Back Indoors

With the seemingly endless bad weather at the moment, Summer is definitely over and I have to reignite my love-hate relationship with indoor training again.

If you’ve followed me for a while you’ll know that I go through phases with indoor training platforms. I’ve dabbled with Zwift, Rouvy and Wahoo’s SYSTM, opting for the latter in the recent times with the odd dip back into Zwift for a race fix or Rouvy for a real-world ride. However, there is a new kid on the block. For the last few weeks I’ve been using MyWhoosh and I like it.

I’m not going to do a MyWhoosh review, I’ll just summarise what it is and how it compares.

In my opinion, MyWhoosh could be, I say tentatively, a Zwift killer. I’ll explain that comment in a bit more detail shortly but what it definitely is, is a direct competitor to Zwift. You ride a configurable avatar among other riders in either absolutely virtual worlds or virtual worlds based on real-life routes eg. Alpe du Zwift. Riding gains you points, you complete challenges which unlock in-game features which maybe equipment or access to more virtual worlds. In this sense, MyWhoosh is very similar. They both have online workouts, training plans but there are two massive differences between the two platforms.

1. MyWhoosh is 100% FREE but has a low-uptake
2. Zwift is £17.99 a month but has a huge established community of riders, events and races at any time.

So going back to my original point about MyWhoosh being a Zwift killer. Yes, I think it could be. It has already pipped Zwift to host this years UCI E-Sports World Champs this month, probably because it’s backed by UAE dollars, but it needs to do more. It obviously wins on price but it needs to market itself better and find a way to migrate all the effort and loyalty riders have put into Zwift (levels, distance + elevation) and then it would be a very attractive switch.

For me, I like the workouts. Some are coach led where they ride with you onscreen encouraging you. The graphics are great and so far the platform has been pretty stable, just a bit of video stutter occasionally. I’ve also ridden with their bots that just do laps at a prescribed power-to-weight ratio which was fun too.

For me, a rider that has simple indoor training needs MyWhoosh is free and a no-brainer. I do see the attraction that Zwift has still. It’s much more of an established community and I did used to enjoy it’s online racing when it was new but since then it has been badly affected by blatant cheating akin to Strava segments were once a great idea until that got ruined in a similar way. I know if I try Zwift again, I’ll just get frustrated and bored with it so for now, I’ll continue to give it a miss and enjoy the similar experience MyWhoosh offers saving me £18 a month.

Adios.

PS If you like online racing, MyWhoosh offers real cash purses (circa $2K) for winners in their races but qualification is a lot more stringent. A passport (FTP) test is mandatory. Double power sources are required and you have to submit weigh in and height videos + supply real-life data if requested too. All great and a way to combat cheating, but not for me.