One thing Rouvy does better than everyone is the gradient graphic/ramp at the top left of the screen. It's large and granular enough to see what's coming up just seconds ahead, so you can adjust your gearing right ahead of it. Zwift's version is just too small and useless. Also I love the full view of the gradient (and difficulty) that goes along the full bottom of the screen. Gives a great high level view of what's coming up and how hard it'll be.
This is something you can apply as a completely customizable overlay with sauce for Zwift (I've a recent video showing it). As yes I agree the standard Zwift Hud is a bit lacking.
I used to ride on Zwift but once I tried Rouvy I switched and never turned back. The cycling experience on Rouvy is so real, I really feel almost like on the road somewhere lost in the world. Recently I enjoy the monthly challenges that make it easier for me to select new locations to explore.
A little over a year ago I tried them all and settled on Rouvy for all the reasons you mentioned. I've been enjoying regular group rides with the same riders here lately. The improvements Rouvy has made are fantastic, and they really do listen to customer inputs. Great review Mike! 👍
Hi Mike - LTomie56 here. I've been with Rouvy from Oct/2015. CVT era. I used Rouvy this year to prep for Haute Route Alps. Awesome. Day 6 - climbing Agnel and knowing exactly what was coming was so great. Take care
Great video, Mike. You nailed it and gave lots of good insights. Thanks for creating this video. I did a pretty extensive comparison of Zwift and Rouvy when deciding which platform to use for my first season with an indoor trainer - I settled on Rouvy. I also like that Rouvy has lots of interesting climbing routes that you can do in 45-60 minutes, getting some big vertical in a ride with gorgeous scenery. I agree with your assessment of races and group rides: enough variety and competition to make it interesting to stay motivated. I agree with most people's comments regarding Zwift: if all your friends are on it, or you want to take racing VERY seriously, Zwift is for you.
Merci pour cette vidéo. Très pertinent et après avoir essayé Zwift et Rouvy, je suis du même avis. De plus, comme j’utilise un ipad, les informations concernant le relief, la pente, le drafting et la position des autres concurrents sont beaucoup plus visibles et claires sur Rouvy.
Love Zwift and Rouvy, both great apps. One big win for me is that Rouvy can download the routes so you can ride them offline and has a significantly better and useful gradient map
I use both Zwift and Rouvy. Zwift has a better community and group events, but Rouvy wins in all other areas. I feel that I can ride Rouvy for much longer sessions because it is more true to the road experience.
This is just a function of relative popularity...which comes down in part to marketing. Zwift reached a critical mass of users much faster than anyone else and will hold that advantage unless Rouvy is able to close the gap. Marketing, marketing, marketing.
Absolutely love Rouvy. The realism with the video, physics of drafting and descending is spot on. Not gamified, much less cheating and few unrealistic power to weight numbers. Getting more popular so hoping the cheaters don't migrate over to Rouvy
Thanks. I hope you are right about the cheating part. Hard to know how prevalent it is in Rouvy. When I look at some of the top 10 standings, some of the results look like better-than-pro power numbers.
one extra bonus feature with Rouvy would have to be the monthly challenges. You always get a monthly elevation goal such as Everest or K2 and a monthly distance goal but then you get special challenges - for example this month they have recreated several routes of the 2023 vuelta and the tour of slovakia. They also have a sponsorship deal with the Datev Challenge triathlon series to emulate their world bike routes. At the moment I am on the final day of a personal Rouvy challenge to climb Mont Ventoux every day for a week. Today's ride (will probably be around 2:30 from Malaucene) will be my 9th ascent since last saturday. I have been a subscriber for only a year and find it far superior to zwift (which i used for a free trial and some running back in 2019 ). oh, and a lot of the monthly challenges seem to have real world prizes, whether free subscriptions to smart trainers, cycling kits, trips to watch real world races and ride in a team support car and socks.
I found a couple small routes around my local town through one of the challenges. I was amazed those routes existed! Good on you for doing the Mont Ventoux challenge. That’s a beast 😳😳
@@bikesbymike that's the benefit of Rouvy. You can find a route pretty much anywhere. Not all will be AR and some (such as Milano to San Remo, or the Lands End to John O'Groats route in Britain -full length from bottom to top) won't have a video, just the map and GPS data - but you will never run out of locations.
I've been using Rouvy with a Kickr smart bike for a couple of years now, mostly during winter months. I absolutely love it. The rides are very realistic, and there is an incredible depth of locales, offering flat rides, hilly rides, short rides, long rides, etc. It's as close to real outdoor riding as you can get, and actually better in many ways: the weather is always perfect, the wind is always zero, and there are only virtual cars and fellow riders to run into. I can do a beautiful route in Mallorca in the morning, and ride Utah in the afternoon. I did Zwift for awhile, but seldom use it anymore.
As a coach I find Rouvy much easier to develop workouts for my athletes, save them as public and it's easy for them to find. Much easier than Zwift. Convinced quite a few of my athletes to shift to Rouvy.
ordered my first ever smart trainer and i was torn between, well, zwift, mywoosh, rouvy, onelap. your input was on point, and the style sublime. subbed. keep up!
I love Rouvy because I also like the adventure aspect of cycling. I can ride locations beforehand - like my future Italy mountain rides. I also like being able to create my own workouts and then apply pretty much any location as background video. It keeps it interesting. And being able to set up a group ride and invite friends is a nice feature as well. I expect that races and fondo’s will upload video footage of their event for future promo.
Absolutely a great job on reviewing the app!!!! as being an ex pro racer I see everything you’re saying here and I agree with you. It’s very well done I like swift very much for the reasons you mentioned, but I love this app now it’s absolutely wonderful and you’re right it’s really been improved dramatically and an important ways. I’ll be using it. Thank you so much for this. Very informative and useful video. Well done keep them up.
I recently signed up for Rouvy's 14 day free trial and am impressed. I never liked Zwift much but it got the job done (usually in ERG mode; under an Apple TV screen!) I was constantly amazed with their graphics - and not in a good way! (Or as they say here in the South: "bless their heart!) So I have cancelled the auto-renewel but keeping Zwift in case I ever feel the need to show up to a virtual race with friends or something. I am going to miss the TP integration. I see Rouvy has some stock TP workouts I can choose but no way to [easily] import my own from my training plans there. Hope they're adding this soon!
@@bikesbymikei converted a couple of my friends with the new group subscription. We are with 5 people now which makes it around 6,50 a month instead of 14,99.
If you want to ride some other local based routes ( I’m from Kanata and have a cottage on Centennial Lake ) you can check out my routes Centennial Lake Nature Reserve and Matawatchan Canada on Rouvy.
11:25 Can you follow "any route of your choice" - including routes that you have ridden or traversed (say, in a car) and upload the Strava (or whatever) route to ride in Rouvy? Or is it only routes that Rouvy itself provides?
...unfortunately, you cannot follow routes you've created yourself; only ones created or posted by Rouvy. Rouvy eliminated the feature that allowed users to upload their own GPX routes a couple years back. While I'm not certain the reason why they discontinued this feature, I suspect it's for two reasons: First, since these routes were made public by default, Rouvy would validate the distance and vertical gain data in the files for accuracy prior to releasing it for public viewing. I'm not sure if this quality control process was automated, but I suspect it still required some additional resources to administer. Second, the quality of the video footage itself was variable, running the spectrum from stable and clear 2K and 4K video to very poor quality, jerky, low resolution recordings. It made for an inconsistent user experience, which from a marketing perspective is not what you want to promote to your customer base. I guess they could have allowed user uploads to only be private, and not care about quality control, but that's not the approach they took at the time. I wouldn't be surprised if Rouvy brings back the ability for users to upload their own route files at some point in the future. But given they have been focused on making big changes to the user interface, it will probably come after they're satisfied they've got the core parts of the app working as they want it to.
I left Zwift for indioVelo last month. I know indiovelo is a bit primitive right now. I've not done any racing on their platform as yet because I'm not riding all that much right now. I just got tired of racing with guys on Zwift who can produce more sustained power than most pro level riders. I've not even heard about Rouvy until watching this video. I'll have to check it out sometime. Thanks for your very informative review.
