- Morning, Trainiacs.
Zwift just updated their app.
They released a new course.
It's New York City, Central Park.
We're gonna ride through it,
tell ya a little bit about it in really fast time.
I'm not gonna make you follow me around New York City
on Zwift for hours,
maybe like 15 to 20 minutes.
(energetic electronic music)
So before we get going here,
make sure you go follow me at T is the first name,
and then the last name is Riathlon Taren on Zwift.
So while we're just kinda tootling around here,
you can take a look at the course.
I'll just leave it up on the screen,
but I'll also read the press release from Zwift.
"Zwift, the global training and gaming platform,
"today announced the release of its most ambitious world
"to date, New York.
"In development since 2017,
"New York follows the recent release
"of Zwift's Innsbruck 2018 UCI Road World Championship
"course, and joins Watopia, London and Richmond."
Everyone hated Richmond.
"As Zwift's 5th world.
"Although a familiar city to many,
"Zwift's take on New York transports Zwifters
"100 years into the future
"delivering a whimsical version of the city
"and signifies the company's biggest move to gamify
"the training experience yet."
Now, when I was talking to one of reps from Zwift at Kona,
they said that triathletes
are actually a really tough market for them to get into
because triathletes don't like games.
We wanna suffer.
We only wanna do work.
I'm not into that.
I like games.
Hence, I like Zwift.
(machine humming)
"Our New York world is going to blow you away,"
commented Zwift's co-Founder and CEO, Eric Min.
"We set out to gamify your training experience
"because if you enjoy your training, you train harder.
"It's that simple.
"The escapism of our New York world
"would transport Zwifters back to their video gaming days
"as they ride and run through our futuristic take
"on New York, around Central Park
"and on the suspended glass roads above Manhattan.
"At the heart of Zwift's New York is Central Park,
"real-life home to many of the city's thousands
"of road cyclists.
"Here Zwifters will be able to ride
"the 9.7km perimeter route."
Somewhere just under six miles.
"Skirting famous landmarks such as The Guggenheim, The Met,
"the El Dorado Hotel and Tavern on the Green.
"It's no secret that Eric
"and two of Zwift's Management team,
"Mike McCarthy and Charlie Issendorf,
"grew up racing in Central Park, during the 80s.
"Manhattan was a grim place back then,
"so we had to give it make-over!
"added Zwift Co-Founder
"and Chief Programmers, Jon Mayfield.
"Since the early days of Zwift
"our community has taken great pleasure
"from our gamified fitness environment.
"Our creative approach to building New York
"has been inspired by some of the video games
"we were originally playing back in the 90s.
"It helped us deliver a more challenging,
"and significantly, a more entertaining environment
"that I know Zwifters will love."
In total, New York World features 13 new routes,
the Rising Empire, 12.9 mile route,
1,234 feet of climbing,
the Park Perimeter Loop, six miles, 403 feet of climbing,
the Highline, six and a half miles, 587 feet of climbing,
Lady Liberty, 7.6 miles, 676 feet of climbing,
the Mighty Metropolitan, 12.4 miles, 1,043 feet of climbing,
the Astoria Line, eight, 7.1 miles, 466 feet of climbing,
Knickerbocker, 13.9 miles, 1,198 feet of climbing,
Grand Central Circuit, 4.2 miles, 472 feet of climbing,
the Everything Bagel, 21.3 miles, 1,788 feet of climbing,
The 6 Train, four miles, 266 feet of climbing,
and there are one, two, three running routes
varying from 1.6 miles up to 9.2 miles.
(machine humming)
So Let's ride.
(machine humming)
Can you do me a solid and come turn on the fan?
(machine humming)
You'll have to hit the power button in the middle,
and then it'll blink, yeah.
Okay, and grab it and hold it over here,
like by my feet.
Just pick it up.
There's a handle right there.
- Where?
- Close over here so it pairs to the trainer.
(machine humming)
When the blue light goes solid, it pairs.
- Where's the blue light?
- Under SPD.
- Oh, I see it.
(machine humming)
- Is it still blinking?
- Mm-hm.
- Oh.
(machine humming)
- I'm doing that again.
- Hit the side arrows and just turn it onto manual.
Yeah.
And just put it over there.
Somewhere on the, like the third.
And can you just put it back over there?
(fan humming)
Where it was.
No, half on, half off.
Yeah.
Cool, thank you.
(fan humming)
So right now we're on the west, the northwest side
of Central Park, and it looks very much like Central Park.
The rollers are just small, little gradual up and down
around anywhere from minus, I think, two or three to plus.
(machine whirring)
So right now, we're on the west side of Central Park,
and it looks like Central Park.
It's very fall time right now.
