After Four Months of Zwift…

When I first signed up for Zwift back in April, I rationalised the P750/month expense as a replacement for what I would normally pay for a gym membership (it’s actually 75% cheaper, but I digress). Four months later even as some of my fellow triathletes have been able to ride and run outdoors, I’m still on Zwift and will be for the near future.

How has Zwift been able to make their platform so “sticky” and able to retain users? (In fact, they’ve grown their user base because of the global pandemic.) For some people it’s the ability to create meetups and find high-level competition even in racing from home. For myself, there have been two major motivators: hunting for badges, and unlocking kits and items for my avatar.

Watch my vlog below:

In the vlog above I also mention the first time I actually enjoyed watching eRacing done on the Zwift platform. I’m very engaged as a participant, but previous eRaces didn’t hold my attention. Then Super League Triathlon did their own spin on things, and I was hooked. If you didn’t watch the SLT Arena Games over the weekend, do yourself a favor and stream it now.

I’m not sure if I can go back to cycling on my trainer and just having a blank wall in front of me, especially with the gamification of logging all that cycling mileage. At MX Endurance we have custom workouts that we can load on Zwift, so I can still do those sessions I used to do by following a PDF and going by perceived exertion or heart rate. Doing them on Zwift though means I don’t have to remember what comes next; I just have to follow the directions on screen.

Anyway I am very close to getting to Level 15 and being able to purchase a lighter wheelset from the Drop Shop to match the virtual bike I earned by riding the Everest challenge, so I am hoping that these upgrades will make it easier for virtual me to bounce up the steep gradients in-game.

(If that didn’t make sense to you, you’re probably not on Zwift. Yet.)

About Noelle De Guzman

Noelle De Guzman is a freelance writer and recreational athlete with over 12 years of experience in fitness and endurance sport. She believes sport and an active healthy lifestyle changes lives.

1 thoughts on “After Four Months of Zwift…

  1. Hi Ms Noelle, ask ko lang po, what is your bike trainer model, how much & where did you bought it? Thank you po.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.