Bikes and Banjo Hangouts: The Zwift Insider Struck a Chord Creating Niche Online Communities

Eric Schlange is one of the most well known Zwift riders on the platform, and he comes to the notoriety honestly. When Eric started Zwifting in 2015, the engineer and web master immediately identified a need for a Zwift knowledge base to address the nuances of riding in the brave new virtual world. Exponential traffic growth led to an official Zwift sponsorship, cementing Zwift Insider's credibility. This story does not entail scale-at-all-costs entrepreneurship. Instead it is one of a self-professed community builder who understands the need, power and commercial value of niche online hubs. In fact, Zwift Insider was not Eric’s first rodeo - that was www.banjohangout.com - THE banjo enthusiast destination for more than 20 years!

Sure enough, Eric is exactly the kind of guy you’d hope to be riding and racing with on the platform: friendly, witty, competitive and resourceful. He demonstrates the core values and class of a true esport ambassador and this interview reflects his passion and ability to articulate both soft and hard reasons that Zwift earns precious hours of devotee training. This interview covers Zwift Insider’s adolescence before organized platform racing, broad usership data, and a taste of the product roadmap, with Eric’s insider insight and stories sprinkled throughout.  You would be so lucky to race alongside Eric in Watopia, Richmond or Glasgow. RIDE ON! 

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Transcript

0:14

Hey. This is Sam Huntington, and you're listening to Hill Climbers. Over the last 10 years, I've ridden bikes in Philadelphia and then LA and more recently, Austin, Texas. And it's been one of my life's pleasures to meet 100 of cyclists over the course of this time. And, sure, there's been friendships and camaraderie built around some healthy competition on group rides and and on Strava, And and that's great, but Hill Climbers is really paying homage to those, cyclists I've met that I admire off the bike. These are individuals that have really fascinating stories. They're they're building businesses or or they're part of the cycling zeitgeist in alternative ways. And I think it is a fantastic opportunity here with this podcast to tell stories of what they're doing off the bike that, maybe you you would never hear about on the group ride riding next to them. Eric Schlange is one of the most well known Zwift riders on the platform, and he comes to the notoriety honestly. When Eric started Zwifting in 2015, the engineer and webmaster immediately identified a need for a Zwift knowledge base to address the nuances of riding in the Brave New virtual world. Exponential traffic growth led to an official Zwift sponsorship, cementing zi's credibility. Notice this story does not entail scale at all costs entrepreneurship. Instead, it is one of a self professed community builder who understands the need, power, and commercial value of niche online hubs. In fact, Zwift Insider was not Eric's first rodeo. That was www.banjohangout.com, the Banjo enthusiast destination for more than 20 years. Sure enough, Eric is exactly the kind of guy you'd hope to be riding and racing with on the platform, friendly, witty, competitive, and resourceful. He demonstrates the core values in class of a true esport ambassador, and this interview reflects his passion and ability to articulate both soft and hard reasons that Zwift earns precious hours of devotee training. This interview covers Zwift's adolescence before organized platform racing, broad usership data, and a taste of the product roadmap with Eric's insider insight and stories sprinkled throughout. You would be so lucky to race alongside Eric in Watopia, Richmond, or Glasgow. Right on. Eric, and I'm I'm gonna let you pronounce your, your last name because I I might butcher it. Eric Schlange? Schlange. Schlange. You got it. You nailed it. I've heard that a couple times, so I I'm glad I could, could get get it right. Welcome to Hill Climbers. Well, welcome to the show. Thanks for having me, Sam. Looking forward to chatting with you. Yeah. Likewise. And I think the first thing I'll mention is the way that that, you know, I'd met Eric, who is the the founder of of Zwift Insider. It was through Zwift? It was through a a Zwift race. I guess it was, through Racing Bees, and it was one of the one of the series. But is it, like, Zwift Worlds series, or or am I butchering that? I was trying to remember which race it was. Was it the Zwift Games? Zwift Games. Thank you. If I if I was doing my homework, I woulda looked at that, before the show. But but, I had the, we, Eric and I made the selection. It was probably, you know, 30, 40 racers. We made a 8, 10 person selection, and, it was a long sprint. And I was, like, 5th or so. And Eric was on my wheel, and I I got him by, like, you know, a literally a fraction of a second. So, I was very pleased, to find out that that I had gotten Eric on the line, and it was Eric Schleine from from Zwift Insider. So a very, very illustrious, first connection with Eric. I poked a little fun on Strava and said I got, you know, Zwift Insider on the line. And that's how that's how we got, Eric here on the show. I I reached out and and asked him to join us. So what a perfect connection for for Eric, the Zwift Insider. If I had a nickel for every Zwift race I've lost, I'd have I'd have over a 1,000 nickels. So, yeah, happy to, happy to be on your wheel. You promised me you were leading me out for the sprint, and then you you didn't pull off. So I was Right. Right. Right. Yeah. Because with within that last k where, you know, my heart rate's at at 175 or or, you know, I I texted you and said, hey. This is old. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, man. What a what a pleasure. So, for for those that that are not familiar, I'll I'll give a little blurb, a little summary of Zwift Insider, and then and then maybe I'll let you give your own, version. But, you know, I've been Zwift racing for, pretty consistently for the last few years, last 3 years or so. My buddy, Pete, who was very fit, kinda said, hey. You know, it's a great way to get in shape. And then I sort of, I'd been in, on the platform for for a long time, but I didn't I didn't realize kinda how sticky some of the, you know, training with other folks is and and then and then racing. So, you will find if you get into Zwift, racing that it helps to to have intel on the courses, and that that goes for any individual race as well as, you know, I got a group together for Zwift Racing League. And you wanna compete. You wanna, you know, know where the climbs are, especially. So Zwift Insider is my go to resource for that. You can just type in a Google search for, you know, the the Zwift course and then Zwift Insider. So that that was you know? And and Eric and his team will learn more about the business. We'll give you a profile of the course, you know, the the climbs, the the, percentage elevation, the the duration of the climbs, etcetera. So, that's how I, you know, know Zwift Insider. And I guess, Eric, do you wanna give a short summary, and then we'll we'll get get into it? Yeah. It's, my kind of my vision for Zwift Insider is that it's the it's it's the community clearinghouse of the Zwift information. So it's it's a lot of things. It's