On the other hand I rode outside the other day with a fast bunch on a relatively flat route and I outpaced my fastest Swift rides with about the same wattage
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Seems like money changed hands from what I gather from the article I linked. I haven’t seen any details made public though.
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Let’s be honest, there’s zero chance that Ironman just gave FulGaz to Rouvy. Ironman is nothing if not all about making a buck (or lots of bucks) on every transaction.
Likewise, Ironman has heavily doubled-down on partnerships and the promotion of those partnerships in recent years. So Rouvy undoubtedly paid for that too.
I like Rouvy, and I like the people there, and I think they’re legit doing some really cool tech things. But I’m also not at all convinced they’ll get the ROI back on either side of that transaction, especially the Ironman partnership side. Perhaps the FulGaz side, just due to content acquisition. But most battle lines are well drawn in the indoor trainer space, and existing users just aren’t randomly switching platforms for fun anymore.
Sure, there’s still the group of people that went from Free Platform XYZ to RGT to IndieVelo to wherever they go next. But otherwise, triathletes on the whole are not a new to cycling population (in fact, the opposite), and thus, they understand the indoor training platform well enough by now. In the same way that Ironman didn’t really move the needle much for FulGaz #'s either, that’s just not how triathletes do training.
As a triathlete, it’s always been kinda funny to me how little the cycling industry (as a whole) ‘gets’ triathlon. Be it bike computer mount design, or training plans, or indoor trainer apps, etc…
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There is definitely race craft in Zwift. It might be a little different than real world racing, but there’s definitely more to winning Zwift races than just being the most powerful rider. It’s just a very unique for of racing.
The peloton has a lot more strength than real life.
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Wonder what their marketing/sponsor budget is. They sponsor the Tour de France Femmes as well as some pro teams. That’s got to cost a good amount of money.
This is exactly what I was referring to in my “headline” above…it just makes no sense to me. Two minor players banding together only equals one slightly larger, but still minor, player. The acquisition is not going to get new users to sign up and my guess is that a lot of FulGaz users don’t even bother with the transition.
I am somewhat surprised that FG was not able to leverage the IM brand more…so many triathletes are dedicated to the IM brand, and the ability to train virtually on the course they may be racing on would seem like a natural fit.
As an ex-industry person from way back, a 30+ year cyclist and now a recovering triathlete, I agree with this assessment 100%. A lot of it, IMO, is the culture of the bike industry and the persistent stereotype of triathletes s not “real” cyclists.
When I first started doing tri’s, I e-mails an old friend about getting some industry deals from the clothing company he was working for. I expected to get teasingly mocked, but much to my surprise, he had many complimentary things to say about triathletes. However, he was also working for a company actively catering to that market with some of their clothing, so he had a better understanding than most in the industry.
Maybe they don’t get triathletes because they are niche within a niche? I was in a large competitive oriented bike club - members were doing it all - road, gravel, mtb, fondos, licensed racing. There were less than a handful of serious triathletes and maybe another handle of triathlon dabblers.
My gross sweeping over generalization of the triathletes I know is they only ride their tri bikes and they only ride for two reasons, race or train (on their tri bike). They generally don’t ride to ride. I guess this is due to the time required for three sports so less time for “recreation”
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It’s kind of ironic and maybe a little sad, but all the things that would grow indoor cycling are the things we as cyclists hate. That is, aspects of cycling that make it unsafe or not fun to ride outdoors. Bad weather, lack of cycling infrastructure, unsafe roads, crazy distracted drivers. Everything that cyclists hate is what indoor cycling companies love. I only ride indoors in the winter when the weather is too bad to ride outdoors. If I lived in a sunny location with warm weather, I don’t think I’d even own an indoor trainer. I’ve also heard countless times that people move to Zwift because of safety concerns. So it’s kind of sad but the best thing for Zwift to do is side themselves with big auto or whatever and make outdoor cycling impossible.
I guess part of my point is that getting me to ride indoors is way less to do with what Zwift offers or what platform has the most realistic graphics. I’m only riding indoors because I have to. And I would guess a lot of people on Zwift and MyWhoosh are the same. So I don’t know if there’s anything specific that Zwift could do to grow its user base like adding features or more maps. It’s more about being the least bad service. Which is why I switched to MyWhoosh actually. Because being free is a massive plus over Zwift. So it’s not that MyWhoosh is better or has features I want, it’s that Zwift has drawbacks (cost) that I don’t want.
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As a supplier of consumer medical devices, I can relate to that. In order for us to do well, we need people to be unhealthy, to some degree. A strong Cold & Flu season does wonders for our thermometer business and the standard US diet that is high in sodium keeps up a regular demand for blood pressure monitors.
We used to joke about sending sick employees on planes during Cough & Cold season, but that stopped being funny after COVID. 
