Back to Zwift - so it begins

And just like that, summer has come to an end. Today I was supposed to be doing a century bike ride put on by a local cycling club.  Instead I found myself cycling indoors on my trainer for two hours, doing a Zwift community Zone 2 ride.  Not exactly how I pictured spending my final Saturday of August.  What stings even more is that this Saturday turned out to be a bloody brilliant day weather wise and closing out the month participating in a 160km bike ride would have rocked. Oh well. I guess some exercise is better than no exercise.

As summers go, this one was not bad for cycling.  I managed to cycle just over 6,800km.  Not too bad, considering the spring was cool and rainy meaning I could not get out on my bike as much as I would have liked in April.  Depending on how the fall goes, I might even close in on my 2026 goal of 8,000km. 

Anyway.  Off to Zwift it is for the next seven months or so.  Now.  Indoor cycling and Zwift is a far cry from the days of getting on the fluid trainer, putting on a DVD, and imagining myself riding through the streets for France or wherever.  So I guess I should grateful for that.  As far as indoor training goes, Zwift is pretty decent.  The ability to buy different bikes, upgrade those bikes, enter races, do planned workouts, and of course meet up with riders from all over the world is pretty cool.  A pretty neat concept really.  And the owners of platform are continually investing in it.  Upgrades such a new bikes like the S-Works SL9 get regularly introduced, not to mention new wheels, new routes, and the constant introduction of challenges for kits, trophies and badges. 

My fear is that the money for Zwift has come from several rounds of VC funding.  At some point in time those VC companies are going to want to get their money out and will sell Zwift off to highest bidder.  Call me skeptical, but I am not expecting whomever buys Zwift to have the same level of interest in supporting the platform and will be focused on extracting whatever financial benefit they can.

Putting the cart before the horse 

 

I realize I am putting the cart before the horse here.  Nothing has been announced about a Zwift sale and any sale is likely years away.  But there has been consolidation in the fitness community recently.  Garmin bought training peaks.  Zwift owns Rouvy.  And before that Rouvy bought FulGaz.  And on and on it goes.  My only hope is that if and when Zwift is put up for sale, Zwift is purchased by a company that actually cares about the user base and is not just going to milk Zwift as a cash cow.   

In my mind Garmin would make a good business partner.  Garmin is now rolling out the option to purchase a Tacx Neo trainer with the Zwift cog pre-installed.  Surely someone at Garmin is already looking at this possibility.  If only to keep Zwift away from Garmin's competitors.

Time will tell if this vision comes to pass. 

And now, I brace myself for months of indoor cycling.  I had better get a head start on building those playlists.