- [Speaker] Morning motivators.
This is an exciting DIY project.
I present you with the ultimate Zwift desk
for just $100.
So, back in the old paying cabin,
I did have a Wahoo desk and a Wahoo fan.
I didn't hate them,
yeah, they were a desk where I could store things on them,
but it took up a lot of space.
This length wise way,
and in a garage where space is that a premium,
all of a sudden that became a big issue.
Also, the desk itself around $400 to $500.
The fan, somewhere around $300.
So, it ended up being really big,
really expensive,
and to boot it didn't really have all the storage space
that we've got here with this DIY project.
So I'm gonna go through exactly how to build this,
what the materials are that you need,
what the tools are that you need,
all for just a fraction of the cost,
and it took me a grand total of about two to 2 1/2 hours.
That's while filming and showing all of you.
So, if you're handy, give it two hours,
Build list for this is gonna be very simple.
All it is, this is two, two by fours.
So we're looking at about eight bucks there.
One, four by four by 3/4 sheet of plywood,
which depending on when you're watching this,
it could be as much as $100,
but should be somewhere around 40 bucks.
And then the optional upgrades that I've included
that only add about $60
are these two fans here and some cup holders.
I'm gonna have affiliate links in the description below
because these are fairly specific items
that might be a little bit tough to find
the exact right one with the sizing.
Tools wise, very, very simple.
You need a drill,
you need a circular saw.
And then if you're doing the upgraded options
of having the cup holder and the slot to put your iPad in,
then you're going to need a hole saw
and something like a table saw or a router.
Let's get down to business.
So we're gonna start by cutting all the basic pieces,
those being the feet and the top.
For the feet, you gonna wanna cut two pieces
that are 24 out of the two by fours.
And then one piece that is 26.
You're going to screw the 26 piece down into the top
of the 24 inch pieces.
And as you're doing that,
you wanna make sure that the distance between
the two by fours at the front where you're screwing it in,
ends up being the same at the back
so it's nice and square.
What we've built at the top here is a shelf for resting all
of the things that you wanna rest on there,
like your nutrition, like your bottles,
and then a little cubby so that you can actually put
all of your nutrition in there
that you wanna store long-term.
So that you know how much you get into a ride
and you're like, oh my God, I forgot to put electrolytes
and I forgot to grab my bars.
In this case, you can store some in there
and then it's out of the way.
It's nicely stored in there.
We're also going to build the cable management
to come through this shelf so we don't have
a ton of cables just sitting around everywhere.
So to do that, we gonna cut one base shelf
that's 27 inches wide,
by 16 inches deep.
The top shelf here is eight inches deep by five inches tall.
So for that, you're going to cut 27 inches wide,
eight inches deep,
eight inches deep, five inches wide twice.
And then you're going to have a back piece
that you want to cut five inches high,
but you gonna cut it a little bit short, 24 inches.
I'm gonna show you why that is for the cable management
a little later.
This top piece, you wanna screw it all together.
You don't want to put it together with nails or with glue,
just screws.
And I recommend using a countersink bit if you have one
so that you can do that
and not have everything bust apart on you.
Once you've got all that we have to then actually
make the legs for this.
We want this to be roughly about 36 inches,
three feet to the top of that.
That ends up working for my bike,
where it's a little bit higher than the handlebars.
Well I'm ridding a 52 size bike,
so it's gonna end up being a little bit lower,
but should be in the ballpark for most people
regardless of what size bike you have.
So then we have a little bit of figuring to do.
We want this leg to be at an angle
so that this doesn't wanna tip back and forth
because it's going to end up being very back heavy.
We need to make these legs go forward
and then brace it this way
so that it doesn't want to flip flop around.
And a whole lot of math to figure out,
and basically I'm going to save you all of that.
We say this angle is 12 degrees.
You can use a speed square for that
and just cut that at 12 degrees and cut that at 12 degrees,
with the entire piece here being about 34 1/2 inches high.
Once you've done that,
screw the top shelf into the top of that,
and then screw the base into the bottom of it
with the leg going as far to the front
as you possibly can have.
Once you've got that done,
you've got the basic look out of a Zwift desk.
We wanna make it stable though.
So we wanna have these cross-members
so that if there's ever any pressure going that way,
it's not gonna collapse and pull out the screws
in the bottom.
