- [Tara] Good morning Motivators.
We're standing here in front of my dream Zwift setup,
because today I'm going to show you the basics
of how to get started cycling in Zwift.
Because this is hardcore Zwift season
through the middle of winter,
especially leading into the new year.
My name is Tara,
and we're gonna get you set up with everything
that you need to know to start getting
the most out of the app right away.
This video is broken up into five parts with everything,
from how to set up the app,
what to do when you're in the app,
what equipment you need and what type of setup you need
to make your writing and working out in Zwift
most enjoyable.
Let's get into it.
The first thing that you're going to need is a trainer.
This is something that goes onto the back wheel
of your bike in one of a couple of ways,
you can have a wheel on trainer.
These are the less expensive versions.
This is where your wheel ends up
pressing up against a device on the trainer
to create some resistance.
But the downside to those wheel on trainers is that
they aren't nearly as similar to riding outside
as what this is a direct drive trainer,
where you take the wheel off and you have your bike
mounted into some gearing that is actually
on the trainer itself.
And this ends up creating the road feel
and the resistance.
The wheel on trainers
are going to be anywhere from about three to $600.
The direct drive trainers are usually around $700 to $2,000,
but there is a very significant difference.
The wheel on trainers,
you can't put out a lot of power.
The ride feel really isn't that great.
It's very quirky, jerky, start, stop.
I haven't ridden a wheel on trainer in years.
I would actually make sure that you would step up
to even an entry level, direct drive trail.
The experience that you're gonna have
is going to be much, much better.
There are lots of good options for trainers out there.
I would recommend that you go to DC Rainmaker's website,
where he does really, really in-depth reviews
on all the trainers and he's unbiased.
He isn't sponsored by anyone whatsoever.
He just reviews the trainers
and gives you a very neutral opinion on them.
Generally speaking, I think that the best bang for your buck
is that kind of eight to $1,200 sort of trainer.
That's gonna get you a really,
really good ride experience,
basically as much power as you're possibly going to need
without really spending the big, big dollars
on the 1600, $2,000 kind of trainers
where you don't get a ton more for your buck.
Let's get into how you actually ride in Zwift though.
The most enjoyable part of Zwift
is actually riding in the virtual world.
The first time that I ever got on the Zwift
was about five years ago or so.
I was supposed to do a 15 minute bike ride
and I ended up staying on for almost an hour and a half,
just because I was having so much fun riding
in the virtual world.
That's what's different about it
versus a lot of the other apps out there
that you're not just looking at some random screen
that is telling you what power to do or some virtual world
where there's nobody else out there.
It's a virtual world with other people
from all around the world.
To be able to get into that virtual world,
you need some sort of a screen to display the virtual world
in order of, I would say least enjoyable to most enjoyable.
You can certainly set it up on a phone,
but it's going to be very, not immersive,
not super enjoyable.
I have set it up on a phone before in a pinch,
but it's not ideal.
Next most enjoyable is a tablet.
That's what I've got here.
This is very space saving.
It's a little bit more immersive,
but it's not as good as my favorite way to ride in Zwift
that I had set up at my old pain cave,
which is on a TV.
For this, I really like using the Apple TV 4K
because it's so inexpensive to get set up.
And it's really, really robust.
You can put it on any TV.
You can set up your trainer in the living room.
You can have a dedicated set up,
the downside is that it's going to take up a lot of space.
If it's in a living room, it's in your living room.
If it is a dedicated setup like you might have here,
you're gonna need a lot of space and a lot of room
to be able to do that.
That's why I didn't end up doing it here,
but it does create a really nice immersive experience,
super enjoyable, you really feel like you're in the world.
If you wanna step it up to a crazy level
like I've done before,
you can get a gaming computer and hook
that up to a projector.
And I've actually set it up in a complete golf simulator
so that I had 10 feet across and eight feet high
to actually ride it in the world.
That was really, really cool.
I felt like I was totally in the world,
but it was so much space dedicated to the trainer set up
that it just wasn't practical.
So the two things that I would recommend
would be either a tablet for space saving.
And at the end of this video,
I will link to a desk that you can build to hold a tablet,
your fans, water bottles, your nutrition
for just a hundred dollars within about two, three hours
and some basic tools or an Apple TV 4K setup.
Next, I wanna talk about Zwift running.
You can ride in Zwift, or you can run in Zwift.
There are three main options for getting set up
Zwift running.
