Getting old sucks, might as well have a nice bike
I am seriously impressed by Zwift’s commitment to creating a “smart bike” that is locked into their ecosystem. And, just so it doesn’t go unsaid, I don’t think that’s a bad thing. In fact, it totally makes sense for them to do it.…
If you’re willing to grab a Zwift Play now, you can get it for $99. At some point it will go to $150. If you race, this is a no brainer. If you don’t, still looks cool, but maybe less so. The biggest complication I see is that this requires yet another Bluetooth connection. Which isn’t a problem for most folks, but if you’re using an Apple TV (c’mon Apple…) you’re limited…
I can only guess that Stages is exiting the smart bike market, because the pricing on their SB20 all-in-one is crazy low. Not only do you get a solid indoor training solution, no bike required, but also a year of Zwift. I’ve never ridden the SB20, and truth be told, I’m not a fan of the smart bike genre because at the end of the day it’s never going to have great…
I have to wonder what the product managers at Zwift were thinking when they OK’d releasing the hot mess that is Zwift on iOS to the Apple TV. While it’s usable, barely, on an iPad it is not on the Apple TV. I really hope this was an accident, because wow……
So remember how Zwift was working on their own hardware? Well, that’s not happening anymore. They’ve announced layoffs and a pause to the IRL Tron bike project. Bummer… Apparently the same slowdown that hit Wahoo is also impacting them. Probably bit of world returning to outside riding and general economic uncertainty. Zwift is calling this a “pause” rather than a halt, meaning however unlikely it seems, Zwift hasn’t ruled out one day…
PSA – this is the cheapest I’ve seen the big daddy V5 2020 Wahoo Kickr. Normally, I’d guess that they are clearing space for a 2022 model, since Wahoo is discounting too (but not at this level), but it’s a really strange time of year to launch a new trainer… Even if that is the case, $840 with free shipping for one of the best trainers available is still a slamming deal.…
There should be a rule about releasing updates on holidays, even kinda-fake ones like Valentine’s Day. This is mostly selfish, I would have worked way fewer New Years Eves over the years… Anyway, on to the good stuff. TBH, I wasn’t expecting much, but there’s actually something useful in the “Improvements” section: you can now adjust workouts by +/- 25% (instead of 10%). This is huge for me because I use that…
Zwift updates are pretty common, and generally very welcome. The latest one removes support for anything pre-Windows 10 on the PC side of things. Personally, I don’t see this as a bad thing, mostly because anything pre-Windows 10 isn’t supported from Microsoft either, so it’s a security landmine. It’s never awesome when something that was working before stops, for no reason besides progress. But, on the flip-side, keeping support for unsupportable things…
Given the outcome of some previous testing, I was beginning to suspect that the Zwift Concept (Tron) bike is the fastest TT bike, but I didn’t have the proof until today. This came as quite a surprise because the best available information seems to indicate the opposite. The biggest caveat is that I don’t have the fastest time trial wheels that Zwift has; haven’t made it to Level 42 yet. So I…
I spend a lot of time riding the trainer in my “pain cave”, so I’ve had to put a lot of thought into making it work from an comfort and ergonomics perspective. This video walks through the setup and some of the why I made the choices I made configuring it.…