If you’ve had a great summer of riding, increased your fitness and are wondering how to maintain it once the weather turns, ROUVY is a brilliant indoor training option, adding greater realism to your turbo sessions.
Rather than a simulated environment or, even worse, a series of ramps on a screen, ROUVY uses footage of real-world locations and superimposes your avatar on these.
You’ll get a feel for what it’s like to ride in locations around the world, experiencing the gradients of climbs and what you’d see as you rode there. ROUVY offers group rides and races, and structured training plans in its real-world environment too.
The Lidl-Trek pro team uses ROUVY for its indoor training and also to pre-ride race routes as reconnaissance before an event. Here are five ways you too can use ROUVY’s suite of tools to maintain your fitness and keep motivated through the winter.
Explore somewhere new
ROUVY uses high-quality, real-world footage of places to ride in its app and superimposes its avatars on this, creating an authentic, immersive cycling experience. It offers more than 1,500 routes covering more than 25,000km of roads around the world.
So, unlike in some competitor apps, you’re not limited to riding a small selection of virtual worlds, but can get a feeling for what it’s like to climb Alpe d’Huez or ride along the amazing coastline of Ha Long Bay in Vietnam.
“To help riders explore different countries around the world, we release new Spotlights every couple of weeks or so,” says Antonín Parma, product experience director at ROUVY.
“Every release highlights new and existing routes, a challenge, events and related blogs. Each is designed as an accessible hub where riders can find some of the best new content on ROUVY to help them stay active and motivated through the year.”
Maybe you’ll choose to ride somewhere you’ll never get the chance to take your bike, but it’s also an opportunity to prepare for a ride that’s on your must-do list for next summer. Just like the Lidl-Trek pros, you’ll be better able to judge where you need to manage your effort and where you can leave it all on the road when you ride the real thing.
ROUVY’s simulation incorporates real riding physics, including drafting, adding to the realism. You can ride against ROUVY’s ghost riders too.
“You can choose one or multiple ghost riders that will ride with you the whole time. Or you can ride without them. Ghost riders can also be used for the authentic drafting feature on ROUVY,” says Parma.
Follow a training plan
Staying in shape and maintaining your fitness over winter can be tricky. If you’re riding outdoors, opportunities are likely to be reduced by darkness and the weather, while it’s easy to get stuck putting in junk miles on a trainer.
Follow one of ROUVY’s extensive library of training plans and you’ll avoid this, with a structured series of workouts designed by pros, including Lidl-Trek’s six-week plan. It enables you to work on specific aspects of your fitness, such as your anaerobic capacity, VO2 Max and sprinting.
“If your goal is to improve your FTP, you can find a structured plan for four weeks with specific workouts that consists of a mix of tempo, criss-cross, endurance intervals, short sprints and pyramids that will help you increase your FTP,” says Parma.
ROUVY’s real-world simulations mean following a structured programme is never going to be boring either. While many training apps just offer a countdown to the next hard effort, ROUVY will recommend a real-world route for you to ride as you train.
Get started with virtual racing
Another way to keep fit while avoiding your sessions becoming routine is to enter a race – or a group ride if you don’t have a competitive itch.
ROUVY enables you to compete against other users worldwide, again reducing the likelihood of putting in junk miles, as you aim to distance your competitors or keep pace with other riders.
“The platform syncs with the smart trainer to adjust resistance based on the route profile, accurately simulating the physical demands of uphill and downhill sections. Riders can join either races and group rides or train solo, while tracking their performance and competing with others in a dynamic, interactive environment,” explains Parma.
You can create your own events in the app and invite other riders to join you, as well as joining events you find online, while event leaderboards offer competition. ROUVY enables you to interact with other users as you ride too, offering comments and reactions. Complete a ride and you’ll earn coins, which you can use to customise your ROUVY avatar.
Take an FTP test
If you want to keep track of your form and how you measure up against other riders, you’ll need to know where you’re starting from and re-test yourself periodically.
ROUVY has a range of tests built in, which you can use to measure your fitness level, including its FTP Ramp Test and Ramp Test Lite, and a classic 20-minute full-gas FTP test. Follow one of ROUVY’s workouts designed to test your FTP and the app will make all the calculations needed to determine your FTP.
This will then be used automatically to set your power zones in other workouts you select on ROUVY and enable you to ensure you’re riding in the correct zones to meet your fitness goals. Knowing your FTP will also help you with pacing in future races, so you don’t burn out before the finish.
ROUVY will suggest a recommended real-world route to follow for your workout, making the experience more interesting.
Don’t get tied to the turbo
Although the turbo is a great way to structure your workout schedule and maintain your fitness, however much you love your trainer, most riders will value a break now and then. That may be because you have a winter training camp booked somewhere warm or simply because you want to vary your routine.
“Everyone can pause their ROUVY subscription for up to 180 days with the ability to un-pause at any time,” says Parma.
“What's more, if there is bad weather or other circumstances that prevent you from riding outdoors, you can still ride 20km for free every month. Or just buy a daily pass for up to 72 hours and ride on ROUVY without any limitations.”
A day pass costs only $2.99 for 24 hours, $3.99 for 48 hours or $4.99 for 72 hours, giving you flexibility in how and when you use the app.
You can unpause your subscription and start riding again whenever you want, although then you can’t repause it again in the same calendar year.
ROUVY won’t bill you for your paused time and, if you have bought an annual subscription, will add the extra days onto your renewal date to make up for your time off.
Join ROUVY now
A ROUVY subscription costs $14.99 (around £10.75) per month, or $149 (around £129) a year for solo UK riders, less than other leading cycling training apps. You can also buy a two-user or group subscription for up to five riders, if you want to share, lowering the cost per user.
You can use ROUVY on a wide range of platforms, including Windows, Mac, iOS, Android, and Apple TV. It will link up with smart trainers and smart bikes from Wahoo, Elite, Tacx Saris and more, as well as the Kickr Climb and Elite Rizer gradient simulators.
There’s a seven-day free trial period for new subscribers, so now’s a great time to sign up and download the ROUVY app. Using the promo code BIKERADAR1M, readers can get their first month free. This is applicable for new subscribers only, for a single monthly subscription. Click here for more details.
