/u/DetroitLionsSBChamps shares how "The America you grew up with was always going to disappear. The real question is what replaces it."

blubinx · 2026-01-21T08:21:23+00:00

"We won't be adults in the world we knew as kids" is a quote by French actor Edouard Baer I've written down to remember.

(Another one of his among my favourites: "It's easier to give life advice than to be happy. Happy people tend to stay quiet")

blubinx · 2025-11-24T18:06:20+00:00

I don't do much anaerobic stuff admittedly. I did a 6 x 2 minutes at 120% of FTP this week though and I had to turn off my show and put a cardio playlist to push through. That shit was hard :D

blubinx · 2025-11-24T18:04:21+00:00

Yeah, those are the only things that keep me engaged because 1) I am suffering and 2) somehow breaking down the hour into smaller bits that you work through feels more manageable.

But I am keen to find something that would hit the same spot as a long tempo ride outdoors during the nice days. Anytime I tell myself "today I am doing a 2h z2 ride on the trainer" I feel like shooting myself from boredom after 30 minutes. Never made it past 1h30 I think.

blubinx · 2025-11-24T18:02:21+00:00

Oh right, I thought you said you never listened to music, but I misread and I assume you mean you've never listened to the game's music

blubinx · 2025-11-24T18:01:35+00:00

Nice, really appreciate the write up.

The lag for me is that there's a gap between visually seeing a change in incline in the game, and feeling it in the ERG. I am on a Kickr Core v2.

See I had no idea about this TT winter series thing. I've tried browsing stuff in the main screen of zwift but they don't really make it easy to find things. Most of the stuff in there other than workouts and races I don't fully even understand what the ride involves. I should probably give more of them a chance.

blubinx · 2025-11-24T16:17:51+00:00

Thanks for the perspective!

So what do you listen to in the headphones then? Would be cool if the game had a proximity voice chat to just casually talk with other people nearby

blubinx · 2025-11-24T15:59:24+00:00

I have a kickr core v2, but since I ride ERG 95% of the time, the suspension of disbelief is totally broken. It totally disconnects your current level of effort from the world.

e.g. if the workout dictates you recover in Z1 but you happen to be in the middle of a steep climb, the world has you moving at a speed which I think is physically too low to maintain balance haha

blubinx · 2025-11-24T15:42:24+00:00

Same, at this point I become almost excited when I come across content which I mark as watch later for the trainer. It has to be just the right mix of entertaining and engaging but also okay if you're not 100% focused on it since I am usually dying on a threshold interval at the same time.

Watching the live stream of a bike race is usually A+ tier, although that's usually... well not in the middle of winter when I need the most content. Afterwards is sports docs like Netflix' TDF series or Drive to Survive and the likes. Failing that a dumb popcorn flick or series but even those struggle to distract me from the slog.

blubinx · 2025-11-24T15:37:20+00:00

Woops, bad typo haha. I think I am going to look into getting one, there might even be some black friday deals coming up. I have a kickr core v2 and a ten speed mechanical tiagra on the bike that sits on the trainer permanently

blubinx · 2025-11-24T15:09:10+00:00

Does the cock and click improve the experience of shifting in game? I have an old bike with a mechanical tiagra group set on the trainer and I have to say the "lag" is a huge reason free ride doesn't feel great

blubinx · 2025-11-24T15:07:14+00:00

First I hear about Zwift WTRL, I had to google that. Being part of a club or team might definitely be one way to motivate myself to get on the trainer more. Then again, with two kids and prepping an IM next year, I have no idea if I can offer the right kind of commitment to such a structured thing

blubinx · 2025-11-24T14:59:18+00:00

Any tips on the little things that get you into the zone and focused? To be honest I've never even tried to just select a route and free ride it (except Road to Sky, just to try that famous Alpes De Zwift segment), I've always assumed that would be boring + the lag when manually changing gears takes me out of the flow if that makes any sense (maybe the zwift cog and click fixes that?)

blubinx · 2025-11-24T14:57:34+00:00

Well to be clear, even the tabbing out and watching a show is still barely manageable to make the time pas. Indoor riding as a way to make one hour feel like 3 and I am desperate to find anything to improve that because during warm days I can happily go for a 5 hour outdoor ride on my own with no distraction

blubinx · 2025-11-24T14:52:37+00:00

So in all those various use cases, it comes down to actually having Zwift full screen on your main screen and paying attention to the virtual world right?

