Promotional feature in association with Rouvy
What makes a great cycling location? Smooth roads, hills, mountains, and sweeping descents, of course. But above all: sun, clear blue skies and orange sunsets. Lots of it. It can feel like northern hemisphere winters are immune to the big ball of red in the sky, our sunny cycling journeys forced to wait until the clocks spring forward once again, but it doesn’t have to be that way.
Far cheaper than cheating the system and hopping on a plane to the southern hemisphere, cyclists can log onto Rouvy, an indoor cycling software that broadcasts camera footage of real-life routes, and transport themselves to the sunny climes of California, Mallorca and Australia.
Even in the depths of winter, thanks to Rouvy, it’s possible to ride under a (virtual) beating sun and not have to worry about beating the rain. “I mostly love to ride outside, but when it’s raining – like so many times this year – I’m happy to have Rouvy,” says user Jo Gennez. “I like to ride the routes of races like the Tour Down Under and La Vuelta.”
Indeed, routes from the past four editions of the Vuelta a España are available to ride on Rouvy, with Strava segments built-in. That means, even if the sky is grey outside, it’s possible to be riding past the olive groves in Andalucía in southern Spain, or by the Mediterranean coast in Valencia or Barcelona.
Users can also complete workouts – from Rouvy or imported from Training Peaks – while riding sun-blessed routes, and seeing exactly what they’d be witnessing if they were physically there in real life. Never before have the pleasures and realism of outdoor riding been replicated indoors. “With Rouvy, it’s so much easier to find routes with a lot of climbing than in my own backyard,” Gennez adds.
Many others agree. “I never understood how people ride on a trainer instead of going outdoors,” Erlend Kraus begins, “but so far this year I’ve looked around 2,000km outdoors and 5,000km indoors.” We’re sure Kraus has good local riding, but why would he ride the same loops over and over again when he can log onto Rouvy and choose from over 1,500 routes from across the world?
And those routes really are from all over the globe. Covering six continents, sun-seekers can transport themselves to the lakes of northern Italy, the islands of Greece, and even on the 2016 Olympic road race course in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
They say that it’s easier to ride when the weather’s good – after all, most of us are fair-weather cyclists, right? – and the consequence is often that we stay out for longer and continue to explore. On Rouvy, personal benchmarks are consistently reached. “I used to be afraid of hills and climbs, but thanks to Rouvy that’s long gone,” Kraus adds. “Routes with 200 or 300 metres of climbing used to feel like real challenges – but now when I see routes with 1,000 metres of climbing, I don’t even bat an eye.”
So as the rain falls outside or the wind picks up, cyclists no longer need to feel like a sunny cycling ride is a distant possibility. Simply log on to Rouvy, choose from the hundreds and hundreds of sun-drenched routes and train by tricking yourself that it’s a hot summer’s day. Your fitness levels will thank you, too.
