zwift around London

I've decided to revamp the bike turbo as part of the cycling regime. I'd often mused about ways to set up a route around London which could play out on the screen, maybe using Google Maps. Tacx supports it, but the software is somewhat unreliable and crashes so that it is usually a disappointment.

Instead, I've tried Zwift, which already has a predefined London course built into it. It's not entirely the London we'd recognise, but it is a pretty good approximation. There are chunks of it where you'd look at a single frame and know where it is supposed to be, but the geography of the links can surprise with unexpected turns and twists editing out parts of the terrain. Here's the entirely recognisable Embankment (Grosvenor Road including Cycle Superhighway 8), heading towards Chelsea Bridge, with the Battersea Power station (complete with flying pig) on the other side of the Thames.

That's not forgetting the curious area around Waterloo, where you cycle into an arch around where 'The Steps' are and enter a labyrinth of tunnel systems and stairs. It's like cycling along tube platforms and then suddenly arriving in Surrey at the foot of Box Hill.

There's also time-of-day detail and weather to contend with, varying from stippled sunny days to hailstorms of rain bouncing from the pavements (like the picture at the top of the post). Here's the entrance to The Mall, in bright sunshine.

Being Zwift, the roads are busy with other cyclists too. Flags indicate where in the world they are all from, and at any time there will be around 1,000 others cycling the same roads. As for the street scenes themselves, they've closed the roads and put up Prudential Tour 100 stye barriers around the course. There's ample street furniture, with TfL bus stops, red phone boxes, Belisha beacons galore as well as new Routemaster type buses parked conveniently the other side of the barriers. There's even an old-school 15 Routemaster for the fans. I'd be picky about the shortage of pubs and that some of the shopping areas have been rendered as buildings, but that's detail.

There's plenty of camera angles available too, here's me (small dot in the centre) coming through Admiralty Arch, with the scene of Trafalgar Square in the background. You can see a Zwift runner too, and another cyclist 1 second ahead of me. And if I can get some speed on, there's several others ahead in the next 16 seconds.

I'm running Zwift on a Mac with ANT+ to TACX Bushido, and, I'll be honest, I did wonder at the point of the Zwift 'companion' application, which runs on an iPhone, but it does provide additional twitchy power meters, mapping, camera control and snapshots as well as being able to send greeting to other Zwifters. The readout against my name shows I'm using a phone, am currently cycling an interval (Orange Unicorn), have covered 14.4 miles and am putting out 2.2w/kg. The wattage is calculated by Zwift unless one has a particularly fancy turbo unit. I can also see that The Mall has a gentle slope downward (0.1%) and that even flat London has created 248 feet of elevation since I started. I've been cycling for 42:55 minutes and still have around 47:02 minutes to go to get through the intervals.

The interval training is quite clever too. The light beam arches pop up at the end of an interval and adjust to the speed of travel. Too slow and one can see them moving away into the distance, based upon how long to the end of the section. Here I am just 2 seconds from an interval end, and co-incidentally having just hit my personal goal of 62 miles per week.


Along the bottom of the screen, the extent of my exertions can be seen. I'm staying out of the red zone for this tourist circuit, as can be seen in the next screenshot approaching Buckingham Palace.

J Hernandez (who was 0.4 seconds behind) is now just disappearing off the bottom of the screen and into the 30+ second behind distance. And yes, there's 1390 more on the circuit at the moment. Indeed at certain points I'll encounter a peloton, although I'm never sure whether to join in on not. Things can get quite confusing in the middle of the pack, hence my choice of yellow chevron shirt, to attempt to stand out, purely for identification.

Unlike Zwift's Richmond, Virginia, or to a lesser extent New York Central Park, the streets are also busy with people too. There's people outside pubs (of course) and people waiting around at bus stops and at the gates to anywhere that tourists would go.If it rains, the umbrellas come out. In London the cycles include pedicabs and I even spotted a tandem. Animations include flocks of birds (pigeons? starlings?) landing on the pavement and then scattering. It's something I only notice if I pause awhile mid-circuit.

As for the circuits, there are several pre-defined ones, with options to vary the routes. The area covers Tower Bridge to Knightsbridge and sweeps in many of the well-known tourist spots (Trafalgar Square, Harrods, Buck House, Parliament, Embankment). It is possible to free-circuit around the area, or to select an interval training programme which goes around the same area, but with some purpose. There's also various events and challenges in groups or solo that do the same kind of thing.

The mileages are pretty accurate too, with a quick check between my Garmin and the Zwift readouts showing around a mile discrepancy over 20 miles of distance. Given the different way that Zwift treats hills (pedal fast and still only go at 3mph etc) then I'm thinking they've done a pretty good job. Now that Zwift is an ecosystem in its own right, there's also plenty of Strava way-points along the route, with time trials, and Personal Records galore.

I've alluded to the other circuits already; fancy the desert? Or maybe a palm tree island with a volcano to cycle around? Yep.