I’m also on IndieVelo. The riding dynamics are so much better than Zwift and the pace of improvements for such a new platform is astonishing. I never liked racing on Zwift but on IV it’s great fun
Auto detailing! I should have consulted with you before doing the video I'm just wrapping up. It's on how to polish and protect your bike. I'll be interested in reading your comments on that one as you obviously have a lot more knowledge in that area. I have to say, the frame finish really did turn out nice, though! Cheers, mate.
You mentioned your own structured workout, so I am assuming that there is a custom workout builder in the app? If so, how is the experience? Dealbreaker feature for me. Thanks for providing a distinct outlook on the platform. Will consider it.
Can i use ERG mode or SIM mode in routs or competitions? In Zwift i can use only on workouts and its bad :( if i have MTB i cant use on cpmpetitions becouse my 36 Chainring to slow vs road bike. But this could be done using the app, and then there would be no need to buy a special road bike for racing on the trainer :(
I assume you are riding on a non-smart trainer, maybe rollers? No, it won't work. Rouvy will only work with a compatible smart trainer with Bluetooth / ANT+ functionality.
Thanks for the video. I’m on Zwift and I like it but I will surely try Rouvy on the 7days trial and see what’s in it for me. Though. If Zwift or Rouvy want to see the future, they should sit down and see the next step as an all year around no fuzz apps. The vision is “take my bike inside my pain room when I train inside and get all my metrics and then when I take my bike outside, I don’t wanna have to watch videos in TH-cam to find a way to ride outside and try get almost all the same metrics in another app that I have to sync later on”. 365days a year, outside same app as inside but on my phone with all the sensors working as inside. Record metrics without GPS to drain the batteries. They’ll find a way someday but that’s the future of an app that covers all and facilitate the life of cyclists. It takes 5min to reinstall a wheel on our bike but it takes hours to try to get all our metrics in the same plateforme. But I like Rouvy so I will try it.
You make an interesting point. This one window approach makes a lot of sense! Although, the industry seems to have been moving in the other direction, where various apps specialize in different aspects of cycling and fitness, but then generally allow other 3rd party apps to connect and share data amongst themselves. And then you have Strava. Strava's new CEO clearly stated when he joined the company that he wants his app to be the central hub for fitness data and the keeper all cycling data, sort of speak. Strava also announced, just a few days ago, big changes to their privacy policy that really restricts what 3rd party apps can do with user data. The stat I read is that there are over 20,000 apps that connect to Strava. Whatever the number, the current environment is very decentralized. I think there could be a huge shakeup coming, particularly if Strava loses its dominance in the market.
I've been using Rouvy for over a year now. I use it when the weather is bad. I race mainly in the Muckers Races. They have a wide variation of riders from beginners to pros. I often finish mid table. Why not try a Muckers Race on Rouvy.
I’ll have to give those races a try. I’m usually doing Zone 2 training on Rouvy these days which leaves little time for higher intensity races. I need to get back into the races. Thanks for sharing!
rouvy is more precise but only compatible with high end bikes (720 €) while zwift works fine on 400 € bikes. it's annoying oto have to pay 320 € just to be able to switch between softwares, but i guess if you want to perform good, you need a good tool, seems logic.
Thanks Mike, that was helpful and tempted me to try Rouvy again. Rouvy obviously scores on realism - great avatars and scenery, and the workouts are simpler and less - well, "entertainment-orientated" than Zwift's. That said, three things that slightly annoy me on Rouvy: 1. Excellent drafting info, BUT no steering (I have a Kickr bike), so you can't position yourself and have to rely on the auto piloting. 2. IMPOSSIBLE to control downhill segments as you very quickly spin out (I have got up to 135rpm). 3. In workout mode, Rouvy gives no info about mileage or speed AND there is no option to switch in and out of erg mode (if you want to sprint for a town sign, say :) ). Apart from that...I do miss not being able to interact/banter with others, but as that can sometimes get annoying on Zwift (especially when the convo turns to food 🙄), I am sure I will get used to it. Thanks again.
Yeah. You make good comments on the limitations of Rouvy. Many people have made the same comment as you made in your 3rd point. As for your 1st point, I’d like to see steering as well. I have to believe this is coming soon as most indoor smart bikes have unassigned shifter buttons that could be used to control steering. Not many of the indoor cycling apps allow for this functionality now, so that may be part of the reason Rouvy hasn’t made it a priority. As for your 2nd point, I haven’t experienced the same problem. Yes, on downhill sections over 70 km/h, I’ll run out of gears, but it replicates what I’d experience on my road bike (since the gearing on my Kickr is set up exactly the same as on my road bike). To avoid running out of gears on downhill sections, you could configure your Kickr with a larger chainring. Thanks for commenting. Good points!
Precisely that is the reason why I chose Rouvy. I want myself to prepare virtually for real world routes. How do you experience the realism of the climbs on the mountains?
Thanks for your very good capsule. I’m between Roovy and Zwift, two good apps for sure. But your capsule confirm that I prefer riding in real environment and Roovy is best. Thanks again and more videos on Roovy start, perform, secrets ?
…yes, provided it’s a compatible smart trainer, which is pretty much anything with ANT+ or Bluetooth connectivity. The resistance on your trainer will change based on the steepness of the grade.
Just getting back into cycling more serious again after 5 years... so many options now. Going to finish my two week trial of Zwift and then jump over and try Rouvy. I see the draws of both. I'm an older gamer BUT sometimes I do think Zwift is a little "busy". Being able to ride real routes that aren't cartoon looking might win me over, it's a little "gamer" on Rouvy right? Also does anyone know of someone who has gotten Zwift Play to work on Rouvy? Someone will hack it!
I feel my Kickr Core reacts differently under Rouvy, Zwift and NyWhoosh. It could be a setting. My eyesight dislikes the way Rouvy blurs the peripherals. I start to focus on the outside rather than the centre.
I agree that the blurred (and shuttering) outer parts of the video could be improved. I've made that comment to them several times. The problem is that the original videos are being shot a too low of a frame rate for a vehicle moving at speeds faster than cyclists. When the video is slowed down to sync with our riding, the fps is too low to smooth out the video. I'm sure most videos are shot at something like 30 fps, when really they need to be using something around 120 fps at a minimum.
Whatever work for you. All my teammates are using zwift so there is no discussion for me. And because I am a gamer the xp stuff is a huge motivator. And also the big group riding stuff. Virtual shifting is also somehting rouvy don't support and is really great
👍 I game too. But I’m no draw to Zwift for the game part. In fact I still rock the starting gear lol. I stories just the ROUVY starting ride and immediately liked it. But I still didn’t jump to it fully. Like you my guys ride Zwift. But ROUVY continues to draw me.
@@theundead1600 I think both applications have their respective advantages and disadvantages. I would have already tried Rouvy, but I also have the Zwift Play Controllers and the virtual gear shifting in races or group rides is unbeatable. My smart trainer no longer has a cassette, but the Zwift Cog, which allows me to connect any of my bikes to the smart trainer. This is a clear point in favor of Zwift. However, I have watched TH-cam videos of Rouvy and find the AR graphics very appealing, so I can absolutely understand your opinion.
You make some really good points about Rouvy. I have tried Rouvy and your description is spot on. So my question is why is Zwift then head over shoulders more popular than Rouvy? Based on demographics, Zwift must be doing something right.
@charlesmansplaining Yup. That describes my reluctance to change over to Rouvy. Too many miles and social connections on Zwift to jump ship now. Zwift’s starting gate emphasis on community and social aspects turned out to be why Zwift is, and likely will continue to be, the overall KOM. Zwift recognized from the start that a virtual environment is hugely augmented by social connectedness and apparently chose that over a more visually realistic environment. But as far as an immersive realistic experience, Rouvy is definitely the KOM.
I agree with these posts. Zwift grew their subscriber base early on and developed a loyal customer base. The social networking part is also big. I’m sure Rouvy wil add rider-to-rider messaging (while on-course) within the next year which is needed to match Zwift. Zwift has a massive sales and marketing presence. Every time I see one of their pro riders pushing their app I think, that is money should have gone into software development to improve their product.