it's kind of yeah. It's got kind of the dictionary of route information. It's got a smart trainer database with details on all the smart trainers, basically, that have ever been released, KOM and segment information. But then it's also got stuff like interviews with Zwifters and information about new events that are coming up and anything Zwifty kind of news. Like, every time they release a game update, we go into detail about what those are. So kind of everything that any Zwifter would be interested in Zwift wise, I try to cover it, although there's certainly some stuff we miss. Yeah. And there there's a lot going on. Like, I realized that I should have been using you your you guys as a resource for, the the series. You know, it like, I've been, I I think it's a lot of funds. WF does basically a monthly race series where they'll pick a theme and then have different races, like, every week. And Eric covers, you know, what those are and and, you know, what Zwift is maybe doing a little bit differently. So, yeah, I'm I'm a I'm a fan, Eric. It's it's nice to to have you here. So, you know, just to just to kinda, like, jump into the full story, would love to hear about your your background. Like, you know, I I know you had, gotten introduced to to racing earlier in your life. Can you can you tell or I'm sorry, riding earlier in your life. Can you tell us a little bit about that? Or Yeah. Yeah. And I didn't race early in my life, but I probably like right when I got into high school, right around that age, a dude moved into our town, and I live in a small town area, so it's not like there's, it's a, you know, a big city where there's tons of cyclists. There, it really wasn't, there wasn't really much of a cycling community here, but a guy moved into our town, started going to our church. His name was Gary Musacco. And he had competed at Kona, you know, Ironman, 4 or 5 times at that point in his life. And he was just a stud, just like your classic Italian hard man. And he got my dad and some other guys into cycling. He would he taught them all how to ride, basically. All the all the stuff that that, you know, the the first principles that you learn as a cyclist, like, hey. You need to spin your pedals faster. You're pedaling too slow. How to climb and, you know, pacing and all of that stuff. To teach you. Yeah. That's important stuff. Yeah. Someone does. It does. And, and I got into it kind of because I saw my dad doing it. And there were there was kind of a second generation of a a few of our you know, the dads taught their sons. And so you were like, 3 day bike outings and stuff. Awesome. And you you were, like, in high school, like, that that age? Or Yeah. Yeah. High school. Maybe, like, 8th grade. But I got I was doing some mountain biking a little bit, but a lot of it was road riding, and just just enjoying riding with friends and going stupidly fast on a really crappy old bike that had bad breaks. I I mean, all the all the stuff you would do as a high schooler. Yeah. But I I felt smart because I was not a smart then. No. Not at all. Fell in love with the whole culture of cycling and just everything about especially road riding, but I was into the mountain biking side of it too. Just everything about it. Working on the bikes and the history of the Tour de France and just all that stuff. It it all it fascinated me, and I and I felt like it was kind of my niche as an athlete. I mean, I've always, I was into all the sports, like I played a lot of soccer, baseball and stuff, and I enjoyed those. But I felt like cycling was more my thing. Like, maybe just mentally, I'm more suited to the endurance athlete sort of a mentality. Yeah. So it's also That was just started. I'm I'm always kinda tickled and and envious of folks that, got onboarded into the sport as as younger individuals, it's, that kind of fascinates me. I I think, you know, I I still think it's relatively uncommon to to, run into someone that's been, you know, a a lifelong cyclist. So I always I always get I'd I'd love to see more like a, like, high school. Right. High school age, you know, cycling teams. There our schools here have mountain bike teams now. And I I I tell If you're you're in, you're in north Northern California. Right? Yeah. Yeah. Just our county is Lake County, which is just north of Napa County. So Right. It's kinda like Napa. It's like a like a low income Napa, basically. But Well, I that sounds pretty good to me. Yeah. It it is pretty nice. It's it's an affordable map. It's really Right. Right. I tell the kids on our local cycling teams, like, you guys don't know how good you have it. This is so cool. You got 20 or 30 of you. You got adult coaches. You're going to races on the weekends. Like, I would have I would have killed for that when I was your age. We we talked a little bit about, you know, entrepreneurship and and, being your own boss kind of run running in your family? Yeah. Just part of who I was, I think. I yeah. I have a, a lot of a lot of close relatives, local relatives, like uncles, especially, who were in the like like carpenters or home builders as I was growing up. Another one owned an auto part auto parts store, so he worked for himself as an owner of that. And, yeah, to me, I never I never thought of that as exceptional. I just thought thought that that was just the way that a lot of people did things. I think I thought it was a lot more common than it is, really, because I grew up around it. And I remember my my dad wasn't self employed, but I remember him telling me something that stuck with me as a kid. He he said, what's the saying? Find a job doing something that you love and you won't work a day in your life. I remember him saying that, and I thought I thought, okay. Like that, I remember locking that into my head as a kid. Like, I gotta I gotta find a way to make money doing something I enjoy. So That's a big deal. That idea. And that idea that you don't have to just have a job that sucks. Right? Like, you can find a job doing something enjoyable. So that stuck in my mind. And and my grandpa, who also was local and we were close, he, he was a lifetime, he was a career cop, but he was an entrepreneurial guy, and he told me, I don't know how many times he told me, Eric, I always had something going on on the side. He always had some side business gig, something that he was doing on the weekends and at night to to make extra money, and he just loved doing that. And he kinda he passed that DNA down to my mom. And I got I think I got my entrepreneurialism from my mom who did. She was like a Tupperware sales been saleswoman. Yeah. When I was growing up, she did a lot of thing a lot of entrepreneurial stuff herself too. So, yeah, it was great. I just saw it as I saw it as normal. Very very cool. Yeah. And, needless to say, you know, that this, this part of your upbringing, kind of took you into, being your being your own boss pretty early. So you you, I guess you you were studying engineering. Is that is that right? In in school or I went I went in as a civil engineer because I worked for a civil engineer in high school. And I thought, oh, this is a this is a fun job. I I enjoyed the stuff I was doing for him. So I thought, if I'm gonna get a job doing something I enjoy, how about this? So I went in, but I pretty quickly realized that it was not at least the schooling wasn't any fun. I remember