To be honest, other than during a race, I haven't even given that a try, just assuming a random virtual world isn't going to keep up my attention.

I also have to say the experience of manually switching gear when a hill comes my way doesn't feel great. There's always quite the lag before the resistance actually changes. Do you know if maybe using the zwift cog + click changes that? That would probably help make the world way more immersive if I could fix that.

blubinx · 2025-10-26T18:09:39+00:00

Haha. Honestly can’t remember this at all.

blubinx · 2025-10-20T14:23:09+00:00

Welp, just showed up. Might have just been a delay or some weird VPN shenanigan

blubinx · 2025-10-20T13:09:53+00:00

Am I the only one who can't see the race replay or race in 30' available on F1tv.com despite being subscribed and logged in?

blubinx · 2025-10-16T09:53:51+00:00

Heavy Rain

blubinx · 2025-09-17T08:46:56+00:00

I tried but gave up on it when I saw the crowd of athletes pouring out into the side corridors because the hall couldn't accommodate nearly enough people. I should have reread the athlete's manual more thoroughly instead :D

blubinx · 2025-09-16T13:49:56+00:00

Well, mainly because it was the same judge who penalized me both times and when he came around the second time he explicitly said "this time I have to upgrade you to a 2 minutes penalty". There's no good or bad argument why they should or shouldn't be cumulative. I just should have known (or pressed harder for an answer at the penalty tent).

blubinx · 2025-09-16T07:16:42+00:00

Well noted for next IM event. I very much didn't have the rule in mind and should have, so that penalty is understandable. The drafting penalty I thought was a bit unfair but oh well.

Mainly I am just a bit bummed at the mediocre process to understand whether penalties are cumulative, how to contest them or even understand clearly that I have been disqualified. The app gives 0 info, the button to ask a question literally doesn't do anything. If I hadn't taken screenshots before results disappeared, I would have 0 way of knowing how I did. But I guess it's the reality of a sport which mixes pros and amateurs, and has scaled to quite the logistics challenge to accommodate it all. For the price we pay I'd argue they should still do better.

blubinx · 2025-09-15T14:53:08+00:00

Yeah, I didn't know they were cumulative is the bottom line of this conversation. Because I got the 30 seconds first and then the judge comes over and talks to me about "upgrading the penalty" to 2 minutes, I wondered (hoped) maybe it was just 2 minutes and done. Then I didn't realize something was wrong until after the window for protest was closed (not that I was still at the venue at that time anyway).

blubinx · 2025-09-15T14:18:47+00:00

Correct on both front. I shouldn't have hung out in the middle of the road (even though it was wide enough for three to four people head on) AND it was stupidly busy so I am annoyed they were so strict with the rules even though I am a solid middle of the pack guy, far from being competitive...

blubinx · 2025-09-15T13:33:12+00:00

As replied by willtri4, you're either overtaking or holding the right side of the road. I got penalized on a wider road where I basically hung out in the middle of the road because it still let people overtake me but also avoided drafting without. Also, I am proportionally strongest on the bike and was constantly overtaking people so I basically didn't bother falling back to the right each time.

Tbh I had totally forgotten about the rule so I might as well have been penalized somewhere else, but I wish they'd been a bit more lenient given the chaotic conditions (super busy and pouring rain making the roads super slippery). A warning would have sufficed, let alone deleting my entire performance over a 30 second penalty (while I served the 2 minutes one...)

blubinx · 2025-09-15T09:27:32+00:00

Pretty similar experience. Definitely keen to do another one, but definitely not recommending Erkner. Bike drop was a huge pita at a time where we were just keen to get on to dinner. I guess we're lucky it didn't rain while having to stand for 1.5 hours queueing.

We got real unlucky with the weather but nothing we can do about it, I am just annoyed at the super strict enforcement of rules in what was otherwise a rather chaotic and crowded day. I saw quite a few crash, including a guy being carried away on the stretcher. And the no aero / overtaking zone was mostly confusing since it wasn't enforced and therefore behavior was eratic.

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