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To be fair though, triathletes aren’t likely to join cycling clubs. It doesn’t really make sense for triathletes. Triathlon clubs make some sense, mainly for those getting into the sport, or if they’re tied to venue-access perks (for example in Europe it’s common that tri groups have specific pool access, or special lake access for openwater swims, etc…).
Otherwise, the thing that most cyclists don’t get about triathletes, is that triathletes are very focused on pretty much one thing when it comes to cycling: Steady riding for many hours.
Sprints, chasing up a steep hill, riding MTB, etc… just isn’t super useful for the diet of most triathletes during season. Fun? Sure. But from a training standpoint, with hours in the day being the key limiter (especially the faster you get), none of that really works out.
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There are far more competitive triathletes (by competitive I mean actually take part in a race) than there are competitive cyclists.
In the UK at least there are tens of thousands of people that take part in a triathlon race ieach year, a cycling race (including all formats) it is likely in the hundreds.
Triathletes are a huge captive market for the (very) structured training aspect of indoor cycling. I think it’s why TPV has seen such an upsurge in users simply off the back on the TP merger… the simplest way to execute a coach-supplied workout.
When you look at structured workouts, there are nuanced differences between the different platforms, but fundamentally they are the same - background interest for following structured intervals either via erg or by meeting a power target.
I don’t know what the answer is, but I think there’s a huge opportunity for one of the providers to massively shake up the indoor interval training offering. That’s likely gamifying workouts in a really rewarding way.
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Cody Rigsby, a peloton instructor I’ve never heard of, has 1.3M instagram followers (just googled it, was curious. There are a few more instructors with ~1M followers). More than MVDP, WVA or Jonas. Tadej has 2m, so at least there’s one cyclist ahead of him.
Mass market success with indoor cycling is not to be found among competitive racers of any persuasion based on attaching complicated bikes to complex indoor trainers. It would have to be some nauseating fitness craze built around easy to use spin machines, probably pushed by distribution through gyms plus online distribution with fun social aspects led by charismatic personalities all dialed up.
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Well, that is because to be a triathlete, by definition, you have to compete. I can be a cyclist without competing. But hardly anyone who swims, bikes and runs would call themselves a triathlete if they didn’t actually race. They’d probably just refer to themselves as a fitness enthusiast or some similar term.
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The number of people in UK taking part in bike races is certainly more than hundreds, though it’s likely not many thousands and agree it’s less than the numbers who do a triathlon. But I’d say for most triathletes the cycling equivalent is a sportive, not a race. Mass participation event where you’re primarily aiming to get a good time (or just to finish) and not really racing other people or racing for the win. And the numbers doing sportives in the UK are in the tens of thousands - the big ones like Dragon Ride and Etape Caledonia get about 5000 entrants, and Ride London and Tour of Cambridgeshire had huge entries when they were still running (cancelled for logistical reasons not lack of entries).
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This right here is exactly right. Zwift and all the other platforms are in an incredibly niche segment of the overall fitness industry which is itself enormous. These platforms, TR included, are almost exclusively designed for people who want to race, whether they are marketed as such or not. That, to me, is where their success or failure will lie. The fact that the industry seems unable to really support more than one “big” company at a time seems to suggest this is true. They’re all fighting over a relatively small portion of the market.
E-sports is probably not only here to stay, but to continue growing.
Trying to compete in the general fitness market is insane to me, but I’m just a guy who races bikes so what do I know.
I have no interest in racing at all. I just want to be generally and enjoy riding my bike in beautiful scenery like the Alpes and indoor cycling is a way to train when outside conditions are not optimal (due to weather, road safety etc)
And I would say most Zwifters are on Zwift much for the same reasons even when they do race in the BCD categories. They probably do it because they think they are getting fit
Indeed. I think the discussion is really around what is next, not what they are already successful at. There’s practically 0 growth potential (obviously) without addressing new market segments, even if those segments are existing cyclists that have not yet taking to indoor training.
My point above on triathlete v cyclist numbers was not really about numbers per se, more the type of rider that is not well addressed in the virtual space. IMO the software experience of executing workouts has not really changed in the last decade. The only difference is that an avatar riders around a virtual world in the background whilst you execute the intervals, and the terrain is completely irrelevant. You can still do it if you don’t see the virtual world at all, it offers nothing. There’s a huge opportunity to gamify workouts for someone to nail.
Yeah plenty of fun online cycling games could be thought of, like something mario kart style or even a phantasy polo/rollerball/speedball inspired game.
I hate direct drive trainers btw, rollers offer a much better indoor experience but they could be improved even further
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I think the fundamental flaw in the Escape Collective article is right at the start: the definition of “indoor cycling”. It completely misses spin classes, either in dedicated spin gyms like Peloton / Soul Cycle, or at more general fitness gyms. These need to be included if you are talking about the universe of “indoor cycling”, so the Escape Collective article is really more about dividing the pie so more of it is fits into the Escape Collective demographic than really looking at expanding the pie.
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