Beginners Guide to Rouvy
Rouvy is a ride simulator / training aid for indoor riding which has similarities and significant differences compared to the much more widely marketed Zwift.
Full details of which trainers can be used are available on the Rouvy site but the App can be used with either "Smart" or "non-Smart" trainers. Non-smart trainers can be bikes or trainers with power or speed sensors. In either case your riding output is translated to a riding avatar on screen. This is where things get interesting for Rouvy because you can choose to ride your avatar across a wide range of real world video recorded routes to experience both a more interesting indoor ride and also to see and partially experience some of the most famous routes in the world, without leaving your home. The riding screen displays useful information such as speed, gradient, wattage, watts per kilo as well as the profile of the ride and your position on it compared to other riders on the route.
As an attractive feature Rouvy offers a free two week trial to let you get to know the features before you have to pay for a subscription, which costs Euro15 a month for a rolling contract or slightly less per month if you commit to 6 or 12 months. You need to download the Rouvy app and include some details about yourself but this is all relatively painless. We found it easiest to go on the app and download a few of the Augmented Routes so that they are ready when you want to ride.
In our experience the key things to consider with Rouvy versus Zwift would be as follows:
1) In our experience Rouvy is much more stable from a technology perspective than Zwift and is also far quicker to get riding (particularly when you have downloaded a route ahead of time)
2) Although there are race features and group rides can be organised on Rouvy there is certainly more of a "race scene" on Zwift
3) Personal preference for riding around a computer game on Zwift compared to seeing real world routes on Rouvy. The popularity of Zwift also means that you will often be surrounded by dozens of people whereas on Rouvy it feels like you can have a quiet solo ride if prefer that!
If you are interested to learn more about Zwift then you can also check out our guide to that HERE
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