Rouvy: Indoor Training that Spans the Globe

As a long-time Zwift user, I was prepared to spend another winter training in any number of virtual worlds — until Rouvy came along. Intrigued by the prospect of mixing things up while riding real routes around the globe, I hopped onto Rouvy and have found it to be a really nice change from riding 100% virtual routes. Everything hasn’t been rainbows and unicorns, but I’m loving the immersive feel and variety of routes on tap.

Rouvy Indoor Virtual Training Features:

• Ride actual routes around the world
• Compatible with all smart trainers and bikes
• Works on Mac/PC, AppleTV or Apple/Android devices
• iOS/Android companion app allows mid-ride data and controls
• 14-day free trial available
• Cost: $14.99/mo for individuals, $19.99 for couples or $32.99 for 5 riders

Local or exotic routes — rider’s choice

As the weather turned colder here in Utah, the Slack conversations started in the #biking channel at work, lamenting the dawn of indoor training season. While I continue riding year-round, the riding windows remain much more limited due to cold temps and a lack of daylight. My personal threshold is 40-degrees and sunny, which isn’t happening in the morning. So, I was ready to settle into my mix of Zwift and Apple Fitness+ training for the winter — without any real concerns. Then an invite to Rouvy came along and I’ve been happily exploring the world from the comfort of the Stages SB20 Smart Bike.

Getting started with Rouvy requires all the typical things you need for any virtual ride platform — a smart bike or smart trainer and a computer, AppleTV or phone/tablet. To make the experience even better, a heart rate monitor is also highly recommended. I simply share my heart rate from the Polar Pacer Pro, but a chest strap like the Wahoo TICKR X is a great option too. Apple Watch heart rate sharing requires the use of a third-party app.

Pairing everything up for a ride is quick and painless. I’d say that process is faster and easier than Zwift as it automatically locks onto the SB20 at the start of any ride. Speaking of that, when using my Macbook Pro with multiple external monitors, the Rouvy app creates a second desktop and goes full-screen game mode automatically. Since I have three screens, it is somewhat frustrating to have to exit full-screen mode on my laptop and move the window to my second external screen every time. I understand that full screen mode allows more efficient resource use, but I’d prefer to do that myself instead of it being forced onto the wrong screen every time.

As with any modern indoor training system, Rouvy supports a wide variety of devices and offers both iOS and Android companion apps. I’ve tried both and they function identically on either platform — giving quick access to tools and functions from the saddle. Of course you can customize your bike and avatar to match your preferences and you can save favorite routes as well. Routes are rated for overall quality and can be downloaded and used offline — a nice bonus when traveling or if your connection is slow.

To be clear, the environment within which Rouvy works can be muddy. With thousands of hardware variations and millions of unique user settings, there are bound to be glitches. In fact, they are to be expected. The best systems handle those glitches gracefully or allow the user to easily correct them. Rouvy does well overall, but could be improved. This is coming from a tech guy who understands the complexity, but I will always insist on the highest standards — and I’m sure Rouvy does as well.

Realistic riding anywhere in the world

The meat and potatoes that Rouvy offers is the myriad of real-world riding routes. The combination of recorded video with augmented reality is tastefully-done and feels realistic in the saddle. That reality is legit  and makes me want to ride more and more. In fact, it’s always a bummer when I have to cut a ride short due to time because the immersive Rouvy experience really makes you want to finish the entire route to see the beautiful scenery or just to eke out that last bit of climbing. In that sense, I find Rouvy’s virtual routes more engaging than Zwift.

For my first ride, I chose a local classic right here in Utah’s Wasatch Mountains. I would start in the mountain town of Midway, UT and climb up to Cascade Springs and eventually the Alpine Loop summit. Before starting that inaugural ride, there was a first-time calibration ride that included a tutorial on how Rouvy works. To be honest, that forced calibration ride was terribly glitchy and it made me concerned that Rouvy wouldn’t be reliable. On top of that, I thought it would automatically exit that pre-ride, but after 5 minutes of glitchy avatars, I finally dismounted and force-started the real ride. Since then, I’ve only had a few technical glitches.