@@bikesbymike Too, they have been introducing quality hardware at a pretty affordable price and partnering with Wahoo. That may grow customer loyalty as well. Their marketing strategies have been pretty spot on.
MyWhoosh has come on the scene in the last couple years as I direct competitor to Zwift. Their app most closely replicates the experience you get in Zwift as compared to other products on the market. Quite different then say Rouvy, though. They are funded by the UAE government and sponsor the UAE Emirates pro team, which is an indication of how seriously they want to compete in the indoor training space. Plus, they offer a free subscription, which will be appealing to a lot of riders. The two biggest criticisms you hear from those that have reviewed the app are: 1) It doesn't (yet) have all that many users, so participation in races and social networking is limited, and 2) It's a form of sportswashing. I'm not a gamer, but I can see how GTA V Bike would appeal to riders that are. From a quick glance, it looks mighty impressive. The graphics look more advanced as compared to either Zwift or MyWhoosh.
Rouvy is the best. I have tried Zwift, Trainer Road. Fantastic the virtual reality. I also like the search feature where I can ask for routes that have more tha say 15 Km and less than 20 km together with more than say, 200 m and less than 225 m. Amazing.
I agree. The one small tweak I wish they would add, is the ability to choose a route from your saved “Favourites” folder when selecting a route for a workout.
That's a good question. Maybe one of the viewers knows. They made a splash when they came on the scene last year, but I've heard nothing of them recently. It appears the app is still available, so they must be alive and kicking.
After 2 years, I've just cancelled Rouvy. i love it but it is just so flaky. Ages to boot up, freezes regularly even on downloaded rides and constantly disconnects from the companion app. Am I alone on this?
Pretty sure it’s a hardware issue, or slow WiFi. Two of my friends were running it off old laptops and experiencing the same issues. They both bought Apple TVs and it runs flawlessly. I myself can stream routes and still it never hangs or drops a connection.
I find it runs much better on a modern tablet (android app is good, if you're on that ecosystem). Always follow the usual good practice to close other apps, free up space etc. If you don't, I agree it can be flaky. Also as with zwift if you don't get on the race course at least 5 mins before then you can struggle at peak times as everybody tries to join
I really love Rouvy. Only things I am missing is ability to completes routes during workout and posibility to modifiying data fields in free ride and workout views. Overall it is perfect app
Just made the switched from Zwift to Rouvey. Love the Augmented reality. Unfortunately, had to give up the Hub One (virtual gears). Its a great feature if one has multiple bikes to fit to the trainer. Nevertheless, I've gone back to the cassette style trainer because the reality is so terrific.
Interesting thank you. From this video I took a trial and tested it. In terms of on screen graphics and the performance it's excellent. However I was totally let down by the realism - which is the selling point. I did my first ride on the Frankfurt IM course as I live there and know it well. The gradients were all over the place and completely wrong. -2.7% riding flat by the river, the first 6% climb is 1.5% on Rouvy - here I smashed the pros. It ruined it for me. The platform is great but it needs to have correct gradients, otherwise what's the point? I'm trying Fulgaz tomorrow, same course. We'll see :) thanks for your time to do this!
Thanks for sharing that. Interesting. Given the route is so far off the mark, you may want to reach out to the Rouvy folks and ask them why. I thought they verified elevation data before publishing all new routes (even in the past when user-created routes were permitted). I've tried a lot of routes that I've ridden both virtually and in real life and they were bang on in terms of gradients. Anyways, your experience is certainly disappointing. Please share your experience with Fulgaz when you've had time to test it out. I do like Fulgaz for the realism, but don't like the lack of races and group riding options.
@@bikesbymike Hi! So I rode the Fulgaz version today. The app itself is nowhere near as good as Rouvy - it's buggy, the interface is missing basics (like the buttons changing colour when you press them), the search often broke and I got annoyed quickly. Nevertheless, the ride itself was good (second time, first time it crashed). You can even select a section of a route, which is really cool. The section I rode was the same as I rode on Rouvy and similar watts to my IM in real life - the Fulgaz speed was almost the same as real life and the gradients pretty much spot on. Rouvy I was 6kmh faster - due to the off gradients. I'm like you in that I need something different to Zwift. I'm going to try Tacx as well. Again, thanks for your video.
Very good review of the Roy platform. I used to have both Rouvy and Zwift. There are plenty of features I like about both, but over the years I've realized that having one is enough. For us recreational riders who have full time work days, there is simply not enough time to have two platforms and enjoy them both. For the past three years I've been a Zwift user and every year at the beginning of the year I end up with the same dilema.... should I go back to Rouvy for a year? Maybe this is the year after watching your review. Have a great 2024.
Thanks! Glad it was helpful. In the end, all apps have their pros and cons. It’s all personal preference as to what one prioritizes most. For me, anything that helps me forget that I’m indoors is a plus. Real world routes does that best for me.
As a long time subscriber of both ROUVY and ZWIFT I agree and disagree. On the experience ROUVY wins hands down and I agree on pre race reconnaissance, super helpful. I do use Zwift more for group rides however, there are just more of them and more people to ride with. Great review btw, thanks.
Maybe it's because I'm so used to the Zwift riders but the avatars/body shape with this just look awful to me. Do they even change with rider weight/height? I might try Rouvy racing at some point as I actually prefer smaller fields and tactical races as opposed to a blob of riders all sitting in, but I cannot be doing with racing AI
Long-time Zwift user and tried Rouvy but not convinced. In a way the realism is boring compared to the gamified experience and the dashboard isn’t easy to read on my TV (using Apple TV), but the gradient indicator is better. Probably won’t continue after free trial but may check back later and try again.
You are right that the majority of users are in Europe, so more events/group rides/races occur earlier in the day for us North American riders. For you on the West Coast, my guess is that more races would appear in late afternoon and evening your time. Official Rouvy races, though, are equally provided throughout the day across all zones.
I'll be thrilled for some real competition in the market, but I think inertia of users is going to eventually do to Rouvy what it did to Wahoo Systm's RGT and others.
I’d be curious to know what the customer churn rate is for Zwift and how it’s been trending in recent years. Zwift also has the benefit of not having to worry about one strong competitor but rather a dozen smaller, weaker ones.
@@BarryJHoffman Sorry about that. I just switched from Rogers to Bell as my internet provider, so this backup email was automatically deleted. Use this email... BikesbyMike.yt@gmail.com
If I were to switch to another app, it would be to Bkool. Very high quality videos. But they need to add real life avatars and more racing and group ride options.
Been on BKool for the past 4 years. There are more videos but many of them seem to be recorded in a car or motorcycle at 30fps so it can get real choppy when you are climbing at cycling speeds and the video was filmed at 50mph. Solvable problem, as the video runtime is listed for each course, but it does cut down on the number of available routes. That said I stayed with BKool as I use the trainer for, well, training; I'm riding at a specific power output for a specified time (which is why I'm, simply, not at all interested in Zwift). Which brings me to the advantage of BKool over Rouvy (well, for me) you can ride in ERG mode on any course and there is something special about just setting your zone 2 power and just riding, it prevents you from relaxing or overexerting on climbs. I also use this feature for Tempo and Sweet Spot sessions, so easy to stay in zone with ERG, doesn't matter what the terrain is doing. Workouts are also a bit hit and miss; sometimes they play video and others they do not. I'm divided on this, for Threshold work it's a bonus, but any workout over threshold I'm in too much pain to care
@@kevinlewis390 ...all good points. The frame rate issue seems to be a common theme among many apps. I'm glad to see that Rouvy has improved video smoothing in its last version release which was my biggest pet peeve. Several others have mentioned the lack of ERG mode as being a big issue. Odd that Rouvy hasn't addressed this when it should be quite a simple feature to tack on.