sitting in the room, I took an intro to civil engineering class, like one credit hour, and I remember sitting in the room, maybe the first class, and I looked around and I thought, these are not my people. I'm in the wrong I'm in the wrong class. These these guys are like, they're they're nerds and not like cool nerds. They were like engineering nerds. And it just wasn't, you know, whatever. Yeah. I just decided that wasn't for me. So I got into I changed my major to what was my major actually called? Computer information systems is what it was called. So it was basically like a double I couldn't decide if it was a double major or a double minor, but it was like computer science with business administration tied into it, which were I was already into computers, like I built my own in high school, and I loved the tech behind it. And I had learned how to build websites in high school. And this was before people learned how to build websites in high school. And and to to date to date us, we're talking about, I guess, mid nineties. Is that is it? Yeah. I graduated high school in 97. So Right. Yeah. I was, my, yeah, my freshman year of college started in 97. Yeah. Kind of went into as a computer science guy and also business because I thought by that point, I was already I had already built a few websites for money. Like, people had paid me to do computer work. And I thought, I think that's just what I'm gonna do. I'm just gonna I'm gonna build websites and make a living. Something you weren't enjoying for the most part. Something I yeah. It was great. I I love the challenge of always having to learn new stuff. I liked the mixture of technical and creative because I'm both of those. Like, I like programming, but I don't want to program 8 hours a day. And I like designing. I like graphics, but I'm not, like, a creative enough guy to just do that. I'd fry my brain too. So it was a mix of those, and and the business side of it was intriguing. So and were you that was that would work. You were taking on, it sounds like, in individual, website development projects. And and were you, kind of one man operation, or or did you get, other freelancers, on board? How did that work? At that time, I was a one man operation because I was just I was, you know, a freshman and sophomore in college, working in Illinois, like, out, you know, I was away from my network. I was away from California, where I'd grown up. It was back when you still had to pay money for long distance phone calls. So it was like Mhmm. It was harder to network back then. Honestly, it was just a it was a different world. You didn't have you didn't do Zoom calls. So, yeah, I was just working for myself, building building small sites, just like a handful of customers here and there. But but it was perfect. It was the perfect job because I could just make my own hours, and it was, you know, maybe 5, 10 hours a week. I was just working from my dorm room, making making a little bit of extra money. And I remember I remember early on in that, it might have even been before I went to college, I remember somebody approaching me and saying, Hey, I heard you have a business building websites. And I kind of took a step back, and I thought, Do I have a business? I don't have a I don't have a business. And then I realized, well, they're paying me to do something. I guess I do. Like, I hadn't I didn't have a name for my business. Like, they just couple of people had written me checks to build the websites. But that was that was me kind of stumbling into owning my own business. I guess there's there's 2 ways to own your own business. I discovered you can buy a business or just start making money doing something. Yeah. Just what I did. And so, did did this sorta, transition you you you started the business during college, and then and then what was what was next? Did did you just continue building? Yeah. So I I got married in college as well, and my senior year of college, during Christmas break is when I built what became the Banjo Hangout website, which is which I still run to this day. So that was like a that was kind of a passion project. My wife helped me share the, banjo story because there there is a back background story. Yeah. Yeah. But I I was a was a musician already. I played guitar for several years, but my wife got me a banjo for Christmas because she had heard me listening to Alison Krauss in Union Station and saying that I love the sound of the banjo. So she gives me this banjo, and we are snowed in in Peoria, Illinois, freezing rain everywhere. Like, you can't even drive on the streets. And I'm looking for something to do for my 5 week Christmas break in college. 5 weeks, not 4 weeks, 5 weeks in the in the worst place ever. How to how to play the banjo. Right? So I thought, yeah, I'll just I'll just look up lessons online and and learn like I like I did with guitar a lot. And and there weren't any I didn't find any great banjo websites. There was just this smattering of little websites. So I thought, I'm gonna build a website that just lists all of these almost just as a reference for myself. Just here's a central place where you can find all these different lessons that I've discovered, and then I'll I'll learn how to play banjo. Maybe this will help some other people. Didn't even buy a domain name. It was like it was at a it was my business's domain name for website business slash banjo. That was where the site began. But pretty quickly, I saw that yeah. I saw there was a there were people who were interested in it, and I I built a I chose the banjo hangout name, launched it in January of 2,000 After after the world didn't melt down when the clock set over to 2,000, I decided it was time to set people up. Yeah. Still banjo players. So, yeah. So that site started and and it just grew from there. I mean, there's that's the whole story in itself of how it evolved. But but to this day, it's still I mean, it it makes me money. It's the world's most popular social network for banjo players, and it has been for 20 year 24 years. Incredible. It just blows my mind. And, yeah, it's just super cool. Lots of great stories there of, like, I mean, you you build this community of 1,000 tens of 1,000 of banjo players, and now what do you do with it? You can you know, like, this there was a banjo a banjo builder who had a fire in his shop and had, was injured and had a like, couldn't pay his medical bills, and we did a fundraiser for it. It. And, like Wow. Like, like, helped him out that way or and we've done different fundraisings. Just just super cool stuff like that that you're able to do when you've got 50,000 people who are who are thinking about the same things and have the same passion. And and community is a is a theme on this show. And and, you know, needless to say, we wanna touch on it with with Zwift as well. And and you, you know, you you, you kinda struck that that chord again with, with the community of of Zwift riders and Zwift racers. So really, really powerful powerful stuff. And by the way, I didn't I didn't wanna, let this one go. Like, you you've got sort of, you know, a a tagline or or, or moniker. Right? Like, you know, bikes and banjos. Is it banjos and bikes? