I’d been tracking the rider in front for over a mile. As we started the climb they were hovering tantalisingly out of reach just up the road. As the gradient hit over seven percent and my frantic clicking of my right hand shifter met its end stop I could see them  at the edge of my vision rocking from side to side out of the saddle suffering (at least I sincerely hoped so) as much as me. Lowering my gaze I fixated on my handlebar stem and watched in slow motion as the sweat running off my brow dripped past it onto my front tyre. Trying to concentrate on my cadence and block out the pain I ground my way on for another minute or so before risking another glance up. Yes, they were closer, I was slowly inching my way up to their back wheel.

Within a couple of meters of my quarry now I can sense through the pedals the gradient easing slightly as we round a hairpin into a quintessential alpine village. Consolidating the gains I’ve made over the last few minutes and conscious of the fact I’m pretty close to blowing completely I tuck in behind my quarry and enjoy the slight but definable respite afforded by their slipstream. I’m close enough to know their name now. Ms. M.Corchard from Canada, you don’t know it yet but you’re mine for the taking. I know from my map that the summit is 500m ahead and peering down the road I can see the archway across the road which marks the finish of the climb and heralds the promise of the blessed relief of the descent into the valley.

Summoning up the last of the reserves in my quaking legs I’m out of the slipstream and punching down a couple of cogs on the rear cassette I launch into a parody of a sprint to the line. I’m along side then past and thankfully M.Corchard either has nothing left either, or simply doesn’t care as I crest the summit a couple of bike lengths clear…….

So where did this battle royale take place? the Alps? or perhaps the Pyrenees? neither in fact. I was in my back room and as for M.Corchard, well I can only presume she was in Canada, but for all I know she could have been in the house next door and I’d never know. So was I having an elaborate daydream? well the pain and sweat were most definitely real, for both myself and my adversary but everything else was a construct of a programmers skill and the mind-boggling internet based world of Zwift.

So what is Zwift? it’s the indoor training website that’s fast gaining popularity in the cycling world. Since its inception in 2015 it’s gained nearly 550,000 users with that number climbing daily. With a monthly subscription and a suitable smart turbo trainer to link to the App a user can log on and ride in a virtual world with Zwift altering the resistance of your trainer automatically as the road in front of you on the screen rises and falls. And the slightly surreal thing is that unlike a computer game all the other riders (and runners now) you see on the screen are real people who are locked away in their own houses all over the world grinding away on their bikes and sweating onto their floors just like you in real-time.

Theres loads of info out there on the internet about how Zwift works and the nuts and bolts of how to connect your trainer and which models are compatible etc so I’m not going to rehash that ground as others have explained it far better and in much more detail than I have either the time or inclination to bother with. I’ll concentrate on what its like to use and is it worth the subscription?

Well, simply put from my perspective its easy to use and worryingly addictive. My venerable old Tacx Turbo trainer was definitely past its best, slipping and groaning like a wounded buffalo it was time to think about replacing it anyway before the winter set in properly and the thought of riding my lovely Ti steed outside through the rain and mud kept me out of the saddle till spring. Now the price of these so called smart trainers has come down dramatically in recent times and as long as you stick with one of the ‘wheel on’ varieties the world of Zwift has become more reachable for those of us without either sponsorship or bottomless pockets. So for £200 a basic but Zwift compatible Tacx Flow was purchased along with a handlebar mount for my iPad, the Zwift app was downloaded and I was ready to go. Setup was a breeze, I signed up with Zwift for a weeks free trial, plonked the iPad on the handlebars, turned the Bluetooth on and was staring at the digital me on the screen literally seconds later.

The virtual me was astride a white road bike waiting patiently at the side of the road in what was unmistakably London. I took a few tentative pedal stokes and digital me pushed smoothly away from the curb and rode off down the road. I stopped pedalling and a few seconds later Zwift me coated to a stop again and straddled his virtual top tube  waiting patiently for further inputs. All around me on the screen other virtual riders zipped past in both directions in a bewildering array of cycling kits and on all sorts of virtual bikes.