More realistic is good, but you can never simulate a race. Until they can Simulate how it feels to be in a large group and the ability to lean and feel centripetal forces during the ride. Zwift is a more social platform. I do not like the gamification, but can ignore that. If Rouvy really wants my business. I would recommend they add something Zoom (or twitch) room (I know twitch does not have this) functionality. People can join a ride and add their cams and mics and speakers. So each rider can see the other, maybe have a conversation. To make the the ride more social, more like a typical group ride. Then Rouvy would really set it self apart from Zwift
I agree with you re the need for Rouvy to improve the social aspect. Others have commented on it as well. I’d even be happy with just some simple things, like being able to do a flick of the elbow to gesture to the rider behind that you are done pulling and want them to take a turn at the front.
I haven't ridden Rouvy, and for one reason only. Zwift has the biggest user base and typically the most users online at any one time. I noticed in your videos there was like 10 riders on screen at any one time, even a race. Clearly you are one of the crowd that doesn't like the "gamified" view, I have heard others repeat the same words. Personally it's not something I notice much. When I am riding I am focused on the group I am riding with, the goal I am chasing, the hill I am trying to get over. Everything else is just noise, plus if I am not heavily focused on particular targets, I am probably watching a video! Zwift has an amazing and large community, that's why myself and many others live there. Come and join us a for a +100 rider social spin some time.
You are right that Zwift blows away Rouvy in terms of participant numbers for both rides and races. It’s not even comparable. The main reason is that Zwift has more members. But another reason is that Rouvy has so many more course options to choose from that it dilutes the field for any one ride. If you choose a “most popular” recommended course or an official Rouvy organized race, you will likely see close to 100 riders at times convenient for European riders. You are also right that the first few Broll screen shots I put out was a race with only about 10 riders. User created races and group rides only usually attract about that number. I don’t mind for that particular one as it’s a regular series organized by the same group of guys, so we have a bit of camaraderie among this small group. If I want to compete against a larger field (which I admit is great), I join one of the official Rouvy races. Thanks for your comments. Cheers!
Currently (Northern hemisphere, winter) the popular races linked to ongoing challenges typically have 100-200 participants at peak times and they're pretty competitive (and generally free of cheaters). I'm not sure what benefit even more would bring to these events but I agree more subscribers overall would improve interactivity and participation outside of peak times, on a greater number of routes etc. However one major benefit to Rouvy is you can always add ghost riders based on previous times, including your own, to any AR route
I have been in Rouvy for a few years now and I think it is brilliant. Zwift is just a poorly made video. The "social" experience in Zwift is overrated, you are really riding along, look over your shoulder.
Rouvy is much better in my opinion. There is one thing that Rouvy should improve and I think it is more important than even AR stuff which is the speed used for recording videos. Recording the videos at higher speeds than an average cyclist's speed causing very blurry images on the screen. They need improve and standardize the recording process for better experience.
Yes! That’s the one thing I keep complaining about whenever I get asked for my feedback. To their credit, I do notice that their newer routes tend to have less blurry of an image, so I suspect they were filmed at a higher frame rate.
I realize you love Rouvy but there are a lot of us riders that like both platforms. Why does extolling the virtues of Rouvy have to include degrading eye rolls and commentary of Zwift?
Long time Rouvy and Zwift user. Both have their place in the virtual world. I find Rouvy much buggier and their tech support is pathetic. I wish theyd stop with features until they fix their problems. Rouvy much better for Z2 and Z3 sessions.
The social interactive piece is a big advantage to Zwift. Rouvy sent a survey questionnaire around about a year ago asking specifically about that aspect, so it’s definitely something they are considering. They will need to level-up if they hope to compete head-to-head with Zwift.
@@bikesbymike I chose Zwift over T.R. for the social side of riding with others as opposed to the torture chamber with numbers. I can do without the social media side of it, hunting for a pat on the back from folks I'll never know. I don't tweet facebook or anything other than Strava
ZWIFT is far superior to Rouvy. Why do you want real views when it's a virtual world. Watopia is far more interesting, and the racing is far more realistic.
….things that “blow away” Zwift? Hyperbole at its best. Debatably better maybe. When one picks a route to ride in ROUVY, it’s usually a lonely experience as there’s no one else around, unlike Zwift. If I wanted great scenery, 4K FulGaz wins hands down. The ROUVY avatar looks unnatural and appears pasted on a real world background. No thanks.
Meh, the graphics are overrated. You're still on a trainer in a garage. There is a reason the Zwift community dwarfs the rest. Keep trying, meanwhile, Zwift is the best.
I’m on Zwift, Zwift is game, feels like a game, like Nintendo. It is fun but try to be objective. If Zwift would have been like Touvy, more people would be on Rouvy like Zwift. Both have something to offert. I will surely try Rouvy.
One thing Rouvy does better than everyone is the gradient graphic/ramp at the top left of the screen. It's large and granular enough to see what's coming up just seconds ahead, so you can adjust your gearing right ahead of it. Zwift's version is just too small and useless. Also I love the full view of the gradient (and difficulty) that goes along the full bottom of the screen. Gives a great high level view of what's coming up and how hard it'll be.
This is something you can apply as a completely customizable overlay with sauce for Zwift (I've a recent video showing it). As yes I agree the standard Zwift Hud is a bit lacking.
I used to ride on Zwift but once I tried Rouvy I switched and never turned back. The cycling experience on Rouvy is so real, I really feel almost like on the road somewhere lost in the world. Recently I enjoy the monthly challenges that make it easier for me to select new locations to explore.
Nice! Rouvy takes me to a lot of places I can't afford to go to :)
A little over a year ago I tried them all and settled on Rouvy for all the reasons you mentioned. I've been enjoying regular group rides with the same riders here lately. The improvements Rouvy has made are fantastic, and they really do listen to customer inputs. Great review Mike! 👍
Thanks. I appreciate it!
Hi Mike - LTomie56 here. I've been with Rouvy from Oct/2015. CVT era. I used Rouvy this year to prep for Haute Route Alps. Awesome. Day 6 - climbing Agnel and knowing exactly what was coming was so great. Take care
Nice! You did the monster 7-day race. Congrats!
Great video, Mike. You nailed it and gave lots of good insights. Thanks for creating this video. I did a pretty extensive comparison of Zwift and Rouvy when deciding which platform to use for my first season with an indoor trainer - I settled on Rouvy. I also like that Rouvy has lots of interesting climbing routes that you can do in 45-60 minutes, getting some big vertical in a ride with gorgeous scenery. I agree with your assessment of races and group rides: enough variety and competition to make it interesting to stay motivated. I agree with most people's comments regarding Zwift: if all your friends are on it, or you want to take racing VERY seriously, Zwift is for you.
Merci pour cette vidéo. Très pertinent et après avoir essayé Zwift et Rouvy, je suis du même avis. De plus, comme j’utilise un ipad, les informations concernant le relief, la pente, le drafting et la position des autres concurrents sont beaucoup plus visibles et claires sur Rouvy.
Good points, just started using Rouvy. The AR environment is a big plus for me.
Love Zwift and Rouvy, both great apps. One big win for me is that Rouvy can download the routes so you can ride them offline and has a significantly better and useful gradient map
I use both Zwift and Rouvy. Zwift has a better community and group events, but Rouvy wins in all other areas. I feel that I can ride Rouvy for much longer sessions because it is more true to the road experience.
Thank you super helpful. On wheel saris M2 ok or wahoo kickr core
This is just a function of relative popularity...which comes down in part to marketing. Zwift reached a critical mass of users much faster than anyone else and will hold that advantage unless Rouvy is able to close the gap. Marketing, marketing, marketing.
