with TR. Thanks for all of the responses.
and why not give rouvy a try?