Rouvy Keeps Getting Better
Superior experience, compelling pricing, group rides, races and thousands of real-world routes.
Hello, Cycling Addicts!
Spring is just around corner here in Southern Ontario, so this post needed to get out before everyone is riding outside again.
It’s hard to believe this post is more than two years old:
In that post I mused about whether Rouvy would eat Zwift’s lunch.
I expect Zwift will chase down Rouvy’s attack, given its first-mover status in the virtual cycling space, along with its massive and loyal user base. That said, Zwift will continue to bleed users to Rouvy and we’ll likely end up with a duopoly similar to Apple and Google in the smart phone space.
Per this DC Rainmaker post, Zwift had roughly 1 million active subscribers in 2023. Rouvy has indicated it has 700K registered users, without saying how many are active subscribers.
Rouvy has made huge strides in the past couple of years:
1000s of new routes
group pricing that is sure to undercut Zwift’s dominance
races and group rides; join official events, events by other users, or create your own
sophisticated route search so you can find that perfect climb in the Italian Alps
workouts, training plans and challenges
Strava live segments, virtual edition
much improved desktop browser experience
Pricing
Let’s start with pricing, because if you’ve managed a Rule #5 (N+1) recently, you’ll know that this sport is not getting any cheaper!
As of this writing, Zwift will set you back $250/year or $25/mo (CAD). This gives you access to the virtual worlds Zwift has now or dreams up in the future.
Rouvy offers annual and monthly pricing for singles, duos, or groups of up to 5 members. A group membership works out to just under $100/year or $8/mo (CAD) per member. This gives you access to thousands of real-world routes with smooth, 2K video, and Rouvy’s AR (augmented reality) technology.
Rouvy’s individual pricing has been creeping up over time but the group pricing is a game changer.
The Routes
Where to begin… Do you want to ride loops on Watopia or the Tempus Fugit circuit yet again, or would you like to ride up Passo Stelvio in the heart of the Italian Alps?
If you don’t want to climb for 2.5 hours, maybe you’d prefer something a little more low-key in Mallorca:
Each route shows the profile as well as a breakdown of the average and maximum grades.
You can also filter routes by distance, total elevation gain and maximum grade to find that “Goldilocks Climb” in Italy for your Sunday morning ride.
It’s interesting to consider the design and engineering resources that go into adding a new Rouvy route versus a Zwift virtual world.
Zwift has added additional worlds since premiering with Watopia, including Makuri Islands, France, London and New York. What does it cost them in software engineering and game/graphic-design time to add a new virtual world?
To add a new route, Rouvy needs to ride or drive the route with a steady HD camera, edit the video and integrate it with their AR tech, generate route details, and they’re done.
Surely I missed some steps and glossed over the costs involved in generating the footage, but Rouvy’s model appears to be more cost effective and scalable.
Finding the Perfect Route
Say you want to do 90 minutes of steady climbing, not too steep, with an average grade of 3 - 6 percent. Here’s a quick video of the process:
Rouvy estimates your time to complete the route based on past performance, so I chose > 60 min
set average grade 3 - 6%
min -4% to avoid steep downhill sections and trainer spin-out
max 10% to keep the cadence smooth and steady
from the results, choose a route to see the details and preview the video to check out the scenery
fill a couple of bottles, put on your favourite playlist, and off you go
Group Rides and Races
As Rouvy’s user base has grown, the number of riders in races and group rides has grown proportionally. I’ve done some mid-day races during the work week with 150+ riders. The “official” and partner races tend to draw at least 40 - 50 riders.
You can search for and join races allowing all-trainers as well as smart-trainer-only races.
It’s easy to create your own race or group ride events, invite Rouvy friends, and make the events public so anyone on Rouvy can join (as you can on Zwift).
Aside: There’s no practical way to prevent “weight doping” in virtual cycling races but the racing experience seems to be overall realistic and fair in the smart-trainer-only races.
My only criticism of the group rides is the non-configurable “elastic” effect, where the group is generally kept together. No matter how hard you try to go off the front, the group will find their way back to your wheel. The upside is that with a bit of effort you can rejoin the group.
It would also be helpful to have time gaps in addition to distance on the “Nearby you” leaderboard.
A Rouvy Group Ride
Here’s a snippet of a Rouvy group ride. If you’ve done group rides on Zwift, it’ll look familiar, but with real footage, and no incessant chatter.
Ghost Riders
If you’re riding solo, you can add up to 10 ghost riders — Will, Peter, Emma, Mia, et al. They push you to ride harder; if you go off the front, they chase, and a couple of them will take a turn going off the front to make you chase.
Here’s a video of some intervals around the “Bad Homburg” crit course, with several ghost riders keeping me company. Note the smooth, realistic video integration.
Conclusion
I’ve only scratched the surface here of what Rouvy has to offer. If you’re getting tired of those same old routes on Zwift and the weather outside has you confined to the pain cave, I highly recommend taking Rouvy for a test ride with their 7-day free trial.
— The SPOKZ Writer
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