First is with a foot pod like the Zwift RunPod
or the stride.
Personally, I'd recommend the stride.
It's a fair bit more expensive,
but you're gonna get a lot more data out of it
and you can actually use it outside
and get some really, really interesting run dynamic data
out of it.
The second way and a little bit more basic way
is setting up a sensor
on any sort of treadmill with the NPE runn, R-U-N-N.
And the third way is actually getting a dedicated treadmill
like this Technogym treadmill that I've got set up here.
We're looking at somewhere between a hundred dollars
for the run pods all the way up to $15,000
for this big treadmill set up here.
Of course, if you wanna step it up and get
Zwift compatible treadmill
and get like awesome running experience,
I highly recommend the Technogym.
It is smooth, it is stable.
You don't have that bounce
that you do have on other treadmills.
And you got this really nice big screen up here
to stream yours Zwift.
However, it costs more than my first four cars combined.
The fourth thing you need is an add on
that isn't exactly necessary,
but if you're actually doing some serious training
and you want some good data,
you definitely want to have a heart rate monitor.
I am a big believer in using heart rate monitor
for years and years when you start training
before you even upgrade to power meters
and really sophisticated devices like that,
I think a heart rate monitor is critical
because it helps give you some data
that you can start pairing to all of your rates
of perceived exertion.
How hard is hard, how hard is sustainable,
where is too much.
And when you use calculators to figure out your racing
and running and riding zones, how hard is appropriate?
For Zwift, you do need
a Bluetooth compatible heart rate monitor.
It's not just any heart rate monitor
that's going to work.
Historically, I've used the Wahoo Tickr
or the Garmin HRM Pro.
Both of those are going to be able to allow you
to ride and run outside and sync up to all of your devices
and ride on Zwift.
If you go outside
of those Bluetooth compatible heart rate monitors,
you are getting into scenarios
where it might not pair really well,
or it might not pair at all.
So, once you've got your chosen setup
and devices all selected,
just follow whatever guides there are
with all of those devices to get set up.
Zwift is a really, really stable app.
And typically, it's going to be very seamless to get set up
and paired with the app.
But the final thing is to get the most out of Zwift.
You wanna get involved in the community.
That is its secret sauce.
Like I said, that ride that I did,
that was supposed to be 15 minutes.
And it ended up being almost 90 was because there were all
these people around and all of a sudden
it was kind of competitive.
And I was seeing people that were dropping me
and it starts getting me to push a little bit harder.
And then I started getting into races and group rides
and things like that and challenges
and all of these things that the gamified aspect of it
with the community is the engaging part.
To get involved in that community,
what you want to do is download the Zwift Companion app.
It's a different app than the main Zwift app,
just search for Zwift Companion and it'll pop up.
You will log in.
And as long as your phone,
which has the Zwift Companion app is on the same wifi
network as the device
that you're actually streaming Zwift on.
They're going to end up communicating together.
Through this, you can look for challenges,
like right now at the beginning of every single year
there's the Tour de Zwift.
Which do different stages all around those whiffed worlds.
That's really cool.
So you can do races
and you find those in the Zwift Companion app.
If you go to events,
there are races going on just about every single minute,
every five or 10 minutes or so,
there's another race going on.
You can do that with cycling or running by clicking
the running and cycling guys up at the top.
You can organize a meetup and create that meetup,
whether it is cycling or running,
and you can invite people who follow you
and you follow back, you can do group rides,
like our motive team.
We have a Thursday morning group ride,
and we're gonna expand that with more times all around
the world so that people from everywhere can join in.
You also get those from the events tab
here in the Zwift Companion app,
and by following and taking part in these sorts
of challenges,
that's how you become more than just somebody
who's working out by themselves in a garage.
Here, you actually become part of a community
and it's as close to riding outside as you can get,
if you can't ride outside due to time
or where you're at or things like in the world,
like something out there that is causing people
to be locked inside for a couple of years.
So Motivators, that is how you get set up in Zwift.
I hope that you found this helpful.
If you did, and you want to know what workouts to do,
you can try out our Motive Training app.
If you go to app.mymotive.com,
you can do cycling training,
or you can do triathlon training or duathlon training.
You can get all of your strength training and yoga training
to prepare you for whatever challenges or races
you wanna do.
And all of our bike workouts sync with Zwift.
So you can know what to do every single time
that you come in.
With all of that said,
if you found any of this helpful
hit the like button below.
Later, Motivators.