That first foray into this strange online world was in many ways a little overwhelming. I felt a little like a neophyte on his first club run. I wasn’t sure where I was going or what the unwritten code of this new online cycling world was. There was a bewildering array of information scrolling across the screen to the left and right of my avatar. Lists of other riders that were close to me marched down the right side of the screen, a leaderboard showing who was riding fastest over various bits of the course displayed on the left. At the top of the screen my speed, cadence and distance ticked round. As junctions in the road appeared buttons popped up at the bottom for me to press to choose my direction and a little dot moved along a map in yet another pop up box which displayed where I was……. it was all a little confusing.

By now I was out of Richmond Park and climbing the foothills of Surrey. The map told me I was about to start the famous Box Hill climb that had featured heavily in the 2012 Olympic Road Race, and sure enough as the road started rising on the screen in front of me it got harder and harder to turn the cranks as Zwift told my trainer I was riding up an increasingly steep gradient. Spookily a few seconds after I ran out of gears and had to get out of the saddle to maintain my cadence the virtual me stood up on his pedals as well and started to rock from side to side as he / me ground his way up the hill. It was a little weird but it certainly kept my attention up and made me almost forget I was riding inside, and that surely is the major attraction.

Of course knowing all the other riders around you are actually real people is a straight short cut to the competitive persona which lurks within practically every cyclist. Within the first few Zwift miles as soon as I’d mastered the flow of information popping up on the screen I was trying to catch the next rider up the road or manfully over-exerting myself to keep random strangers behind me. As a cyclist and ex-wannabe racer I just can’t help it, and I bet neither can most people using Zwift, and that is in a large part what I suspect has made it so successful so quickly. The fact that it’s now possible to test yourself against thousands of other riders on for example a fair facsimile of the 2018 Innsbruck UCI World Championship course is a big draw. In fact it’s widely reported that the Zwift version of this years course is in fact so accurate that a lot of Pro riders have been using it to learn the course and test their legs prior to the big day. Now thats one hell of a validation of the concept.

So, what are pro and cons of Zwift? Cons First….. well there’s no getting away from it, the graphics and Zwift worlds are a little reminiscent of Mario Kart at times. If you’re more used to the hyper realism of the latest generation of console games you maybe a little disappointed, but having said that the slightly cartoony nature of the courses does help keep you entertained, I mean I’m never going to get to ride down a London Underground tunnel in real life am I? Second gripe would be I’m highly doubtful about some of the speed and power data in relation to the real world. At one point during on of the descents on the Innsbruck worlds cause Zwift reckoned I’d topped 50 mph without even being in the big ring, this however could be at least in part to the trainer I’m using which is the cheapest Zwift compatible smart trainer on the market. All the other downsides are those you automatically get from using a turbo trainer indoors (uncontrollable sweating, urges to vomit during and after use etc.).

So what are the pro’s? well all the usual indoor training advantages of course, there’s no fat morons in delivery vans trying to kill you, there no potholes or cowshit to avoid and you’re highly unlikely to puncture miles from home. What Zwift really brings to the party is it makes it fun. I’m now actively planning how I can fit a session into my day rather than sighing and regarding the turbo as something of a  necessary winter evil. I’m looking forward to exploring all the many routes Zwift has to offer and I’m already thinking about how I can clip extra seconds off some of my times up the climbs around the courses. With Zwifts ability to link to most of the major ride and training apps such as Strava and Trainer Road etc it’s also super easy to turn each ride into a focused training session should you want to. Theres also inbuilt training sessions and rides you can select within Zwift itself – the possibilities are certainly enough to keep most riders busy for a good long time.

The biggest plus for me now though is its maximising my time on the bike. Due to a change of recent job which has resulted in me spending a lot more time away from home my riding time is more restricted now than ever. I often find myself struggling to fit time on the bike in. With the bike permanently set up on the trainer and Zwift just a few clicks away I can fit quick blasts in whenever I have a spare hour or so at home. I don’t have to worry about route planning or the weather or an ill-timed puncture making me late home for tea or the school run. If time catches up with me and suddenly i remember I was supposed to get the shopping done before the family get home I can just jump off the bike and be out of the door in 5 minutes, its banished those time pressured rides you never enjoy because your always mentally calculating how long it will take you to get home whilst praying for a tail wind.

So I think you’ve guessed by now I’m a Zwift convert, so if you’ve been thinking about giving it a go yourself I’d definitely encourage you to give it a try. If your already a Zwift user and you pass a certain T.DecliningCyclist on the virtual road give me a thumbs up (Ride On! in Zwift speak) and try not to laugh at my measly power numbers …….