Given the temperature in Lisbon at the start of the Vuelta a España as I sat down with a delegation from Rouvy it was hard even to contemplate riding indoors. Perhaps, with climate change progressing as it is, indoor training will become as much an activity for midsummer in air-conditioned rooms as it is for escaping stormy weather through the darker months. In any case, indoor cycling was the order of the day as I sat down in a mercifully cool hotel lobby with two route creators from Rouvy.
For those of you unfamiliar with the brand, it’s a competitor to Zwift, but instead of heading down the gamification route it instead aims to reach a zenith of realism that’s second only to riding outdoors. This means real roads, with your avatar superimposed on them. How, then, does one create a 3D world, in which a virtual rider on screen can have his or her shadow play across terrain, or other riders disappear behind trees? That’s what I was here to find out.