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. When I, when I incorporated in order to, when I made the shift in I don't even know when that was. 2017, 2018 to where I I got rid of some business interest and just went full on just Banjo Hangout and Zwift stuff. I I did a fresh corporation for that, and I called it Velo Banjo Incorporated because that's all it is. It's it's like it is. Yeah. That's all I do now. Yeah. Incredible. And I've I've told my wife, I'm I'm happy. Just just let me let me just ride off into the sunset doing this. Right. I've got I've had no complaints. Banjo under one arm, you know? Yeah. Let last part of the the bars. Yeah. Just peddling my peddling my ego by saying don't fall over. Awesome. You know, I wanted to jump into into Zwift and, and the story there with with, Zwift's blog, which turned into Zwift Insider. But I think I think you mentioned you started Zwifting around 2016 or 2017. Is that about right? 2016 It was late 2015. It was Okay. Alright. Even then. November 2015 is when I my first Zwift ride. Can you can you share with with us just just the story of how you you discovered Zwift and kinda like what what your initial, reactions were? Kinda how how how you felt about, you know, you being a user on the platform? Yeah. It was for me, the what didn't get me was the just the simulation, you know, just the graphics, the virtual world. That isn't what grabbed me. Because that's I feel like that's that had already been done. I mean, you had maybe it hadn't been done as well, CompuTrainer or whatever, but we're we're used to video games where we run through stuff. That wasn't a big leap. For me, the big leap was seeing other riders next to me, seeing their flags, and going, Oh, that guy's in the UK pedaling right now. And I can sit on his wheel and draft. That's crazy. That's that's different. And I still I still get a kick out of it. I mean, I'll get in a race with 50 people, and they're they're 25 nationalities. I mean, it's awesome. And when you explain that to someone when I explain Zwift, I that's I that's that's like a key part of it to to anyone, you know, like to non cyclists especially. I'm so glad you bring this up. It's a cycling video game. So it's like a video game that makes you sweat. You're riding your bike indoors. But what's really cool is you're seeing everybody else all over the world riding in real time. So you're riding with people from other countries and you're interacting with them as you ride and you race. And people are like, Oh, by the way, I'm sorry. Sorry to interrupt you. But, when I start to describe it, almost everyone, the majority of people and I and I share this with people all the time. They say, Oh, it's like Peloton. And I'm like, no. It is absolutely like Peloton. And and then I have to explain that it's it's a video game. That it's not just a leaderboard, and you're here, and then you're here, and then you're here. Your avatar is actually racing people all around the world. And it's, like, it's just like a video game. And then the light the light goes off, and they're like, oh, that's really cool. But initially, they're like, oh, it's like Peloton. Like, it is it is absolutely not just like Peloton. It's not a it's not a spin class. I refuse. No. That's that's a good call out. That's important. Where were we? So you were talking about my first impression. So it wasn't the wasn't really the graphics. It was the it was the social experience. Because I had just gotten back into road riding, a little less than a year before that. And for me, what had grabbed me and and held me in in road cycling now that I've returned to it was we have this tight community of local riders. And I love that social aspect of riding with other guys, pushing ourselves to the limit, chatting when we're on an easy ride like that. That's what I look forward to. I didn't wanna ride by myself. I wanted to ride with others and interact with them and be pushed in competition when we were doing that. And I saw that, wow, I could do this at my house. Because I I the weather had already turned bad where I lived, and I had already done some trainer sessions. I bought a set of rollers, my first set of rollers, and crashed repeatedly. And and, but they were still cool. It was, they actually riding rollers helped me. I mean, as as you might know, like, it's actually really good for your form. But but, yeah, just doing that, it was fun. And this is gonna be a slog. You you took a a long hiatus from from bikes. Right? I did. Yeah. So I I rode all through high school. And, basically as soon as high school was done, I didn't ride seriously again for 17 years because I was, I was 35 years old when I started riding again. And it was because I knew I knew how much I loved cycling. Like, I still kind I still followed it somewhat, but I knew that it was just, like, it was in my blood. And I had I had 2 kids, and I had my the business that I was running and everything else I was doing. And I just knew I knew I couldn't justify putting the time into, you know, going for an hour long bike ride every day and riding on the weekends that that my my heart just let me rationalize it. Yeah. You you you started your family. And then about 17 years later, you started writing again. So I I wonder Yes. If there's a a bit of a correlation there as well. Right around 17. Yeah. It's like when you realize, oh, my kids are, you know, they're kind of on autopilot. They're they're getting out of the house. They they don't need babysitting. And the business it helped with the business too, where I was, you know, you go from a lot I think a lot of small businesses when you start up, especially those 1st few years, you're you're either really busy or you're not making much money or it's both. And you're just you're just kind of trying to keep the thing afloat and trying to build up your customer list. And that was definitely I mean, yeah, those early years, you're like, I I gotta work. I can't I can't go on a bike. Right? I gotta I gotta put in some hours and bill them. But that changed. Yeah. As it grew, it got to more the business was a little more on autopilot, and I could justify being away. It also helped that I realized the year I started riding, I realized that as I tracked my weight for the last, the previous maybe 5 years, I had put on something like I'd gained maybe a pound a year, just kind of on average. And I was exercising, but wasn't, like, super faithful, wasn't really hardcore, but I saw myself just kind of inching up. And I was never, like, you know, grossly overweight, but I was £25 heavier than I am. But the the cyclist in you is is keeping track. Yeah. Yeah. For sure. I'm going Yeah. This is and and I'm projecting out to when I'm 50 years old. I'm going, okay. If I'm £15 heavier than this when I'm 50, what are my joints gonna be saying? And, I mean, we all know, you know what happens when you get old and you've been overweight for 20 years and it just it's not a good place to be. I didn't wanna be there. Yeah. So that all happened. Losing weight and getting fit on the bike all happened quickly. I mean, it was a 3 month thing kinda going from going from 0 to 60 really quickly, but I was happy I did it. As as cyclists as cyclists tend to do. You've heard that one before. Yeah. So after you you kinda get into a groove, consistently Zwifting, did you get a sense it it was gonna have an impact on on cyclists and and, you know, workouts? And did you know kind of virtual racing would would popularize? It was, yeah. I got a