Virtual riding – come and join us!

So, it’s wet outside. For those of you brave enough to cycle through the elements, chapeau. But for the rest of us, how about joining our SFACC Zwift group rides? We ride as a group on Thursday evenings (6.30pm) and Sunday mornings (9am) in a group for all levels, for 1 hour. Here’s how to join us.

Step 1: Join Zwift

Yes, you do need to be on Zwift, and yes, it does cost (£12.99 per month), but you can try it out for free for 14 days, and you can also suspend your subscription when you're not using it. See details.

There are a variety of ways to use Zwift. The fundamentals are that your indoor turbo set up needs to measure your power and transmit it via Bluetooth to a computer which is running Zwift. You can do this via a smart turbo trainer, smart pedals on your normal trainer or rollers, or even a powermeter or power pedals on a spin bike. I personally run Zwift on a 4 year old IPad, on a stand in front of the handlebars. Zwift insider does a really good guide to getting started on Zwift – here.

Step 2: Have a ride around on Zwift to get used to it before joining the rides

It’s worth having a go on Zwift yourself before joining the SFA rides, to try it out and get used to it. 

Once you’ve got it set up you literally just start pedalling… and your avatar moves around. But for the first few times on Zwift it can take a while to get everything paired, work out how to join a ride etc., and how to choose different routes.  It also takes a bit of time to set up your avatar to resemble you, and chose a bike and kit! It’s worth pairing Zwift with your Strava account if clocking the miles helps motivate you. You get Strava records and segments on Zwift just as in real life.

Step 3: Join the SFACC Zwift group

Ideally, use this link to join the SFACC Zwift What’s App group if you want. Then we can chat about what routes to do. But this isn't essential.  

The essential bit is following us on Zwift, so we can invite you to rides. On your phone, you should download the “Zwift Companion App”. Think of it like a remote control for Zwift – as well as letting you sign up to rides, it lets you chat during rides, shows you the map etc – best to mount it like a Garmin on your bike for a virtual ride. Then, ask to be friends with Nat Ceeney (SFA). When Natalie then follows you back you will be invited to rides.

4. Join our ride!

You will get an invitation to ‘join Natalie's meet up’ on your Zwift Companion App. Press ‘accept’. You can do this from when the invite is issued (usually a week before the ride) to just before the ride starts.

Then, at about 10 mins before the ride start time (Thursdays at 18.30, and Sundays at 9am) just go into Zwift as normal, and start riding around anywhere. On the bottom of your screen it should say ‘join ride?’ or ‘Join meet up?’ and press ‘yes’. It will then take you to a virtual start point – where we’ll all meet. If you're a few mins late you can still join - it will even catch you up.

This ride is currently set up to keep us together ('rubber banded' in Zwift terminology) which means that as long as you keep pedalling, you will stay with the group. The fastest will still be in front, and the slowest still at the back, but we will all be able to see each other and chat - on the companion app.

Hope to see you soon.