mstateglfr 

I love zwift for what it is- a way to entertain and motivate during an otherwise awful time.
Time spent on the trainer is simply terrible without something engaging. Zwift provides that engagement.

I use a dumb trainer plus cadence and speed sensor. Its a $40 way to get hooked into the Zwift world.
A 40" tv that was from some holiday deal for cheap has made a big difference in the experience. One of our family's laptops is used(I loaded zwift on multiple to make sure I have access regardless of what is now being used for work/school at home) and connected to the TV with an hdmi.

There is a lot for Zwift to still improve on still, as the UI is headshakingly bad in some ways. Positive side is that you will inevitably see improvements as you use the system!
- you can't go to a race from the home screen. Absurd.
- you can't go back to the home screen and choose a new route or world once you've started the game. Absurd.
- its super inconvenient to change your bike and gear since you have to do that when in a world and riding. Absurd.
- races are a total wild west where people well outside the categories ride still for who knows what reason(s). Absurd.

To that last point, I did a 10mi crit race today and rode in the D category as I average a middling 215 watts on Zwift. D is for anyone who is under 2.4watts/kg.
The winner averaged 579 watts with a 5.39w/kg average. You have to go all the way down to 33rd place to get to someone who averaged under 2.4w/kg.
In the initial official results, Zwift needs to just toss out results that end up being higher than the category limit.

But in the end, race results are all meaningless and is simply for fun. I work harder in that 25-30min than I ever do on my bike for that same amount of time when riding outside.

I have lost weight, picked up strength, and ride faster earlier in the season.
I am a fan of whatever tricks put mind enough for us to improve our health and wellbeing. If its a video game that does the trick, then great!

bonsai171

I have a dumb trainer and speed sensor now, so will probably use that coupled with my phone for the moment. I think the resistance issue on my trainer is due to not tightening the flywheel against the tire enough. User error :-p lol. Hopefully that will be enough resistance with my fixed gear to crank out some Zwift rides and see how it is. One issue at home though is interruptions. Guessing you can't really pause a race? LOL.

Dave

mstateglfr 

You can't pause a race, but you can effectively pause regular training rides. You stop and your avatar pulls over to the side of the road (or sometimes in the middle of it, for whatever reason). Just hop back on and keep going once you have resolved whatever kid emergency came up.

10mi of hard riding on zwift is equal to 20mi of hard riding outside, at least it is for me. The inability to coast in zwift makes for a lot different riding experience. 30min/10mi sessions are great because I can do 15min of other exercise, 30min of zwift, and in less than an hour I have a full workout. I end up doing a lot of crit races since they are 9-12mi.
And when I dont do those, then my regular zwift rides end up being a bit ponder, bit a bit less intense.


Check your trainer to make sure its compatible with zwift. Not all are. Zwift has basically taken a dozen or so dumb trainers and figured out how much power is being generated when the tire is properly inflated and the proper resistance is applied to the wheel.

There are half a dozen ways to cheat the game, but if you don't take it too seriously and you can laugh at people who need to cheat in an exercise video game, zwift is great.

spdntrxi

no... it would be worth 7-8 bucks a month tops

clasher

I'm new to zwift this spring, and was flabbergasted about the UI too, I heard they were planning to release a big UI update this spring but the covid rush to zwift pushed those plans back. Since they introduced the meetup feature you can use that to jump to another route without having to exit the program or anything... simply create a meetup with the zwift companion app that starts after you expect to finish your route, I usually just finish the route and set the meetup for 5-10 minutes later, then refill my bottles/hit the can. You only need to invite one friend and they don't have to respond or join the meetup. Apparently you can do 3 routes a day like this but I've only done it to do 2 routes a day. If you're going for the Lutscher badges you can use the meetup trick to save the lead-in climb on the route.

I put zwift on my ipad so I can pull it up if I wanna tinker with kit or bike, it's also handy for checking which routes I've completed, but the website www.zwifthub.com is a better place to keep track of that, they also have elevation profiles of the routes and they list the lead-in distances too.

They've also been working on improving the race experience with the "cone of shame" thing, it's only in the crit city races put on by ZHQ right now but it's a step in the right direction. Anyone with a power meter should use www.zwiftpower.com it will at least filter out a lot of the more obvious cheats from the results but it also excludes everyone that uses a speed sensor + dumb trainer so it's not terribly useful for a lot of users. There's a lot of cheats and I also think a lot of people that don't care to setup their trainers properly.

Zwift is worth it for me, it's a lot cheaper than buying winter kit and maintaining a winter bike. I will still ride outside in the winter but it won't be my primary winter activity anymore. I'd bet zwifting is probably cheaper just based on tire wear for me.

RJM

I had zwift for two months to try it out and wound up cancelling it. I honestly just didn't get into the game aspect of it enough and got a little tired of people pushing 900 watts but weighing 125lbs flying by like I was standing still while climbing. I prefer TrainerRoad for indoor riding.

I used it with my Kickr smart trainer and an Apple TV and thought it worked pretty well, but found the UI lacking a bit.

himespau 

Ooh, anything to avoid the insane lead in on Lutscher for the badges. I have skipped over them so far because it doesn't seem worth it relative to other badges I can get. I'll go for them at some point, but it really seems like they should just count the whole thing if they want the lead in to be that long. They could make it a lollipop route like the Jungle, but give me credit for the lead in (and list it in the details so you don't think you're getting a nice short route only to find you've got all that climbing to do first).

bonsai171

Unfortunately my trainer isn't compatible. Would that make Zwift a no-go?

Dave

mstateglfr 

You can still use zwift, the numbers may not be accurate though.
There are a handful of dumb trainers to choose from. Select one, use your trainer, and see what the results on screen are. If you are maintaining 300w for 20min and not breaking a sweat, its way off so choose a different trainer on the screen and try that one.
If you are in a puddle of sweat and cranking out 60w, again its way off so choose a different trainer and see if that one seems more accurate.

No harm in trying all of the options to see if one seems close enough to what you think is realistic to keep you engaged.

Eric F 

How do you mean "isn't compatible"? I was using an ancient wind trainer with a Wahoo speed/cadence sensor on my bike. It worked just fine, once I found the correct setup. Using the generic trainer setting, it was unusable. I was killing myself to maintain 120W. I tried using the power curve for a fluid trainer already in their system, and it worked well enough to use Zwift without being wildly high or low in my power numbers. When I recently switched to a smart trainer, I found that my power to be very similar to what I was getting with my dumb setup.