sense that it was going somewhere. I think I think already, Eric Min, the CEO and co founder, I think he was already talking about, like, they were throwing out, like, hey. This could be in the Olympics someday. And you could tell that the company had big big thoughts. Mhmm. But you could also see I mean, you could see that the racers on the platform were really interested in racing. And that was back, I mean, at that time, there wasn't even an events, function. Module on the plat I mean, the events module. There were no start pins. It was just all you did was hit a button. You you just chose a route, and it just dropped you in, then you just started riding. So in order to do a race I mean, it was crazy what we had to do to make races actually work. You had to everyone the race had to be announced. You had to tell them what time it was. You had to tell them what route it was on. And then you had to have your system clock synced correctly. Because, you know, a lot of computers were 10 seconds off, what the actual accurate time is. And if your computer was 10 seconds off, you'd get to the start line, and maybe everybody would leave 10 seconds before you, or you'd leave 10 seconds before them depending on which way it was off. So you had all this that craziness, and, but it it worked. I mean, everyone knew that's what we're dealing with, and and then eventually, the events module rolled out. But right? Yeah. There was a whole there was a whole calendar. Like, a 3rd party there it was TeamUp, I think, was the platform. Mhmm. And you could and Zwifters could add events to this calendar. And you just kinda describe the event in there. Hey. Here's what I'm doing. It's on this route. And it was crazy. It was basically a meetup. Yeah. Yeah. So cool. I I But it somehow worked. I I seem to remember early days getting in Zwift races. And you'd have to be careful because if you if you accidentally pedaled, you would you would push over the line and and have, like, a false start. Do you do you remember those? Or Yeah. I mean, that was the thing. I I don't it might have even been I'm not sure on the timeline, but it could have been that the system that they had set up require like, if you went over the line, then you weren't gonna be in the event anymore Mhmm. Because it was it was actually tracking where you were at. I don't remember when that system started as opposed to the actual official events, but I remember being very very wary of of that, of of, you know, staying, very still, not not trying to ruin the race. What's the genesis of Zwiftblog, the predecessor to Zwift Insider? How did that come about? I, I did my first ride on Zwift on November 12, 2015. They just started charging for accounts. They had just come out of beta, started charging, I think it was $10 a month. And I quickly had a lot of questions. Like I wanted to know how is Zwift deciding how fast I go? Do different bikes perform differently? That was like, that was a question people didn't know back then. Do different wheel sets perform differently? And let's not forget also the a problem for me back in when I initially, you know, I got a Wahoo KICKR in, like, 2016, 20 set let's say, 2017, was just, getting everything to work was harder. It just yes. There was more friction. So sorry. Yeah. There was. Yeah. Yeah. And and and with my tax vortex, there was, like, there were these weird firmware updates that you needed to do, and those didn't always work right. So I was figuring this stuff out, and the only kind of support page that I could find was the Zwift riders Facebook group, which had been started by a community member. It wasn't started by Zwift, but it had ton I mean, that's where the Zwift world was. That's where the community was interacting, and they were people were documenting things. But I thought as a web guy and a guy who done, like, search engine optimization, I had done that for a job for years. I thought, well, that's terrible. There you can't find Facebook group posts on Google. That's not that doesn't help as lifters. So I thought I'll I'm gonna start writing articles about the stuff that I'm learning, and at least that information will get out there, and and we'll see where it goes. So I did my first my first blog post on zwiftblog.com was December 10, 2015. So less than 30 days after I started writing on Zwift. I was writing about Zwift not long after. And, yeah, I surely That's a quick turnaround. Wow. That's a quick turnaround. Yeah. Kinda like, hey. I'm I'm the new guy. Here's here's me being an expert, and I certainly, there's a lot I didn't know, but learn quickly. I spent a lot of time So you I spent a lot of time Zwifting that that first winter feature. Like, how much how much time, like, what what what kind of habit did you have? I would I I know I was putting in probably double the mileage that I had been doing outdoors because all my my friends who weren't on Zwift, my local friends go, dude, what are you you're right. How are you in the South Pacific right now, first of all? But also, how are you doing these 200 mile weeks? The yeah. I remember, I think it was my first 200 mile week. I I did that that winter on Zwift. It was probably, yeah, 10, 12 hours a week, something like that. And and that's, you know, the, the mileage that you get on a on a trainer is is very different than in in the real world. I mean, you you it's so much more efficient. But but

that's, you you know, that's some fitness, 10:10: 36:27

12 hours on on Zwift. That that's impressive. Yeah. No. Then I was at a spot where I still needed to do that. It was it was super beneficial for me to put in, you know, the, the, the long, slow distance kind of rides. Because I was only a year into serious cycling again. So I, I still had a lot of base. And then were you, were you racing? Were you, were you gearing up for racing? I was basically, I was basically alternating between just slow, slow recovery day rides and in races. And I'm sorry, we're racing in real life was my. I don't think I had raced outdoors yet at that point. My I think my first race was right after that, that first kind of Zwift season when we headed outdoors. It was probably, you know, probably in March of 2016 is probably when I got my first taste of some some crit somewhere. Awesome. Yeah. I I with my, I had so much fun getting friends here in in Austin mostly in Austin, Texas, on board for Zwift Race League, ZRL, and and, they they have rounds. So they'll have, 3 rounds over the course of basically the the winner, and each round is 6 weeks. So it's 6 races. But some of the guys that I recruited are are, you know, race in real life all the time, and it was their first time getting, you know, get getting the the Zwift experience. And that, you know, they were raving about the fitness that they got from from Zwifting and Zwift Racing, and and we were in a. And the the competition is crazy. It's it's savage. I mean, there are some really, like, crazy strong people in there, you know, which is which is humbling. But the point here is that you you get some, like, really good fitness for those races that are 30 to 30 minutes to an hour. Yeah. Yeah. You get you get pushed to your limits. I I I tell people one of the things what every Tuesday. What a big thing that Zwift taught me my first winter was that I had a lot more to give than what I've been given outdoors. And part