A Rouvy kind of love… Andy’s staying indoors

You might have noticed the weather out there recently. I don’t think there is a part of the UK that hasn’t been wetter than Louis Armstrong’s hankie, so chances of riding outside have ranged from ill-advised to downright perilous. In years gone by, I’d have held much contempt for indoor cyclists, alluding to their poor clothing choices or general flimsy constitutions, but nowadays I feel shame for such wrong-headedness. 

It might be that I’m now a couple of years into my 7th decade, and every morning seems to gift me aches and pains in areas the Nurofen hasn’t found yet. It could be the absolute state of the roads, the crumbling infrastructure, and the pea-brained minority of idiot drivers who haunt our roads with alarming incompetence that’s fuelling my aversion. But whatever it is, I find myself more inclined to staying indoors.

After a particularly chastening gravel sportive in the Peak District, I knew that if I was to carry on cycling in the good weather, I had to do something about the negative effect the bad weather had on my form and fitness. So I succumbed and bought a turbo trainer. 

Having already used Zwift and Wahoo SYSTM I was keen to try something a bit different, and that’s when I got a chance to look at Rouvy. I enjoyed that first dabble with Rouvy very much, particularly for the realistic look and feel of the sessions, built from real video footage and augmented with virtual reality features like smart avatars and spectral crowds egging you on.

Two years after that initial dabble, Rouvy has been enhanced and updated not only with an expanded library of rides and workouts, but the quality of the coding has raised the levels of reality to an insane point. Since my first foray, I’ve improved my training environment by fitting out a proper room with it running on Apple TV and a large HD monitor. I’ve also invested in a Zwift Ride bike, which can be left set up and easily adjusted for others in the family to use.

These upgrades have enabled me to appreciate the quality of Rouvy’s graphics, having previously run it on a laptop with me squinting through the sweat running into my eyes. My only initial disappointment is the limited number of Bluetooth connections I can have during my ride – this is less the fault of Rouvy and more to do with Apple TV’s limit of BT connections. Rouvy can find them all, but the Apple says ‘No’.

Despite this, I have enough to keep me going through most rides, electing to discard a heart monitor for Zwift gear controls or a cadence sensor – the Kickr unit I have uses some sort of witchcraft to calculate my rotations.

It’s simple to get logged on, and set up on a ride or plans of your choice, and there is a growing community of riders to interact with (or not, if you prefer to go solo). Just like other systems on the market, you can earn Experience Points to upgrade your bike or outfit and the gameplay is, thanks to the very realistic and smooth graphics, very much more like a Sufferfest session than GTA, having none of the amusing but annoying volcanoes, sub-aqua tunnels or distance compression that takes you from central London to Box Hill in a few pedal strokes.

Another thing that has improved from my first experience is the way the riders move around the roads. You still have a choice of whether you have the paranormal peloton egging you on and helping to draft your efforts. It’s still a little spooky to see them disappear and materialise around you like an Away Crew from the starship Enterprise, and when they overtake you close together, it’s something like a cross between co-joined twins and a human centipede as the characters merge and demerge. One thing that made me LOL was that each one of my team’s kits has the picture of a Pac-Man Ghost on it – nice touch, that.

BYO routes with Rouvy Creator

What I really, REALLY like is the function to let you record and upload your own rides to Rouvy. They can either be completed ride GPX files or you can video your favourite local lanes and upload them using the incredibly versatile Rouvy Route Creator. I’m lucky enough to live between the Surrey Hills, the Ashdown Forest and the Sussex Weald, and there is quite a good selection of local climbs for me to try and upload. 

Unfortunately, I didn’t have the required spec equipment to do it – namely, a GPS-enabled GoPro or a computer that can run the Creator Software. I managed to pick up a 2nd-hand Hero9, dig out my wife’s old MacBook, and bring it up to the latest software version. From then on, it’s relatively simple. 

I chose to drive the routes, with the GoPro fastened in the top-middle of the windscreen – this gives the playback a close to realistic feel as it’s roughly head height on my car. You need to keep within certain speed parameters and try to drive as smoothly as possible – and not in the rain. I wasn’t willing to wait until July, so I took a chance on a cloudy February morning.

After that, you upload to the Creator and submit it to Rouvy for stage one processing. My camera split the footage into smaller sections, but the App knits them together as long as you upload them in the right order. They check it for quality and stability, and that the GPS data is intact, and then it’s processed for 24-48 hours, depending on size.

Once it is back with you, other things can then be added. You can define how wide the road space is for you and your robot teammates, enhance the ride with ‘Start’ and ‘Finish’ gates, road graffiti, animated fans – you can even define Sprints or Rolling Segments – all before subbing it back to Rouvy for the final bit of magic, and pretty soon your route becomes ridable. All the guidance you could ever need is in a bank of excellent ‘How To’ videos on their website.

My first route was very short – 17 minutes from Ardingly to Balcombe, if you know the area. The route stays private until you publish it, and I’m pleased with the result. It has a couple of sketchy parts where the road was being shared with oncoming traffic, but it was an excellent way to ride a route I’ve ridden many times in the past decade. As with any Rouvy ride, you can upload it to Strava, and it maps it out, just like a real ride.

Now that I’ve been through the whole process from start to finish, I hope to be able to complete quite a few more, including all of the climbs around here that feature in the ‘100 Greatest Cycling Climbs’ book by Simon Warren. I’m going to make them all public, and some may already be there by the time this review comes out, so if you try Rouvy look out for my collection under my ID ‘Andylul’ or search for ‘100 Climbs’.

All aboard the Rouvy Train

Re-riding the Rouvy Train has been a Deee-lite – you might say Rouvy’s in the Heart. The quality of the content is second to none (unless you really enjoy futuristic raised routes over Central Park, active Indonesian volcanoes and teleportation), and the gameplay is enjoyable and engaging.

In addition to the main program, there is also a Companion app, that helps you build a training plan tailored more to your own requirements and logs your activity and training insights, and a Rider’s Portal to help you manage subscriptions and any program upgrades you want to make. If you have any issues or topics for discussion there is also a friendly Facebook Group.

Rouvy works well with pretty much any smart trainer and (with limitations) a lot of platforms. Bad luck if, like me, your entire world is Android or ChromeOS, but that said, it’s pretty slick on my Google Pixel, and I could cast it to my HD screen or any TV. I’m sure as its appeal grows, there will be more enhancements to come. I might be staying in all summer at this rate.