Tuesday 31 December 2019

What is Zwift?

Since i am a Zwifter, i must explain to everybody what this is.

Zwift is a virtual game, an e-cycling game to be more precise.
In order to play this game you need an Indoor Trainer (a Smart Trainer is better): it’s an equipment in which you mount your bike on it and you start cycling. Then, this Trainer sends your power imput to Zwift and your virtual character starts cycling at the same wattage you produce!


And there’s more! On Zwift you can find and explore various scenarios: you can have a quick trip on NY Central Park, or sprint near the Big Ben in London or other real existing maps. There are a lot of other virtual maps as well, that doesn’t have a correspondence on the real world and are just imaginary, but you can explore an immense world with a perimeter of more than 200 km.. and you select the path you want to go! Flat route on the Desert, an hilly road on the Epic KOM Mountain, a Jungle full of dinosaurs, an-inside-ocean street with smiling dolphins and so on.

You can go wherever you want in this ONLINE game. This means that every other people you meet is a real person that is cycling on his/her indoor trainer like you!
Also, Smart Trainers change their resistances to match the hills of the game: the steeper, the harder.. and the opposite for downhill!



If you think this isn’t enough to consider Zwift an amazing e-cycling game, than you have to know that there are lots of things to do there. Things that you can consider as a real career!

The first thing you want to explore is the virtual shop. The more you cycle, the more “money” you have to buy new wheels and new bikes: you can find every kind of equipment over there!

But the most exciting things are the Races! There are plenty of those for everybody! There are short, quick, hard races; long, steady rides; hilly courses to study the map in order to select your attacking strategy or just group events where you can relax and cycle with good company. There even are crono races: one at time and the fastest wins.
Yeah, there are more than 30 races every day at every hour: so everybody can go for them!



Zwift - Ranking



Every race gives you some points for your Ranking, and this is very interesting, the stronger you are the more you can climb the Leaderboard. 

Ranking is the best thing of Zwift, if you are interested on the competition and to see how far you can go with your strength.
The better cyclist you are, the better your Rank will be and there are different Ranks. From Rank D to the super valuable Rank A+.

In order to enter a certain Rank you need certain values for your Watts (all the game is around watts, the more you produce, the faster you go and the better your watt/weight ratio the better climber you are); you either need a good ftp watt and ftp watt/kg.
Ftp is just the highest watt you can endure for 1h effort and this is a must for your Rank.

However, every other watt/minutes count and gives you some points for your Ranking, from your best 1 minute all-out wattage to your more aerobic 20 minutes best effort count for your Zpoints.

The last but not the least things are the Segments! This time it’s time what we are looking for! Your best times for specific paths give you points for Ranking.
You can find very short sprints (less than 300 metres), short climbs, a particular path with a mix of up and downs, long climbs, city specific maps (like the Bologna’s Crono race) and so on.

The sum of your Race scores, Watt values and Segments points creates the Ranking and the Leaderboard.



Zwift - Teams



Are you still looking for more? Well, you have to join a great Team then! Teams are groups of people playing under the same name and with the same kit. There are pros-only Teams or free-for-all Teams.


Certain, big, Teams can create their Tours. A list of different races with a specific Leaderboard (usually the best times/points given for the best 6 races out of 9).



Those Tours are very appealing for Teams because there are the single player Leaderboard and the Team Leaderboard, so it’s a challenge to see who’s the best!

Also, most of Teams have virtual meeting with their members to speak about strategies for the next race or create meeting to go virtual cycling together and “level up” their characters (your character has a level, too, and the higher level you have, the best bike/wheels you can buy in the shop!).

There are plenty of other things to say about this amazing e-game, but this isn’t a book about this.
I spent those pages to tell you how much i love this and how much i consider Zwift as a real opportunity to improve myself as a better (virtual) cyclist and to climb the Leaderboard to see how far i can go on my own and with my Team here.

I hope you will read this book with the same enthusiasm i have and feel a bit of the awesomeness i felt when i reached certain little objectives.





Have a nice reading and Ride On! 

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