Riding Zwift(ly) Through New York

Reading Time: 2 minutes
When I heard that Zwift would allow us to ride our bikes through a virtual New York I joked that I would use my singlespeed and I hoped that I could ride through the streets. Unfortunately you get to ride through the New York countryside, otherwise known as Central Park. Imagine riding through the Autumnal Hamptons at this time of year.

I have ridden three or four times in virtual New York, once for pleasure and two or three times for training. As you saw from a previous post I really suffered on my second to last ride. I went rock climbing Saturday, to take a break from cycling and Sunday I returned and succeeded.

The glass cycling paths are an interesting idea. It's nice to be able to ride above the traffic and see small parts of the city from a drone's eye view. ;-). This isn't today's New York. Is is 2099 New York, with flying cars, glass roads and despite this modernity people wearing rather ordinary jackets as they "watch" cyclists go around the routes.

The Riding in circles glitch

Some people have found a "feature" whereby they can run around in a circle as if they were turning around over and over. When I asked them what the track looked like on Strava they showed that it shows that bug so it's should not be complicated to resolve this issue, if it is always at the same point. Imagine if Zwift and Rockstar games created a mod so we could have virtual rides in GTA V.

Some elevation gains

In a one and a half hour session riding through Zwift New York, I climbed six hundred and sixty-six metres. A few people have commented that this version of New York is too hilly and others have commented that smart trainers can be set to 0 difficulty to negate those hills.

Two video summaries