Absolutely love Rouvy. The realism with the video, physics of drafting and descending is spot on. Not gamified, much less cheating and few unrealistic power to weight numbers. Getting more popular so hoping the cheaters don't migrate over to Rouvy
Thanks. I hope you are right about the cheating part. Hard to know how prevalent it is in Rouvy. When I look at some of the top 10 standings, some of the results look like better-than-pro power numbers.
one extra bonus feature with Rouvy would have to be the monthly challenges. You always get a monthly elevation goal such as Everest or K2 and a monthly distance goal but then you get special challenges - for example this month they have recreated several routes of the 2023 vuelta and the tour of slovakia. They also have a sponsorship deal with the Datev Challenge triathlon series to emulate their world bike routes. At the moment I am on the final day of a personal Rouvy challenge to climb Mont Ventoux every day for a week. Today's ride (will probably be around 2:30 from Malaucene) will be my 9th ascent since last saturday. I have been a subscriber for only a year and find it far superior to zwift (which i used for a free trial and some running back in 2019 ).
oh, and a lot of the monthly challenges seem to have real world prizes, whether free subscriptions to smart trainers, cycling kits, trips to watch real world races and ride in a team support car and socks.
I found a couple small routes around my local town through one of the challenges. I was amazed those routes existed! Good on you for doing the Mont Ventoux challenge. That’s a beast 😳😳
@@bikesbymike that's the benefit of Rouvy. You can find a route pretty much anywhere. Not all will be AR and some (such as Milano to San Remo, or the Lands End to John O'Groats route in Britain -full length from bottom to top) won't have a video, just the map and GPS data - but you will never run out of locations.
I've been using Rouvy with a Kickr smart bike for a couple of years now, mostly during winter months. I absolutely love it. The rides are very realistic, and there is an incredible depth of locales, offering flat rides, hilly rides, short rides, long rides, etc. It's as close to real outdoor riding as you can get, and actually better in many ways: the weather is always perfect, the wind is always zero, and there are only virtual cars and fellow riders to run into. I can do a beautiful route in Mallorca in the morning, and ride Utah in the afternoon. I did Zwift for awhile, but seldom use it anymore.
Nice. Thanks for commenting!
As a coach I find Rouvy much easier to develop workouts for my athletes, save them as public and it's easy for them to find. Much easier than Zwift. Convinced quite a few of my athletes to shift to Rouvy.
ordered my first ever smart trainer and i was torn between, well, zwift, mywoosh, rouvy, onelap.
your input was on point, and the style sublime. subbed. keep up!
Thanks so much for watching and subscribing. Cheers!
I love Rouvy because I also like the adventure aspect of cycling. I can ride locations beforehand - like my future Italy mountain rides.
I also like being able to create my own workouts and then apply pretty much any location as background video. It keeps it interesting.
And being able to set up a group ride and invite friends is a nice feature as well.
I expect that races and fondo’s will upload video footage of their event for future promo.
100 %
Absolutely a great job on reviewing the app!!!! as being an ex pro racer I see everything you’re saying here and I agree with you. It’s very well done I like swift very much for the reasons you mentioned, but I love this app now it’s absolutely wonderful and you’re right it’s really been improved dramatically and an important ways. I’ll be using it. Thank you so much for this. Very informative and useful video. Well done keep them up.
Glad you liked it! Hope to see you in one of the races, but given you’re an ex pro, I’ll only see you at the start line 😳
I agree with all that you said. Great review and as a pretty new user you gave me some great new information
Glad to hear it!
Great timing as I am shopping for a indoor trainer!!! Thanks!!!
Nice! Happy shopping.
I dropped Zwift after my 30 day free trial that came with my smart trainer. Never looked back. Rouvy is so much more interesting, challenging, fun.
I recently signed up for Rouvy's 14 day free trial and am impressed. I never liked Zwift much but it got the job done (usually in ERG mode; under an Apple TV screen!) I was constantly amazed with their graphics - and not in a good way! (Or as they say here in the South: "bless their heart!)
So I have cancelled the auto-renewel but keeping Zwift in case I ever feel the need to show up to a virtual race with friends or something.
I am going to miss the TP integration. I see Rouvy has some stock TP workouts I can choose but no way to [easily] import my own from my training plans there. Hope they're adding this soon!
Good point about Training Peaks Integration. Never considered that functionality before. Thanks for commenting.
I used both and like rouvy more than zwift. The only downfall is, all my friends use zwift. 😅
Ditto with me, which is why I need to convert over a few. 😂
@@bikesbymikei converted a couple of my friends with the new group subscription. We are with 5 people now which makes it around 6,50 a month instead of 14,99.
Your friends are cool! Nothing comes close to Zwift.. 👋
If you want to ride some other local based routes ( I’m from Kanata and have a cottage on Centennial Lake ) you can check out my routes Centennial Lake Nature Reserve and Matawatchan Canada on Rouvy.
Thanks for that. I’ll check out those routes.
11:25 Can you follow "any route of your choice" - including routes that you have ridden or traversed (say, in a car) and upload the Strava (or whatever) route to ride in Rouvy? Or is it only routes that Rouvy itself provides?
...unfortunately, you cannot follow routes you've created yourself; only ones created or posted by Rouvy.
Rouvy eliminated the feature that allowed users to upload their own GPX routes a couple years back. While I'm not certain the reason why they discontinued this feature, I suspect it's for two reasons: First, since these routes were made public by default, Rouvy would validate the distance and vertical gain data in the files for accuracy prior to releasing it for public viewing. I'm not sure if this quality control process was automated, but I suspect it still required some additional resources to administer. Second, the quality of the video footage itself was variable, running the spectrum from stable and clear 2K and 4K video to very poor quality, jerky, low resolution recordings. It made for an inconsistent user experience, which from a marketing perspective is not what you want to promote to your customer base. I guess they could have allowed user uploads to only be private, and not care about quality control, but that's not the approach they took at the time.
I wouldn't be surprised if Rouvy brings back the ability for users to upload their own route files at some point in the future. But given they have been focused on making big changes to the user interface, it will probably come after they're satisfied they've got the core parts of the app working as they want it to.
I left Zwift for indioVelo last month. I know indiovelo is a bit primitive right now. I've not done any racing on their platform as yet because I'm not riding all that much right now. I just got tired of racing with guys on Zwift who can produce more sustained power than most pro level riders. I've not even heard about Rouvy until watching this video. I'll have to check it out sometime. Thanks for your very informative review.
Thanks for the IndieVelo mention as I never heard of it. You’ll find riders pushing pro level power on Rouvy as well. Just fewer of them 😄
I’m also on IndieVelo. The riding dynamics are so much better than Zwift and the pace of improvements for such a new platform is astonishing.
I never liked racing on Zwift but on IV it’s great fun
To be honest with you Rouvy looks a lot better will give it a try ty for your input. Rocky from the DMV.
Auto detailing! I should have consulted with you before doing the video I'm just wrapping up. It's on how to polish and protect your bike. I'll be interested in reading your comments on that one as you obviously have a lot more knowledge in that area. I have to say, the frame finish really did turn out nice, though! Cheers, mate.
Rough needs to have some kind of virtual shifting if they want me to switch. Got the ones for Zwift and it’s so convenient
Does the Kickr bike tilt feature work in Rouvy?
…yes it does. Very well.
You mentioned your own structured workout, so I am assuming that there is a custom workout builder in the app? If so, how is the experience? Dealbreaker feature for me.
Thanks for providing a distinct outlook on the platform. Will consider it.
I don’t have much to compare it to, but the custom workout builder does everything I need it to do and it’s easy to navigate.
Can i use ERG mode or SIM mode in routs or competitions? In Zwift i can use only on workouts and its bad :( if i have MTB i cant use on cpmpetitions becouse my 36 Chainring to slow vs road bike. But this could be done using the app, and then there would be no need to buy a special road bike for racing on the trainer :(
ERG mode is not available in races or regular route rides (just workouts).
@@bikesbymikeWhy don't they make it work everywhere?
Good question. I think my next video will be on ERG mode.
Thanks Mike. Does Rouvy still require a power meter to ride? Or can I use souley my speed and cadence sensors?
I assume you are riding on a non-smart trainer, maybe rollers? No, it won't work. Rouvy will only work with a compatible smart trainer with Bluetooth / ANT+ functionality.
Thanks for the video. I’m on Zwift and I like it but I will surely try Rouvy on the 7days trial and see what’s in it for me.
Though.
If Zwift or Rouvy want to see the future, they should sit down and see the next step as an all year around no fuzz apps.