In search of iconic routes, one of my next rides was along the shores of Lago di Garda in Northern Italy. This picturesque lake is a tourist magnet with cramped and busy roads. While the ride was amazing and it felt realistic to be riding in Italy, the reality of it was startling as I felt anxious with every car and motorcycle that passed me along the way — definitely not how I wanted to feel while riding indoors. But, that experience showcases just how realistic Rouvy can feel. (And, I was grateful not to be actually riding those roads.)

As I continued exploring the world, I rode in areas I could only dream of — South Africa, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Australia, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, Norway, Japan, New Zealand and some iconic rides in the United States.

When shown, you can see other riders, your current performance as well as the gradient and upcoming climbs or Strava segments. You can choose to have any number of virtual ghost riders to help maintain your pace and give you drafting boosts. I’ve chosen to ride with two of them: Will and Emma. I feel like they do a great job of pushing me when needed — even though I typically ride alone in the wild. All data is easily-consumed and viewed in the saddle. Plus, the companion app allows remote control of certain functions and makes taking screenshots a breeze. Just look at those views! 

Structured workouts

After riding a variety of routes, I decided to delve into some structured workouts. These are nice if you have a set amount of time available and want to maximize it. Plus, they really do force you into pushing your limits. So far, I’ve ridden a straightforward pyramid workout and a FTP crusher with double sprint pushes. As expected, the pyramid was pretty easy, but the FTP workout put me on the ropes as I held 100% FTP for consecutive 2+ minute segments — all on the rolling hills of Norway, which meant my tempo varied with the terrain. Kudos to the Rouvy training team because the “FTP On the Move 3” in Norway is a soul-crusher.

The key to maintaining the proper power output is the dial on the left. The goal is to keep that tab green and in the “Support” band. As the resistance varies throughout a given ride, it really becomes difficult to stay within the green area. This is particularly hard on descents as you have to pedal 120 RPM or greater to get the proper watts, and when the resistance is wicked-high. While you can’t shift to make things easier/harder, there is a function in the companion app to reduce or increase the targeted watts. These are just two of the many structured workouts to choose from, which I’ll keep exploring.

Some frustrations

As I mentioned, that first setup ride was glitchy, but thankfully I only experienced issues on a couple of other rides. On one particular ride, my avatar just disappeared from view (see above) and the screen got stuck in the same place while my avatar continued on into the ether. The resistance still varied and Rouvy thought I was progressing along the route, but there I was all alone in the Canadian wilderness pedaling nowhere. This, unfortunately, repeated itself several times.

On another ride, the power and cadence kept dropping about every minute, which became very annoying since it didn’t start until the middle of an hour-long ride along the South Rim of the Grand Canyon. You can see those precipitous drops all along the purple power line above. I just stuck it out, but it was annoying. Immediately after that ride, I went into Zwift and rode for a few minutes just to see if the SB20 had issues — nope, it never dropped the power at all.

Related to power measurement, I’m frustrated that there’s no 3 or 5-second smoothing option. The only power that Rouvy displays is instant power, which jumps all over the place — even if I try to be as smooth as possible. The other gripe is the resulting flat curve that shows in Strava when analyzing my power curve. I believe this is because Rouvy doesn’t properly estimate either end of the power band because both the real world and Zwift have more appropriate curves.

Certainly, the riding ecosystem will wildly vary and glitches will occur. But, I’m still left wondering if some power smoothing and projections on both ends of the curve might be needed.

With the variety of routes on tap, I found myself appreciating ones with more smooth climbs and descents as the varied routes would tend to feel kind of on/off instead of smooth transitions. Descents would instantly turn into spin-fests until I frantically caught up with the proper gearing, only to be overgeared in an instant on the next uptick. Again, I wonder if that could be eased slightly with a little bit of power or elevation smoothing. Lastly, I found myself wanting to auto-loop the same route, but there’s no way to just go back to the beginning of the just-ridden route. It does, however, suggest another route automatically so you can keep rolling.

Buy Now: Rouvy.com