I Zwift And I Like It

IN WHICH I TRAVEL TO AN EXOTIC CYCLING PARADISE in my spare room, SPRINT AT 56 KAYS AN HOUR without wearing a shirt, AND CLIMB THE STEEPEST DAMN ROAD ON THE PLANET while my kid eats jelly beans and laughs at me.

- Tom Vanderbilt

I felt a twinge of shame. It had been a beautiful day. Instead of blue skies and the satisfying hum of rubber on tarmac, I was bathed in the pale light of my LCD monitor and the mid-frequency whine of my Wahoo KICKR. Instead of chatting amiably with ride companions and sprinting for street signs, I was harvesting ‘ride ons’ (Zwift’s mid-ride version of a ‘like’) and competing for virtual jerseys.

But here’s the somewhat ugly truth about why I wasn’t riding outside: I just didn’t feel like it.

(Note: if you’ve read this far without knowing what Zwift is, you need to get inside more.)

This is a hard thing to say, one that I fear may see me exiled permanently from the cycling tribe, but there are times when I actually prefer Zwift – when I even hope for a south-easter to blow into town so I can maintain a shred of self-respect while crawling into my pain cave. Shame about the weather – heh, guess I’ll have to get on the trainer.

Like many of you, I used to dread riding indoors. I had too many memories of dark winter nights staring at the wall or the top tube, where my workout was taped. Sure, seasons of rollers helped me perfect a fluid pedal stroke, but it always felt like trudging to the salt mines (it didn’t help that my sweat-crusted floor looked like a salt mine).