The vision is “take my bike inside my pain room when I train inside and get all my metrics and then when I take my bike outside, I don’t wanna have to watch videos in TH-cam to find a way to ride outside and try get almost all the same metrics in another app that I have to sync later on”.
365days a year, outside same app as inside but on my phone with all the sensors working as inside.
Record metrics without GPS to drain the batteries. They’ll find a way someday but that’s the future of an app that covers all and facilitate the life of cyclists.
It takes 5min to reinstall a wheel on our bike but it takes hours to try to get all our metrics in the same plateforme.
But I like Rouvy so I will try it.
You make an interesting point. This one window approach makes a lot of sense! Although, the industry seems to have been moving in the other direction, where various apps specialize in different aspects of cycling and fitness, but then generally allow other 3rd party apps to connect and share data amongst themselves. And then you have Strava. Strava's new CEO clearly stated when he joined the company that he wants his app to be the central hub for fitness data and the keeper all cycling data, sort of speak. Strava also announced, just a few days ago, big changes to their privacy policy that really restricts what 3rd party apps can do with user data.
The stat I read is that there are over 20,000 apps that connect to Strava. Whatever the number, the current environment is very decentralized. I think there could be a huge shakeup coming, particularly if Strava loses its dominance in the market.
I've been using Rouvy for over a year now. I use it when the weather is bad. I race mainly in the Muckers Races. They have a wide variation of riders from beginners to pros. I often finish mid table. Why not try a Muckers Race on Rouvy.
I’ll have to give those races a try. I’m usually doing Zone 2 training on Rouvy these days which leaves little time for higher intensity races. I need to get back into the races. Thanks for sharing!
Thanks, I'm looking to buy my first indoor thingy and I'm still not sure what to get or how I'll use it. Engagement!
rouvy is more precise but only compatible with high end bikes (720 €) while zwift works fine on 400 € bikes. it's annoying oto have to pay 320 € just to be able to switch between softwares, but i guess if you want to perform good, you need a good tool, seems logic.
Thanks Mike, that was helpful and tempted me to try Rouvy again. Rouvy obviously scores on realism - great avatars and scenery, and the workouts are simpler and less - well, "entertainment-orientated" than Zwift's. That said, three things that slightly annoy me on Rouvy: 1. Excellent drafting info, BUT no steering (I have a Kickr bike), so you can't position yourself and have to rely on the auto piloting. 2. IMPOSSIBLE to control downhill segments as you very quickly spin out (I have got up to 135rpm). 3. In workout mode, Rouvy gives no info about mileage or speed AND there is no option to switch in and out of erg mode (if you want to sprint for a town sign, say :) ). Apart from that...I do miss not being able to interact/banter with others, but as that can sometimes get annoying on Zwift (especially when the convo turns to food 🙄), I am sure I will get used to it. Thanks again.
Yeah. You make good comments on the limitations of Rouvy. Many people have made the same comment as you made in your 3rd point. As for your 1st point, I’d like to see steering as well. I have to believe this is coming soon as most indoor smart bikes have unassigned shifter buttons that could be used to control steering. Not many of the indoor cycling apps allow for this functionality now, so that may be part of the reason Rouvy hasn’t made it a priority.
As for your 2nd point, I haven’t experienced the same problem. Yes, on downhill sections over 70 km/h, I’ll run out of gears, but it replicates what I’d experience on my road bike (since the gearing on my Kickr is set up exactly the same as on my road bike). To avoid running out of gears on downhill sections, you could configure your Kickr with a larger chainring.
Thanks for commenting. Good points!
I found that in workouts target cadence does not seem obvious in rouvy.
Interesting point. I don’t usually target cadence in my workouts, so I never even noticed. Thanks for watching.
Precisely that is the reason why I chose Rouvy. I want myself to prepare virtually for real world routes. How do you experience the realism of the climbs on the mountains?
Guys is there no sound on rouvy?
Just the beeps you get when you pass over menu items. Otherwise, Rouvy hasn’t enabled any other sounds.
I don’t even hear beeps lol
Thanks for your very good capsule. I’m between Roovy and Zwift, two good apps for sure. But your capsule confirm that I prefer riding in real environment and Roovy is best. Thanks again and more videos on Roovy start, perform, secrets ?
Thanks. Will do. Viewers seem to like Rouvy content.
I’ll give Rouvy a free trail spin on my vacation in January. Curious to see how it works with an iPad and Nero Smart Rollers
Does Rouvy let me simulate the gradient with my smart trainer?
…yes, provided it’s a compatible smart trainer, which is pretty much anything with ANT+ or Bluetooth connectivity. The resistance on your trainer will change based on the steepness of the grade.
Thank you!!
Great Review. Thanks a lot.
Glad it was helpful!
Just getting back into cycling more serious again after 5 years... so many options now. Going to finish my two week trial of Zwift and then jump over and try Rouvy. I see the draws of both. I'm an older gamer BUT sometimes I do think Zwift is a little "busy". Being able to ride real routes that aren't cartoon looking might win me over, it's a little "gamer" on Rouvy right? Also does anyone know of someone who has gotten Zwift Play to work on Rouvy? Someone will hack it!
I feel my Kickr Core reacts differently under Rouvy, Zwift and NyWhoosh. It could be a setting. My eyesight dislikes the way Rouvy blurs the peripherals. I start to focus on the outside rather than the centre.
I agree that the blurred (and shuttering) outer parts of the video could be improved. I've made that comment to them several times. The problem is that the original videos are being shot a too low of a frame rate for a vehicle moving at speeds faster than cyclists. When the video is slowed down to sync with our riding, the fps is too low to smooth out the video. I'm sure most videos are shot at something like 30 fps, when really they need to be using something around 120 fps at a minimum.
Whatever work for you. All my teammates are using zwift so there is no discussion for me. And because I am a gamer the xp stuff is a huge motivator. And also the big group riding stuff. Virtual shifting is also somehting rouvy don't support and is really great
All fair points. Thanks for watching.
👍 I game too. But I’m no draw to Zwift for the game part. In fact I still rock the starting gear lol. I stories just the ROUVY starting ride and immediately liked it. But I still didn’t jump to it fully. Like you my guys ride Zwift. But ROUVY continues to draw me.
@@theundead1600 I think both applications have their respective advantages and disadvantages. I would have already tried Rouvy, but I also have the Zwift Play Controllers and the virtual gear shifting in races or group rides is unbeatable. My smart trainer no longer has a cassette, but the Zwift Cog, which allows me to connect any of my bikes to the smart trainer. This is a clear point in favor of Zwift. However, I have watched TH-cam videos of Rouvy and find the AR graphics very appealing, so I can absolutely understand your opinion.
Couldn’t said it better myself 👍
You make some really good points about Rouvy. I have tried Rouvy and your description is spot on. So my question is why is Zwift then head over shoulders more popular than Rouvy? Based on demographics, Zwift must be doing something right.
Betamax was better than VHS but VHS won, there are many such instances where better doesn't win
@charlesmansplaining Yup. That describes my reluctance to change over to Rouvy. Too many miles and social connections on Zwift to jump ship now. Zwift’s starting gate emphasis on community and social aspects turned out to be why Zwift is, and likely will continue to be, the overall KOM. Zwift recognized from the start that a virtual environment is hugely augmented by social connectedness and apparently chose that over a more visually realistic environment. But as far as an immersive realistic experience, Rouvy is definitely the KOM.
@@andrew30m That’s a perfect example!
I agree with these posts. Zwift grew their subscriber base early on and developed a loyal customer base. The social networking part is also big. I’m sure Rouvy wil add rider-to-rider messaging (while on-course) within the next year which is needed to match Zwift. Zwift has a massive sales and marketing presence. Every time I see one of their pro riders pushing their app I think, that is money should have gone into software development to improve their product.
@@bikesbymike Too, they have been introducing quality hardware at a pretty affordable price and partnering with Wahoo. That may grow customer loyalty as well. Their marketing strategies have been pretty spot on.
is there any ghost though of previous pr?
...yes there is. Avatar of your PR for that route.
What are your thoughts on MyWoosh and GTA V Bike?
