This article is part of a series called ‘A love letter to…’, where Cycling Weekly writers pour praise on their favourite cycling items and share the personal connection they have with them. In this case, it is a break-up letter.
The moment felt symbolic. I pulled out the thru axle, lifted my bike frame off the trainer, and dropped it back onto the rear wheel, which had been gathering dust against my bedroom wall. Wow, I thought. So that’s what it looks like put together.
Then, straining my noodle-like arms, I picked up my Zwift Hub One and packed it away in its box. It had been a long winter, a particularly challenging one for me too, but just as the Coca-Cola advert signals the start of the festive season, the re-boxing marked the dawn of brighter days.
Five months have now passed since I first received my indoor trainer. I planned to win the Cycling Weekly 10-mile time trial, which takes place on Zwift every Wednesday. The task at hand was mammoth, the ambition wildly naive. My power numbers were average at best, and I was up against racing royalty in Dr Hutch, a former multiple British champion.
For a month or so, I trained hard. I even got my heart rate to 200 beats per minute at one point, which Google told me afterwards was "dangerously" high. The risks, I figured, would pay off when race day came. Did I win? Not even close. I finished almost five minutes adrift, 29th from a field of 72.
My fitness, however, was at an all-time high. I was so proud of it that I started watching what I ate at Christmas, and set out to go dry of alcohol in January. Winter miles mean summer smiles, after all. I’ll be flying when the sun comes out.
Then disaster struck. For all the power I had gained on Zwift, I hadn’t had to corner on a bike in weeks. One cold, windy night, riding my single speed through the city, I slid out on a bend, crashed to the floor, and broke my face in three places, fractured my wrist too.
Days later, I underwent surgery. Recovering in bed, the cast on my arm felt cumbersome and itchy, its vinegary odour an unpleasant extra. Nigh on a month passed before I could return to exercise, and I was scared. Scared of the elements outdoors, the sightless evenings, and the tarmac that caused me such damage.
My Zwift journey, I thought, had ended with the final pedal stroke of my race. But, weak and afraid, my trainer offered me a lifeline - a safe path back to fitness. I climbed back on the saddle and, whincing at the slighest pressure on my broken wrist, started to spin again.
This Sunday, our clocks go forward an hour, marking the start of British Summer Time. The afternoons will feel longer, they’ll be brighter, and the temperature will start to rise through the double figures. Now, it’s time to head outside. It’s time for me to say farewell to Zwift.
If my trainer were sentient, I would open up its box, look fondly down at it, and tell it that our parting is not forever. I’ll see you again in six months, I would say. Maybe a single tear would fall from its sprocket. Thank you for all your help this winter, I would continue, but summer is for outdoors.