of that is I think you're I think you're able to give more indoors because you're not worried about, like, blowing up and having to ride 20 miles to get home or, like, veering off the road. You know, you're just you're able to focus and give it all. But You can collapse in a heap next to your trainer Yeah. And and not You can throw up. Hit your head on the ground. Yeah. You throw up and it won't hit the guy and the baseline behind you. Right. You can throw up in your own house. Yeah. But I but but it also it taught me that I could dig deeper even just on the bike outdoors. And when we headed outdoors, I I was like, oh, I can I know I can go harder than this? I I can suffer more. And that was a revelation for me. Thinking back to those first, like, trainer workouts and especially this 1st Zwift races, when when you first get on Zwift or or a trainer and and you look at your power, something about it just feels harder. And it takes a while. I I don't know if if you agree, Eric, but I I've had a lot of people say this. Something about pushing, when you're not outside and you don't maybe have other sort of stimulus around, it just it just feels hard. And then, when you sort of break that ceiling, what whatever you wanna call it, it feels great. But it's it's a it's kind of a hump that you need to get over when you first start Zwifting. Yeah. I think I never had that experience where I felt like it was harder, but I have I've definitely heard that from people. And I don't know if there's one single cause for it. I know that some folks, it it could just be that they have a crappy setup. I know that's an issue with some Absolutely. A a wheel on trainer without a good flywheel on it, or even a direct drive trainer, if it doesn't have the right if it doesn't simulate the inertia of being outdoors, right, then you're having to pedal across your pedals. It's basically like you're climbing the whole time. It's the feel on your muscles. So it's different muscle engagement than if you're outside riding on a flat road. So I think there's part of that for people. I remember when I when I went outdoors after riding on Zwift on my Tacx Vortex wheel on trainer for 3 months. And I remember I had such a high cadence. My pedal stroke had changed because of Zwift, and it was because I was having to push across the top and bottom of my pedal stroke because that retainer has, it doesn't really have inertia. The the vortex doesn't. It doesn't have a flywheel. So it's just yeah. You gotta push across the bottom and top. And I hadn't really noticed that when I was riding. But it did I did definitely noticed it when I went outdoors. It just is a different feel. Would you and, yeah, if you got a higher cadence, that's great. That's Yeah, it wasn't a bad thing at all. But I think people also struggle with, with heat management indoors, and they don't realize it. There's this ridiculous I I blame Peloton. Let's let's blame Peloton for this, Sam. I I blame I blame spin culture for the idea that if you're sweating, it's a good workout. And people people ride their bikes, and, oh, I gotta get a good sweat on. And that's really if you want a good workout, you need to cool yourself and actually sweat as little as possible. Like Right. You you don't want your room to be humid. You want it to be dry and as cool as you can get so your body doesn't kick the governor in and go, sorry. We're not gonna let you put out more power and get this training stimulus you need. So there's I've run into I've seen so many people who who are just slogging away, sweating, just killing themselves with this, you know, a fan this big, 10 feet away or no fans at all. And so I think that's an issue. And the third issue I would say is, I think I think if you don't have a decent sized screen that you're looking at, it's really hard to feel motivated. If you're, like, if you're zwifting into your cell phone or even a even a tablet, It's like I think I think that does make it feel harder. I think the more immersed you can get, the the better it is. I'll I'll add a 4th, which is, warm up. I think people don't don't initially, don't realize how much they need to warm up before jumping in a race where you're put you know, off the line, you're pushing almost 400 watts for for a minute or whatever, you know. Yeah. Everybody gets dropped in their 1st lift race because they don't it they're they're harder starts than outdoor races typically because they can be. Because everyone's clipped in, everyone's and everyone just knows it's gotta go hard. We've been doing, I don't know if I told you about this, but the the ladder club racing. Have you heard of the the ladder club stuff? I don't think so. The ladder club is it's in a whole another community initiative that that they've they've built a whole website around it, this whole system, but it's teams of 5, so 5 riders. And you just you challenge another team of 5, and it's just team versus team in a race. So 5 on 5. Totally different feel for Zwift racing because you know who you're racing, you know, all 5 riders, you can look at their power numbers and you formulate a strategy beforehand. But it's Which is which is so which is sorry, which is so different from ZRL where, you know, you'll I think, the the races we were in, it had a handful of teams and about 80 riders. So Yeah. It's just all it's just all different. There's no there's no strategy. Like, it's a lot of really strong riders. You're you're just trying to hang on, basically. This is very different. That's really cool. Yeah, it's totally different, which is why I'm enjoying it. I only started doing it maybe a month ago, but it's, steering matters a lot because there's so few riders that, like, when you attack, you wanna steer and steer to the other side of the road, so they're not getting your draft. But I was saying that because of the hard starts, one of the strategies that our team often does is we'll look at their profile. And if they have a player or 2 that doesn't have a great kind of sprint numbers, we sprint. We go as hard as we can for that first 30 seconds, minute, and we're looking at them. Okay. 1 of the guys is dropping off, keep pushing, or if they're holding, then you ease off. But a lot of times you drop a rider or 2, and you basically won the race at that point. If they stay away and you finished decently, you, you win. But it's yeah. Those those are hard starts. Thanks for yeah. Thanks for sharing that. You should check it out. You can't give any more secrets out. You just, if if those competitors are listening, they're they're working on their sprints all of a sudden. You you launch the site, and and what what happens next? I mean, with, you know, with traffic and users. I was just I was looking at my traffic numbers today, and, I could tell pretty quickly because I was just I was sharing posts to Facebook, basically. That's how it initially got found. But I could tell within a month or 2 that that there was a good level of interest in it. So I just kept writing posts about about anything that I could figure out that would be would be sensible. So news about game updates, the news about big big events that the community was holding, tips on other websites to use. But I was probably only doing a post a week or so, because I had a real job I was working at the time. But it grew it grew to the point where after a couple of years, I