So, you've already got that 12 degree cut
from one of the leftovers of cutting these legs here.
And then instead of having to figure out this extra cut,
just take the two by four line it up,
and with a pencil, just trace a line.
Follow that line.
It's basically going to be about right.
To make sure that this doesn't want to twist
and warp and collapse in together.
You can take a small little cutoff piece
that is the width of these legs,
which in this case is 25 1/2 inches.
And we're gonna screw that in here.
That's gonna stop the legs from collapsing in.
And then (indistinct) piece that I ended up creating up here
was just cutting an eight inch piece
that is 45 and 45 on two ends.
Doing that with the circular saw,
and then screwing that all in.
Then you've got yourself a desk.
This thing is solid as a rock.
It ain't going anywhere.
I hauled this around in the back of a truck.
Didn't budge, didn't move one little bit.
So this is the point at which
if you don't have specialized tools,
you stop, you stain it up.
You can put your water bottles on here.
You can put your nutrition in here.
You can put your laptop or your iPad on here,
but if you have access to a table saw
and the hole saw,
maybe even a router,
(sighs)
that's where we step it up right now.
I didn't stop there because
I'm not just making any Zwift desk,
I am making the ultimate Zwift desks.
So, it wasn't enough that I wanted to just stop there.
I wanted to have the bottles being really stable
so that they don't fall over
because I cannot tell you the amount of times
that I've done a sprint just jostled
the side of the previous desk that I had.
And then boom, all of a sudden these are off,
I got to get off the bike.
And I didn't want this iPad
just sitting here flopping around.
I wanted it to be nice and stable
so that whatever hits this, it isn't going to go anywhere.
I also wanted to have these fans built in
because that's why we made it this size.
So at that point, what I did was I went to a friend's house
who has like every tool imaginable.
And so he had like four versions of everything
that you need.
What I did here to put the iPad in
was I cut a slot with a table saw
and I just ended up moving it over
a 1/16 of an inch over and over and over until I got
to the point that I roughly had about the right angle here.
I want to make sure that the flat part in that slot
was 11 inches long
so that if I decided to get an iPad pro in here,
that I could still do that.
And then I grabbed hole saws
that were three and 1/2 inches wide
for these cup holders that I bought off of Amazon.
And I drilled out the holes
and then put the cup holders in there.
And these specific cup holders have two different widths
depending on whatever you're using,
whether it's a water bottle
or something like a shaker bottle,
they can both fit in here.
Once I have that done, I came back here.
I stained it up because we want to make
the ultimate Zwift desks,
so it had to look really, really good.
Once I was done, I just had to wait for the fans to come in.
And these two fans are only about $25 each,
but they actually have a fair bit of kick to them.
I looked for fans online that were nice and small,
but have reviews like the power is just too much.
That's these fans.
So for 25 bucks, I ended up getting them in.
And to stick them down,
I put a little bit of two-sided tape on the bottom here
and angled them slightly in
so it's going to hit where you're sitting on the bike.
The nice thing about these fans as well
is that they slide up and down.
So if there is somebody taller that comes here,
then we can angle it up to meet that.
I also drilled out a hole with a 1/4 inch drill bit in here
so that we can take all of the cables from these fans
and a cable to charge the iPad here,
run it all down and then put it into a power bar
that's in this storage area.
It's out of the way.
And then I've got it coming out the back
to this one inch little slot that we left here
at the side for all of the cable management.
And now it's done,
it's in here.
It's exactly what I wanted it to be.
It has room enough
for a little bit of storage for nutrition,
room enough for all of the water bottles,
room enough for all of the fans
so that we don't need more space
than just the size of the desk.
And altogether the total build price is around $100
with no really more specialized tools
than what most people would have access to
if you know somebody handy.
It's time to ride it now.
(upbeat music)
(screams)
It feels good to be back on Zwift desk
after like two months away.
If you want to try Zwift,
the great way to do it,
or if you wanna be on like
the best supported triathlon team in the world,
you can go for this with Zwift Tri Academy.
Go to this zwift.com/zatri.
And at very least you get 10 killer workouts.
And the very most you get on
the best supported amateur triathlon team
in the world by far.
All right, later motivators
and arrive to do.