The rollers are gradual from negative three to
around plus five.
It's not as packed as I thought, a little over 1,700 people.
Apparently, Andrew Andrew Starykowicz has gone
and nabbed the green jersey already today.
I guess not everyone is borderline unemployed
and can take an hour or so just to tootle around
a video game during the day.
(machine whizzing)
Right now, we're just turning
around the very southwest corner
or you're fussy about New York,
I think it might be northwest.
(machine buzzing)
Let's go to the KOM arch.
It looks like, yeah, this is one of the virtual features
that they've put in here that isn't actually
in Central Park, obviously, this raised KOM.
It starts about at about five degree incline.
(breathing heavily)
This is that glass floor that they were talking about.
(breathing heavily)
It's like riding on just really gentle rollers
that you can work the road instead of being crushed
by a long hill.
What the guy was saying to me in Kona
was that there's a big difference that they've found
between rides that Zwifters have fun on
and come back to and ride over and over
and ones that they request.
So what they're saying is everyone requested Alpe d'Huez.
So they come up with it,
and who goes and ride it?
Almost nobody because it's so, so hard
and it's just monotonous.
So I think that's why they've created this New York
to be punchier, rollier, faster
where you can work the roads, build speed
and hold that speed.
(machine whirring)
As we're going down to the lake,
it went down to about minus 10 degrees incline there,
decline.
It's just for little short bursts, just
a little bit of speed
then back to level ground, little bit of speed,
back to level ground, little kicker.
Nothing's been steady so far at all.
(machine humming)
If you take a look at the city skyline,
it's not exactly the New York skyline.
It's kinda futuristic with some domes and
different architecture.
So right now, we are facing the,
we're facing south, southeast
on the island.
(machine humming)
And that's it for being outside of the park.
That just one block little ride is
all you get.
Now we're back into the northeast side of the park.
(machine humming)
And it just shoots ya directly down
right into the park.
So right here at the northwest corner of the park,
we got a little kicker of a hill.
It's at anywhere from eight to 11 degrees.
(breathing heavily)
(machine humming)
So we're along the west northwest side,
basically, the west side of the park.
Over to the right is Hell's Kitchen,
all the restaurants over there.
(machine humming)
After we've got some small rollers,
descend down into what looks like a long descent
and then a little kicker of a hill
where at the top is a sprint.
(machine buzzing)
And it seems like from the chatter
with everyone that's out there,
is they're not quite sure of all the turns,
and somebody just made a good point
that it'd be hard to get disoriented
in a race
because everything looks fairly similar.
Unless you're really familiar with the course,
you won't necessarily know exactly where you are
unless you've got the Zwift companion app going for ya
on the side knowing where you're going.
(machine humming)
I see someone on the side saying anyone counting lampposts?
I'm guessing that's to know
their whereabout on the course.
(machine whirring)
Go to Bethesda Plaza 'cause we didn't do that
on the way around the first time.
I wanna show you as much as I can.
(machine humming)
The trees are just incredible here,
the little details.
Look at them overhead right now.
All the little, tiny little leaves
that are individually created.
Pretty cool.
(machine humming)
So I think I'm gonna wrap it up there.
Hang on.
(machine whizzing)
So that ended up being a, basically, a 45 minute ride or so,
and it actually went around a good chunk of the course
twice to show you as many options as I could
before my phone died.
So it's not an enormous world.
It's not Watopia, it's not London,
and it's not like there are really even massive hills.
From what I saw, most of the course
is just small, little rollers.
So for a triathlete that doesn't want huge spikes
and variations in training
and just wants a little bit of variation
to keep that mental acuity going
and make the ride a little nit more enjoyable,
I think this is a really good course.
Whereas, going on, say, London and Watopia,
they're really long, steady climbs
that could break up a training workout
where you don't necessarily wanna be hitting
either really high or really low power from those hills,
but in this case, because it's so gradual,
you can probably do a much better workout.
However, it's not as variable.
There's not as many differences
in this course as there are in those other courses,
so it might not be as mentally engaging
to see the different parts of each world.
Overall, I'm really impressed with all the graphics,
how they nailed it.
Like, it feels like Central Park.
The colors are the same.
The little bit of breeze that I had
from the Wahoo Headwind, it felt like fall in New York.
So good on ya, Zwift.
And if you've made it this far in the video
just watching guy on a bike trainer,
wow, I am impressed.
You are determined.
(zipper zipping rapidly)
How good does this Scody kit look, by the way?
Alright, so, if you aren't already subscribed,
hit that subscribe button below.
If you are subscribed and you don't yet follow me
on Zwift, first name is T,
last name is Riathlon space Taren.
Later, Trainiacs.