reached out to Zwift because I I could see that there was that the audience had grown massively and so had the interest in Zwift. After they'd launched, they doubled in size 1 year, doubled in size the next. And I I reached out to him and asked him when he would be willing When you say doubled in size, what metric is that? That was that was them just telling us that they had doubled in size. So you weren't sure we met yeah. We weren't sure. Yeah. If you look at I'd have to look at the peak Zwift numbers, but they they kinda peak Zwift generally tracked with that for those 1st few years, but I don't remember exactly what the numbers are. But I remember it getting it was close to doubling. The so, yeah, it works whether you look at it in terms of monthly users or peak Zwift, they kinda they track pretty accurately. But I reached out to Zwift and asked if they'd be willing to sponsor the site on some level. And I basically just told them, I can put more time into this if you could pay me every month. Give me some give me a check of some amount, and that gives me more hours to put in. And they said, yeah, we'll do that. They said that our our one stipulation is that you change the name from Zwiftblog to Zwiftins or not. They didn't tell me what it had to be changed to. Change change the name Zwiftblog because that's a confusing name, and people think that it is Zwift Corporate, and it's not. And I agreed with them because I was already annoyed that people were asking they were, you know, posting support requests on my website, basically, and asking me to be customer support, which I didn't wanna be. So I agreed to do that, and they actually suggested the name Swift Insider, which I loved because I love double meanings and because I'm a dad. Like, we love wordplays, puns, and stuff. Not gonna lie to you. Eric, I didn't get the the double, you know, word meaning and, with the name until you mentioned it. Very, very clever. Yeah. Shep O. Yeah. Yeah. It's good stuff. So that was I think that was maybe 2017. I think I think I sent you that post. I I get I get the years a little mixed up, but I think it was about 2 years after the site launched that that happened. And that to me felt like like a big that that was the biggest step apart from launching the site, kind of the big the biggest thing that had happened where we changed the name, and I I just started putting in regular time into it, trying to do 2 or 3 posts a week. And you you you triple your output, and traffic goes up a lot. I was looking at traffic numbers real quick, January 2016. So this is a month after it launched. The whole month I had 13,396 sessions on the website. So, visit sessions, 13,396 in 2016. 2017, same month, a year later, 274,000 sessions. So 20x, right? It got 20x in a year. The peak though was, COVID. January 2021, 2,500,000 sessions in the month. And that's And since then, it's been down about 1,300,000 or so. The last the 3 years since then, it's about right around there. The 2.5 So the the user numbers are opaque, but there you go. I mean, that that's the significant It definitely representation. My site's traffic definitely tracks with Zwift's own subscriber numbers. I know that just from talking to them and sharing our numbers with them. It's pretty close. But, you know, it's not like, yeah, they're not a one to one thing. So I believe Zwift said in the peak of COVID, they were they were somewhere somewhere between, like, 101,500,000 active subscribers at at their peak. So so I could probably do the math and kinda work out with my own page views where they're at now, which would put them now at, you know, I don't know, 700,000 or something. But very ballpark. Yeah. That well, thanks for thanks for trying. You got an official sponsorship from from Zwift, and and they're paying you to to drive content. What what other ways are you did you did you start monetizing the site? I did the, I created a Watopia map poster. I did this early on. I don't know when I first came out with it, but Watopia actually, I have the old the original poster, so I could look. It it was when it was right after the epic KOM was released. So all that Watopia was was downtown, the the normal downtown loop, the Ocean Boulevard section, which was the first expansion of Watopia, and then the next expansion of Watopia was Epic KOM. Mhmm. And I created the first map in oh, there's a copy right here. I remember 2016. I'm looking at it. So and that was because there was no there was no in game single map. Like, you could see the little mini map, but there wasn't a whole map of Watopia, and people were confused about where stuff was. And for those that are not initiated, Watopia is the original virtual environment in in Zwift. And since then, I mean, they've tacked on, so many different worlds and and territories, and and some of them, you know, like, like Richmond are based on actual courses where the UCI World Championships were and stuff like that. But Watopia was was the was the genesis, was the was the first world. And it's kind of it's like the hub world. Like, it's the main one, And then all the others are yeah. Some of them are based on real world stuff. Some, like Makuri Islands, is more a fantasy one. But Watopia is everyone's favorite world, basically. It's the biggest, has has amazing artwork and pretty much anything you'd want, including Alpe du Zwift if you wanna climb. Right. Yeah. And and then there, you know, there are a lot of, a lot of the geography is based on places like like Alpe d'Huez or, you know, I think Santa Monica Pier. That's that's what the Yeah. There's a lot of California stuff in there, like the Redwoods, which which I live near. So it's it's funny right through that. And then there there's a there's a a bridge here in Austin. I think it's called Pennybacker. And I I think there's actually an Austin, bridge in there, which is which is really cool. I didn't know yeah. I noticed that until recently. Interesting. Anyway, monetizing. Yeah. So I commercialization. So sold the posters. My wife ships she she has already she was already shipping the t shirts that I sell on my banjo hangout site. She'd done that for years. So we just expanded and bought poster tubes, and she started shipping posters all over the world. And that Watopia map, I've I've updated I update it every time that, you know, new roads, new routes are added. So it's Collector's item. Yeah. I don't know what version it's on at this point. Like but, but we've had we've probably done, I don't know, 15 versions of it. And it's I mean, Watopia is complex now. There's a lot. It was it was a super fun project to kinda to learn how to be a cartographer, like, what makes a good map? I've never made a map before. Banjo player. Super fun. Banjo player. Cartographer. Yeah. Yeah. I mean Yeah. Run us Anyway, that's a cool project. I like and I love the idea that I created this thing that people are hanging up in their in their walls, on their walls, in their homes. And probably collecting. Too. Probably. Yeah. Probably. There was one guy. I actually published a post about it maybe 6 months ago. There was a dude over in Europe who had it printed up to be the size of a whole wall in his pain caves. It was like 15 by 8, this Watopia poster. Badass. And, Zwift actually had it in their headquarters. They did, like, I think in an elevator. They had a a snippet of