Indoor riding used to be boring and wasn't very popular except for a group of fanatics. With the coming of the smart trainers and programs like Zwift, Rouvy, BKool this has completely changed. There are now Smart Trainers on the market from around 400 euros to 1200 euros and all kind of training programs are also available. The best known is Zwift, there are plenty of articles about it and if you want to try it, there is a 7-day trial.
What I want to talk about today is Rouvy, another indoor training program, which, unlike Zwift, doesn't show graphical (game) images, but real images recorded with a camera. With Rouvy you can also train in different ways, I want to explain 1 of those today.
First Rouvy, also for this you have to close an license, you can cancel monthly and there is also a trial period of 14 days. It costs about 8-10 euros per month for unlimited use.
The part of Rouvy I want to explain today is what I call 'Ghost riding against yourself'.
What do you have to do, what does it look like and how do you start it?
In Rouvy, in order to ride, you first always have to pick a route you want to ride... a mountain stage, flat, hills... what country...what distance etc. This choice is for me already the fun part! Eventually after using Rouvy for a while you will have a favorite route that you like to do more often. For me that is 'Arraba-Passo Pordoi', a beautiful climb in Italy, the Dolemites, 9.48 km long and 607 meters ascent. A wonderful climb for a little bit less than an hour of training (for me). You start at the bottom of the village and end up in the snow on the pass.
In Rouvy you can ride in 2 ways, training and racing mode. To ride later the Ghost option, you have to ride all your rides in Race mode. What does this mean :
- You can't pause during the ride (you can, but time runs through)
- You can't set the resistance
- Your time will only be recorded in Rouvy if you do the the whole ride (if you stop in between, your ride will be saved and equally exported to Strava, but your end time in Rouvy will not be recorded).
- You can't start your ride halfway or any other point you want. You always have to ride from start to finish
I did this ride 5 times now in Rouvy and what's the fun part, I can start the ride and project myself 5 times in the ride, exactly the way I cycled those 5 rides. Select the ride, and click the edit button.
Then search for yourself in the search field (don't mind my nickname)
Select your rides on the left
So now my 'opponents' have been selected. (you can also select other riders if you want to)
What I usually also do, is to download the route in Rouvy in advance, so I don't suffer from hiccups at the Rouvy servers to stream the video footage 'live'. You can also see here that there are currently 16 other participants doing the ride now, they can be anywhere in the ride by the way.
Now we can start.
You can see the ghost riders in the picture, you can hang in the wheel (no draft), you can jump from one to the other, and what I often try to do is attack myself in the last 2 km and improve my best time a bit. I think this is really one of the options in Rouvy that inspires me very much to bring out the best and makes indoor training really challenging.
I hope you like this option....have fun and...improve yourself !!!
What I want to talk about today is Rouvy, another indoor training program, which, unlike Zwift, doesn't show graphical (game) images, but real images recorded with a camera. With Rouvy you can also train in different ways, I want to explain 1 of those today.
First Rouvy, also for this you have to close an license, you can cancel monthly and there is also a trial period of 14 days. It costs about 8-10 euros per month for unlimited use.
The part of Rouvy I want to explain today is what I call 'Ghost riding against yourself'.
What do you have to do, what does it look like and how do you start it?
In Rouvy, in order to ride, you first always have to pick a route you want to ride... a mountain stage, flat, hills... what country...what distance etc. This choice is for me already the fun part! Eventually after using Rouvy for a while you will have a favorite route that you like to do more often. For me that is 'Arraba-Passo Pordoi', a beautiful climb in Italy, the Dolemites, 9.48 km long and 607 meters ascent. A wonderful climb for a little bit less than an hour of training (for me). You start at the bottom of the village and end up in the snow on the pass.
In Rouvy you can ride in 2 ways, training and racing mode. To ride later the Ghost option, you have to ride all your rides in Race mode. What does this mean :
- You can't pause during the ride (you can, but time runs through)
- You can't set the resistance
- Your time will only be recorded in Rouvy if you do the the whole ride (if you stop in between, your ride will be saved and equally exported to Strava, but your end time in Rouvy will not be recorded).
- You can't start your ride halfway or any other point you want. You always have to ride from start to finish
I did this ride 5 times now in Rouvy and what's the fun part, I can start the ride and project myself 5 times in the ride, exactly the way I cycled those 5 rides. Select the ride, and click the edit button.
Then search for yourself in the search field (don't mind my nickname)
Select your rides on the left
So now my 'opponents' have been selected. (you can also select other riders if you want to)
What I usually also do, is to download the route in Rouvy in advance, so I don't suffer from hiccups at the Rouvy servers to stream the video footage 'live'. You can also see here that there are currently 16 other participants doing the ride now, they can be anywhere in the ride by the way.
Now we can start.
You can see the ghost riders in the picture, you can hang in the wheel (no draft), you can jump from one to the other, and what I often try to do is attack myself in the last 2 km and improve my best time a bit. I think this is really one of the options in Rouvy that inspires me very much to bring out the best and makes indoor training really challenging.
I hope you like this option....have fun and...improve yourself !!!
Comments
Post a Comment