MyWhoosh has come on the scene in the last couple years as I direct competitor to Zwift. Their app most closely replicates the experience you get in Zwift as compared to other products on the market. Quite different then say Rouvy, though. They are funded by the UAE government and sponsor the UAE Emirates pro team, which is an indication of how seriously they want to compete in the indoor training space. Plus, they offer a free subscription, which will be appealing to a lot of riders. The two biggest criticisms you hear from those that have reviewed the app are: 1) It doesn't (yet) have all that many users, so participation in races and social networking is limited, and 2) It's a form of sportswashing.
I'm not a gamer, but I can see how GTA V Bike would appeal to riders that are. From a quick glance, it looks mighty impressive. The graphics look more advanced as compared to either Zwift or MyWhoosh.
Is the Tacx Roadfeel supported?
Even though Rouvy supports Tacx smart trainers, I do not believe the Roadfeel feature works in Rouvy.
Rouvy is the best. I have tried Zwift, Trainer Road. Fantastic the virtual reality. I also like the search feature where I can ask for routes that have more tha say 15 Km and less than 20 km together with more than say, 200 m and less than 225 m. Amazing.
I agree. The one small tweak I wish they would add, is the ability to choose a route from your saved “Favourites” folder when selecting a route for a workout.
is Rolla still a thing?
That's a good question. Maybe one of the viewers knows. They made a splash when they came on the scene last year, but I've heard nothing of them recently. It appears the app is still available, so they must be alive and kicking.
👌 video - Probably you have answered this 100 time already, which indoor spin bike are you using? 🙏
…the Wahoo Kickr Bike. Thanks for watching.
After 2 years, I've just cancelled Rouvy. i love it but it is just so flaky. Ages to boot up, freezes regularly even on downloaded rides and constantly disconnects from the companion app. Am I alone on this?
Pretty sure it’s a hardware issue, or slow WiFi. Two of my friends were running it off old laptops and experiencing the same issues. They both bought Apple TVs and it runs flawlessly. I myself can stream routes and still it never hangs or drops a connection.
I had the same issues. After switching to a mesh wifi system in my house, it now works great.
I find it runs much better on a modern tablet (android app is good, if you're on that ecosystem). Always follow the usual good practice to close other apps, free up space etc. If you don't, I agree it can be flaky. Also as with zwift if you don't get on the race course at least 5 mins before then you can struggle at peak times as everybody tries to join
I really love Rouvy. Only things I am missing is ability to completes routes during workout and posibility to modifiying data fields in free ride and workout views. Overall it is perfect app
Just made the switched from Zwift to Rouvey. Love the Augmented reality. Unfortunately, had to give up the Hub One (virtual gears). Its a great feature if one has multiple bikes to fit to the trainer. Nevertheless, I've gone back to the cassette style trainer because the reality is so terrific.
Nice! Yes, a number of people have mentioned that they wished the Zwift Hub One was compatible with Rouvy. Some day, maybe.
This would be insane on Apple Vision Pro
That would be very cool. Even better if they could make it with lighter, cycling-type glasses. I’d never want to go outside!
Interesting thank you. From this video I took a trial and tested it. In terms of on screen graphics and the performance it's excellent. However I was totally let down by the realism - which is the selling point. I did my first ride on the Frankfurt IM course as I live there and know it well. The gradients were all over the place and completely wrong. -2.7% riding flat by the river, the first 6% climb is 1.5% on Rouvy - here I smashed the pros. It ruined it for me. The platform is great but it needs to have correct gradients, otherwise what's the point? I'm trying Fulgaz tomorrow, same course. We'll see :) thanks for your time to do this!
Thanks for sharing that. Interesting. Given the route is so far off the mark, you may want to reach out to the Rouvy folks and ask them why. I thought they verified elevation data before publishing all new routes (even in the past when user-created routes were permitted). I've tried a lot of routes that I've ridden both virtually and in real life and they were bang on in terms of gradients. Anyways, your experience is certainly disappointing. Please share your experience with Fulgaz when you've had time to test it out. I do like Fulgaz for the realism, but don't like the lack of races and group riding options.
@@bikesbymike I will. Well done with the video, and thanks
@@bikesbymike Hi! So I rode the Fulgaz version today. The app itself is nowhere near as good as Rouvy - it's buggy, the interface is missing basics (like the buttons changing colour when you press them), the search often broke and I got annoyed quickly. Nevertheless, the ride itself was good (second time, first time it crashed). You can even select a section of a route, which is really cool. The section I rode was the same as I rode on Rouvy and similar watts to my IM in real life - the Fulgaz speed was almost the same as real life and the gradients pretty much spot on. Rouvy I was 6kmh faster - due to the off gradients. I'm like you in that I need something different to Zwift. I'm going to try Tacx as well. Again, thanks for your video.
@@richardallbert Nice. Thanks for the rundown on Fulgaz!
Which indoor bike do you use?
The Wahoo Kickr Bike
The perfect complement for Rouvy would be some lightweight well ventilated Apple Vision Pro.
Yup. That would make it really immersive.
Looks very nice. Unfortunately all other riders look so static without any movement. That breaks immersion very much.
You must be referring to their movements not being realistic, as their bodies and legs do move to simulate pedalling. Thanks for watching.
Very good review of the Roy platform. I used to have both Rouvy and Zwift. There are plenty of features I like about both, but over the years I've realized that having one is enough. For us recreational riders who have full time work days, there is simply not enough time to have two platforms and enjoy them both. For the past three years I've been a Zwift user and every year at the beginning of the year I end up with the same dilema.... should I go back to Rouvy for a year? Maybe this is the year after watching your review. Have a great 2024.
Thanks! Glad it was helpful. In the end, all apps have their pros and cons. It’s all personal preference as to what one prioritizes most. For me, anything that helps me forget that I’m indoors is a plus. Real world routes does that best for me.
As a long time subscriber of both ROUVY and ZWIFT I agree and disagree. On the experience ROUVY wins hands down and I agree on pre race reconnaissance, super helpful. I do use Zwift more for group rides however, there are just more of them and more people to ride with. Great review btw, thanks.
Maybe it's because I'm so used to the Zwift riders but the avatars/body shape with this just look awful to me. Do they even change with rider weight/height? I might try Rouvy racing at some point as I actually prefer smaller fields and tactical races as opposed to a blob of riders all sitting in, but I cannot be doing with racing AI
for me, Rouvy has the best graphics & routes but Zwift has the better community feel & group/racing events.
I just wish they would have continued their running option. I get these are mostly bike apps, but those of us who do both, there's few options left.
Long-time Zwift user and tried Rouvy but not convinced. In a way the realism is boring compared to the gamified experience and the dashboard isn’t easy to read on my TV (using Apple TV), but the gradient indicator is better. Probably won’t continue after free trial but may check back later and try again.
I assume most users are on Rouvy in "European time zones"? How does it look for American westcoast times?
You are right that the majority of users are in Europe, so more events/group rides/races occur earlier in the day for us North American riders. For you on the West Coast, my guess is that more races would appear in late afternoon and evening your time. Official Rouvy races, though, are equally provided throughout the day across all zones.
I'll be thrilled for some real competition in the market, but I think inertia of users is going to eventually do to Rouvy what it did to Wahoo Systm's RGT and others.
I’d be curious to know what the customer churn rate is for Zwift and how it’s been trending in recent years. Zwift also has the benefit of not having to worry about one strong competitor but rather a dozen smaller, weaker ones.
@@bikesbymikeAbsolutely agree.
I swtiched from Zwift to Rouvy 1.5 years ago and miss Zwift not one second.
Hi Mike. great video- was wondering if I could ask you a question here or should message you. thanks!
You can message me here or email me at mikemillar@rogers.com
That email got kicked back.. Sure that's it? @@bikesbymike
@@BarryJHoffman Sorry about that. I just switched from Rogers to Bell as my internet provider, so this backup email was automatically deleted. Use this email... BikesbyMike.yt@gmail.com
Rouvy, is for sure good!! But: Bkool is very similar and has much fore routes with video.
