The words ‘crazy’, ‘indoor’ and ‘cyclist’ are commonly found furnishing the same sentence, forming questions like: how does anyone sit on a static bike for hour upon hour without once breaching the four walls of their garage or utility room? For those of us not yet bitten by the indoor cycling bug, it’s tempting to assume that these cycling shut-ins have had a screw come loose.
But with smart-trainers gracing more and more homes, it’s apparent that riding indoors is not only acceptable these days but quite the norm. In Cycling Weekly’s recent reader survey, 70% said they train or race indoors at least occasionally. But as we’re about to find out, some riders take virtual reality riding to a level far beyond dodging a drenching outdoors. We speak to a selection of riders fanatical about indoor pedalling and ask about the method, as well as the motivation, to their madness.
One of the longest ever rides
Dr Alex Stavrinides’s epic Zwift ride, in which he achieved an incredible 1,851km in a single sitting, started in a galaxy far, far away…
“If you watch all the films end-to-end,” says 42-year-old Stavrinides, “you can watch them all in 24 hours. So I thought I’d try and watch them all while Everesting.” The Audax aficionado had, like many cyclists, begun to embrace the indoor riding platform during the Covid-19 lockdown, and his trip
