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I know many dislike riding indoors and would probably rather have a root canal than be riding on a trainer. But I actually love riding in my basement on the trainer. Let me tell you why…

Many years ago, going back probably 15+ years, I started doing Sufferfest workouts on an old-style Cyclops fluid trainer. I had a Cannondale road bike that was set up on it, and I would do workouts in the basement. I loved the pain of those workouts and the sense of accomplishment I felt once completed.

Over the next several years I was doing triathlons and following a plan from a book. I would do the bike workouts with specific intervals on the trainer and longer endurance rides outdoors. I had upgraded to a Kurt Kinetic fluid trainer, bought a Cervelo Tri bike, and had a pretty good setup that I was happy with for indoors. A co-worker, also a biker, mentioned a new cycling platform called Zwift in 2015, and I decided to check it out. At first I hated Zwift, I didn’t understand the concept, I didn’t understand why people were “chatting” with me, I didn’t get it at all, so I went back to doing workouts on my laptop. They were super boring, but effective, and time actually went by fast since I had to concentrate to make sure I hit the power targets.

Early 2016 I decided to give Zwift another try. I had a coach by then and he suggested doing the workouts he put into TrainingPeaks for me on Zwift. Back then there was no integration between the two platforms, so I would build the workouts in Zwift. I found the second time on Zwift to be much better. I was focused on my workout, just cruising around and the scenery was a distraction.

For the last 10 years I have continued to do workouts on Zwift. A lot has changed though. I upgraded to a Kickr Smart Bike which I love! I no longer have a coach. I use TrainerRoad (mostly) for my training plan. Workouts sync to Zwift so they are ready to go when I log in, which is very nice! No more building workouts. And, I also do a lot of racing on Zwift.

Which leads me to the adventures. I started racing in 2020 on a team with a group of women from various parts of the world. We quickly became friends virtually and raced a lot. It’s crazy how connected you become — warming up and cooling down, suffering through a race together, chatting about anything and everything. These women have become such great friends.

Two years ago, I had the opportunity to meet a couple of my Zwift friends from Canada while on a biking trip in France. (This trip was with Sorella’s Betsy and Kathleen; Betsy wrote about it if you are interested in more details. It was so much fun!) My Canadian Zwift friends, Val and Isabelle, were going to be in France at the same time we were, so plans were made to meet up and ride. We rode Col du Télégraphe and Col du Galibier (yes, that was a lot of climbing!!!). Meeting them in person was so cool. It felt like we had known each other for years, which we had - virtually.

Then last year I had another opportunity to meet up with Val and Isabelle, plus three other Zwift friends. A total of 6 of us met in Spain and biked for close to 2 weeks. Joining us this time were an Australian, another Canadian and another American. I’ve known and raced with all of these women since 2020. Again, it felt like we had known each other for years. Conversation was easy, everyone got along which can sometimes be a challenge. And not surprising was how everyone rode. After racing together for so long, there were no surprises regarding who was going to be the fast climbers, the quick-to-react sprinters, and the long, slow, steady “I’ll get there when I get there” endurance specialists. Can you guess which one I was?

What started out as a 100% training platform to keep me in shape, turned into meeting women that have become lifelong friends and led to some incredible adventures. I can’t wait for our next trip!