If I were to switch to another app, it would be to Bkool. Very high quality videos. But they need to add real life avatars and more racing and group ride options.
Been on BKool for the past 4 years. There are more videos but many of them seem to be recorded in a car or motorcycle at 30fps so it can get real choppy when you are climbing at cycling speeds and the video was filmed at 50mph. Solvable problem, as the video runtime is listed for each course, but it does cut down on the number of available routes. That said I stayed with BKool as I use the trainer for, well, training; I'm riding at a specific power output for a specified time (which is why I'm, simply, not at all interested in Zwift). Which brings me to the advantage of BKool over Rouvy (well, for me) you can ride in ERG mode on any course and there is something special about just setting your zone 2 power and just riding, it prevents you from relaxing or overexerting on climbs. I also use this feature for Tempo and Sweet Spot sessions, so easy to stay in zone with ERG, doesn't matter what the terrain is doing.
Workouts are also a bit hit and miss; sometimes they play video and others they do not. I'm divided on this, for Threshold work it's a bonus, but any workout over threshold I'm in too much pain to care
@@kevinlewis390 ...all good points. The frame rate issue seems to be a common theme among many apps. I'm glad to see that Rouvy has improved video smoothing in its last version release which was my biggest pet peeve. Several others have mentioned the lack of ERG mode as being a big issue. Odd that Rouvy hasn't addressed this when it should be quite a simple feature to tack on.
Dropped Zwift last month, biggest problem I have with Rouvy right now is that the weather in Phoenix is just too good to ride indoors. :)
Hah! If I lived in Phoenix, I would sell my spin bike 😂. Very jealous. You have some nice riding over there. Thanks for watching.
I wish Rouvy didn't scale back their running features as there are fewer running apps now
Thank you
You're welcome
More realistic is good, but you can never simulate a race. Until they can Simulate how it feels to be in a large group and the ability to lean and feel centripetal forces during the ride. Zwift is a more social platform. I do not like the gamification, but can ignore that. If Rouvy really wants my business. I would recommend they add something Zoom (or twitch) room (I know twitch does not have this) functionality. People can join a ride and add their cams and mics and speakers. So each rider can see the other, maybe have a conversation. To make the the ride more social, more like a typical group ride. Then Rouvy would really set it self apart from Zwift
I agree with you re the need for Rouvy to improve the social aspect. Others have commented on it as well. I’d even be happy with just some simple things, like being able to do a flick of the elbow to gesture to the rider behind that you are done pulling and want them to take a turn at the front.
#1 best feature of Rouvy: there is no one using it. Oh wait, is that a good thing?
swift sux always has its dark grim and gamey
Swift is a game, Rouvy for cycling
I haven't ridden Rouvy, and for one reason only. Zwift has the biggest user base and typically the most users online at any one time. I noticed in your videos there was like 10 riders on screen at any one time, even a race.
Clearly you are one of the crowd that doesn't like the "gamified" view, I have heard others repeat the same words. Personally it's not something I notice much. When I am riding I am focused on the group I am riding with, the goal I am chasing, the hill I am trying to get over. Everything else is just noise, plus if I am not heavily focused on particular targets, I am probably watching a video!
Zwift has an amazing and large community, that's why myself and many others live there. Come and join us a for a +100 rider social spin some time.
So, you chose Zwift because there are more users, but you don't care about it ?
You are right that Zwift blows away Rouvy in terms of participant numbers for both rides and races. It’s not even comparable. The main reason is that Zwift has more members. But another reason is that Rouvy has so many more course options to choose from that it dilutes the field for any one ride. If you choose a “most popular” recommended course or an official Rouvy organized race, you will likely see close to 100 riders at times convenient for European riders. You are also right that the first few Broll screen shots I put out was a race with only about 10 riders. User created races and group rides only usually attract about that number. I don’t mind for that particular one as it’s a regular series organized by the same group of guys, so we have a bit of camaraderie among this small group. If I want to compete against a larger field (which I admit is great), I join one of the official Rouvy races. Thanks for your comments. Cheers!
Currently (Northern hemisphere, winter) the popular races linked to ongoing challenges typically have 100-200 participants at peak times and they're pretty competitive (and generally free of cheaters). I'm not sure what benefit even more would bring to these events but I agree more subscribers overall would improve interactivity and participation outside of peak times, on a greater number of routes etc.
However one major benefit to Rouvy is you can always add ghost riders based on previous times, including your own, to any AR route
15 min. On Zwift feels like 45, boring! Watching my grandson play Mario is more exciting, zzzzzz. I will try Rouvy next.
I have been in Rouvy for a few years now and I think it is brilliant. Zwift is just a poorly made video. The "social" experience in Zwift is overrated, you are really riding along, look over your shoulder.
Can someone tell me if the route of the Ötztal Cycling Marathon is replicable in Rouvy? th-cam.com/video/WF1Ju-kWXzk/w-d-xo.html
Rouvy is much better in my opinion. There is one thing that Rouvy should improve and I think it is more important than even AR stuff which is the speed used for recording videos. Recording the videos at higher speeds than an average cyclist's speed causing very blurry images on the screen. They need improve and standardize the recording process for better experience.
Yes! That’s the one thing I keep complaining about whenever I get asked for my feedback. To their credit, I do notice that their newer routes tend to have less blurry of an image, so I suspect they were filmed at a higher frame rate.
I realize you love Rouvy but there are a lot of us riders that like both platforms. Why does extolling the virtues of Rouvy have to include degrading eye rolls and commentary of Zwift?
Fair point. My intention was not to insult Zwift users, so if that is how I came across, my apologies.
I think you need to sit abit further from your TV
If ROUVY would only make MTB content, the game would be over! No one would touch them.
Good point. That would be quite the niche. And make interval training a lot more interesting.
This may sound wild but if I want to feel like I’m riding outside I’ll just ride outside🤯
Long time Rouvy and Zwift user. Both have their place in the virtual world. I find Rouvy much buggier and their tech support is pathetic. I wish theyd stop with features until they fix their problems. Rouvy much better for Z2 and Z3 sessions.
Rouvy is for me much better than Zwift. It's much more enjoyable to ride real world routes than virtual with game like graphics on Zwift.
Thanks for commenting!
Obviously, Rouvy has the realism, but it is the social aspect that wins for zwift. Without that social aspect, zwift would not be as popular.
The social interactive piece is a big advantage to Zwift. Rouvy sent a survey questionnaire around about a year ago asking specifically about that aspect, so it’s definitely something they are considering. They will need to level-up if they hope to compete head-to-head with Zwift.
@@bikesbymike I chose Zwift over T.R. for the social side of riding with others as opposed to the torture chamber with numbers. I can do without the social media side of it, hunting for a pat on the back from folks I'll never know. I don't tweet facebook or anything other than Strava
Zwift routes are boring when compared with Rouvy climbs. I'm only on Zwift because of Wahoo's free one year subscription.
Do you need binoculars when youre riding indoors? Lol
Zwift is too game orientated.... As in bike upgraxdng etc....
no mtb mode, it sucks a lot. only zwift do it
ZWIFT is far superior to Rouvy. Why do you want real views when it's a virtual world. Watopia is far more interesting, and the racing is far more realistic.
….things that “blow away” Zwift? Hyperbole at its best. Debatably better maybe. When one picks a route to ride in ROUVY, it’s usually a lonely experience as there’s no one else around, unlike Zwift. If I wanted great scenery, 4K FulGaz wins hands down. The ROUVY avatar looks unnatural and appears pasted on a real world background. No thanks.
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Meh, the graphics are overrated. You're still on a trainer in a garage. There is a reason the Zwift community dwarfs the rest. Keep trying, meanwhile, Zwift is the best.
I’m on Zwift, Zwift is game, feels like a game, like Nintendo. It is fun but try to be objective. If Zwift would have been like Touvy, more people would be on Rouvy like Zwift.
Both have something to offert.
I will surely try Rouvy.
Your right there is a reason, because it's been around longest, I just switched and am super happy
Zwift is so boring
Racing on ROUVY is the worst thing i ever do…