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That is what it usually is for me and comprises probably 80-90% of my time training with Z & TR.
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On top of that, the reality of having literally thousands of people on course leads to having “rabbits” to chase as something of a silly motivation during the work intervals. I do branch out and sometimes do pure group rides or pacer bot rides in place of my Endurance workout.
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I’m another who uses it for distraction. I also like the workout player, where you can see the whole workout on screen and know what’s coming next. I don’t use it year round, I just buy a month or two when I get bored and need a break from blue lines. I also find the idea of leveling up, completing challenges, collecting badges for riding new routes, etc. motivating. If I want to quit an interval, I might even try a little harder to push through in order to earn the points for completing the interval. Like someone else said though, what motivates one doesn’t necessarily motivate another. There is no “right answer” when it comes to training tools, music, tv shows, etc. Just find what you like and roll with it!
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Thanks all for the info. Confirmed Zwift does nothing for me and I will cancel before my free trial is up. I would rather watch a Youtube video or stream something. I don’t know, I was never much into video games either. Maybe it is the same sort thing.
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Not sure what prompted me to actually check but looks like I got into the third round of zwift beta users in late 2014. So pretty basic and boring back then, I thought it was fun but never really got into it. By the time they had said they were going to start charging I don’t think I had touched it in a year. TR might even have sent me a T shirt for messing around with getting them running side by side 
, forget why they sent it but I think the timing matches. (now someone’s gonna bump the merch request thread)
Group rides don’t do much for me in real life so was never interested in them on zwift. I was just mentioning to a friend yesterday that I may look into it again for racing, to scratch that itch without having to drive, buy another bike, or risk getting hurt. We’ll see after my race in july when I need some training motivation.
Part of me wishes I was interested if for no other reason than one more thing to motivate me to train, the other part is cheap and likes the 20 bucks still in my pocket. 100% see the appeal just didn’t work for me. Like Kona never got into video games, so maybe its related.
Zwift should offer a way to be a workout player without saving the .zwo file. If people could use zwift to do their TR workouts without any fuss, there would be less incentive to recreate them.
I had a very similar opinion as yours, but recently a few things changed and I’d say that I see Zwfit now as part of my training.
I’ll point them out, and suggest some things that might change your view.
- If you press “H” you hide all information and have only the “world”.
- Do not use ERG mode, try to just achieve the workout by yourself.
- I recently changed a Direct Drive trainer for a dumb set of rollers, and it was a game changer for riding indoor and Zwift. Riding now is engaging as I have to really ride, and I’m not “locked” in a trainer.
- I have a group ride with friends that is really awesome. KOMS, getting dropped, jokes, etc.
- I can’t ride outside for almost 4 months - live in Canada, and even though 60% of my training is on a fatbike now, I need to be creative to overcome winter.
- robopacers and group rides for long endurance rides work well.
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Does anyone like just riding around in Zwift and letting the terrain and trainer control the resistance?
I’m curious - can you join a party and chat in zwift? I recall that people used to use some kind of 3rd party software for voice chat. Do they still?
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- That’s what I do for some of my long endurance rides. Usually part of the pacer bot that best fits the speed/power of the day.
- Sure, there is the built-in text chat that many people use in group rides.
- Yeah, seems Discord audio chat is the main one in use from what I see. It’s better than text in some ways and well used in some group rides and races.
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Occasionally, yes. Especially if they create a new world or extend an existing map. Also there are plenty of KOMs of various lengths that are fun for doing hill climb repeats. You can set it up to do the KOM, and then noodle back down, hang a u turn and go again, each time following a ghost of your previous effort. A good semi-structured workout.
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100%…I did that a lot when trying to get all the routes completed. Go do the Uber Pretzel for a leg-breaking long endurance ride on the trainer.
I also will do it if I am looking to get some “climbing” in…a few years ago before a long weekend trip to NC, I would go up one one side of the Epic KOM, head down the other, flip a u-turn and then climb back up the other side.
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They did have a Staff Product Manager role posted for Training specifically in Dec/early Jan. (I applied) so I think they are at least trying to focus on advancing training on the platform. Obviously a PdM is not writing training plans but looks at least like they’re trying to focus there.
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Yes, I just rode my own workout, not programmed but riding intervals intentionally, not in ERG mode. One thing I would like to see is workouts matched to the terrain, so for instance a climb and flat that match your speed and interval length so that you could work out in simulation mode (not ERG) but hit the bottom of the steep climbs exactly at your prescribed interval start time and if you hit the prescribed pacing, hit the top of the climb and have the right distance eof flat terrain for your rest interval before looping around to hit the climb again.
Obviously would require a lot of computational power and maybe creating a course on tbe fly, so maybe not that likely.
I also ride endurance in group rides or with robopacers like a few others have said, and race frequently.
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It’s not just a distraction. Zwift gives vain cyclists (like me and you) the ability to continue adding miles to their weeks and years as if they were outdoors instead of just a # of hours on the trainer. My Strava is littered with people doing just that. I notice folks in the summertime even doing it to take advantage of the high efficiency of indoor training and “get a few more miles in.” Not saying everyone does this, but it is certainly a factor
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Signed my partner upto Zwift as they want to add some training around commuting for some big summer trips. No interest in the game side or following avatars, just wanted structured rides, an overall training structure, a little guidance and to not have to think about it too much or spend time learning about it all.
Lasted all of 2 weeks before Zwift was cancelled and a TR account created. We both found the UI infuriating. Then there is what appeared to be a lack of easy ways to pick out training rides, make a plan, etc. I tried to pick out rides on 3rd party websites but failed to see a text search in the library to easily find them. We perhaps didn’t give it enough time or watch enough youtube tutorials but meh, gave up.
So it was quite nice, as a long time TR user, watching them navigate the TR sign up, input the events and build a plan around their schedule. It just worked and think they’ll really benefit from the progression levels and ML adapations.
Doesn’t suprise me that they haven’t hooverd up any of the Peloton market, outide of my roadie bubble, I don’t know anyone who uses Zwift.
Wanted to start a seperate thread but if you are reading, big thumbs up TR 
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and I think you can do that by setting that part of the interval as freeride. It’s not exactly what you said, but a doable workaround.
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There’s gatta be something else. Nothing is free. It’s the ole Waze analogy… when the product is free, you’re not the customer, you’re the product
As a newly back on Zwift rider (I previously used Zwift back when it was a beta product) because I’m doing the BaseCamp winter group coaching, if it wasn’t for using it as part of BaseCamp, I wouldn’t. The UI on the computer is horrible and completely non-intuitive. And every different method (e.g., from within the Zwift app, the Zwift Companion app, web browser) of accessing “Zwift” has a different look and feel, and can see different things.
And don’t get me started on how horrible the “reconnecting” to ERG is if you drop out of ERG mode during a structured workout.
Open source software has entered the chat.
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@jcolp Seems like that is the plan:
“Integrated is certainly something we’d like to get to, so you could do your workouts on Zwift.” Wahoo confirmed, before explaining that the current focus is consolidating its own apps into one.
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I don’t do workouts in Zwift (either in-game or concurrent with TR). I always run sim mode.
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