it, and they they they used it for artwork in some different spots too, which was cool. Anyway, that's the only, like, real world the only physical item I've sold is the posters. We have a few different posters, but there's the map, and then the other ones are more, like, inspirational. Mhmm. Like, one just says suffer on it. Inspirational pain cave posters. Apart from that, basically, the the only income well, I guess I'd split it up into 2. There's there's ads. So, you know, normal display ads that you have in a website, which just, like, if your traffic doubles, your income doubles. So COVID was great. I'm not gonna lie. COVID was better for me than it was for most people. Right. And the other is affiliate income, so affiliate links. And COVID was great for that too because trainers everybody was trying to buy trainers. And bikes and and, and bikes and everything. Right? Yeah. But I I had good affiliate things already set up, like, with Wahoo, and everyone was trying to buy a Wahoo. So so whenever Wahoo got stock because during COVID, they were they couldn't even keep stock for they they'd they'd sell out in 24 hours, but they'd get something, and I'd see it on their site. I would announce it. I'd publish my affiliate link, and people would click and buy. And I made income out of that. So, yeah. Here's a here's something that a lot of people don't realize about Amazon affiliate links, which I discovered too late in my well, not too late. The the best time to plant a tree is 20 years ago or or today, if you didn't do it 20 years ago. Right? That's the thing. That was that's me with Amazon affiliate links. So I, I looked into Amazon as an affiliate because I like I do, I'd reference books, you know, training books and stuff. I thought, oh, Amazon, I'll link to them. And I was looking at my affiliate stats because they don't pay much. They pay me, you know, 3% where a lot of affiliates, you know, Yahoo pays 10%. So you don't I don't remember. Wanna 10%. Yeah. 10% of the the cart price. Yeah. Which is incredibly sweet. Yeah. Apart from this, they don't do it on everything anymore. It's it's that's a pain point. Not gonna lie. Anyway, back to Amazon. They, I I look into my stats, and I'm seeing that I'm getting paid for people buying. There was I remember seeing baby diapers and dog food and clothing in my list. And I thought I'm not linking to baby diapers. How's that and I realized I got paid for the whole cart when people checked out. Mhmm. So, you know, it would it would just set me as the referral link, and then Amazon would do their great job of getting you to buy all the other stuff. And if they checked out with me as their cookie, I got paid for it. So Is that still the case? That's still the case. Yeah. That's still how it works. So, so with that in mind, I thought, well, I'm I'm gonna link to Amazon anytime I'm talking about a product that's available there because if you can just get people to if you can just get your referrer cookie to be set on their thing and the next purchase they make, get that diaper money. Yeah, man. Anything, that, you know, was was kinda difficult to manage? Yeah. The I think the hardest stuff when it's come to Zwift Insider has been managing straddling that line with Zwift of of being an independent community site but also playing nice with Zwift so that I can still, like, I can still talk to people inside, I can still have that access that that gives me information that other people can't get. And that's not always easy because I I mean, one of the things that makes a community site special is you're you're publishing, like, Zwift hacks. You know, you're not publishing like terrible hacks, hacks that are gonna take down the system, but you're you're publishing ways to kind of game game the the game a little bit. Just fun stuff, stuff that people find interesting. And and you gotta Zwift hasn't liked that. You gotta keep it real too. You're, you know, you need to Yeah. You need to be a real Well, yeah. Real critic. Yeah. Yeah. Talking about negative stuff. And it's it's that I mean, Zwift is such a they're so into positivity, which I love. I'm I'm the same way. I don't wanna I don't want That theme song. Right? That's like to be a My wife my wife hears that from I I, ride ride What do you boot up Swift, you mean? Yeah. And she hears the theme the theme song from the house. It's time to read. Yeah. Very positive. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So it's, yeah, it's it it is a struggle to to kinda call them out and say this is the stuff that they need to fix, but to not be a jerk about it. And there were probably the worst incident that ever happened was, we call it Luciano gate. Do were you did you ever see anything about Luciano? Pray Pray himself. Luciano was a Spanish, French, Italian guy who wrote, a bunch of posts for Zwift Insider, a few years ago. During COVID, he was writing some for me. And he was just, just just on a volunteer basis. He just loved Zwift. He was a racer, and he's writing a lot of posts, and he was hilarious. I I love Luciano because he had such a great self deprecating sense of humor. And, he one day I wake up, and he has published a post, not on my web, not a Zwift Insider post, but he had written a post about how basically a hack, with Zwift, I think it was just a weight. I think all it was was that you could you could change your weight in the middle of a race and and kind of be as fast as you wanted to be. And he and he wrote about that and just kind of railed against Swift about how easy it was to cheat on the system. Then here's how to do it. Yeah, I don't even remember what the hack was, but I think it was just the weight thing. It's been a while. I blocked it out. I remember hearing about the weight thing. How about about how you could change your weight during a race. Yeah. Yeah. I think that's all I think that's what it was, which seems like super basic now. But but Zwift did not handle it very well. They they banned his account. They and then they reached out to me, and we're, like, what do you, like, control Luciano? Basically, Like, what's this guy doing? I'm like, he's not my employee. I haven't paid him a cent, and he didn't publish it on my site. What do you want me to do? So I'm I'm talking to Luciano, and he's he's a very passionate dude, and he's getting mad that Zwift isn't understanding that he only published it as a way to, like, to get their attention because they're not they don't really listen otherwise unless it's publicized. And, I mean, that's the classic debate. You know, what do you do with a hack? Do you publicize it so the company is forced to fix it? Or do you tell them back channels? And Zwift, at that point, they gained a reputation for not listening on back channels. Right? You share it with them secretly, they don't respond. So and he knew that. So they definitely responded. It was there was called a whole campaign in the Zwift community began called they were everybody was doing hashtag free Luciano. There's, like I did. Yeah. Okay. That that rings a bell now. Free Luciano, and they're they're like I've seen him lock his account. He's he's clearly not, like, a nefarious hacker. Like, everyone knows that. Why would, it backfired on Swift really is what it what it did. But but I had to figure out how to tread, you know, what do I who do I support in this? Right. Yeah. Well, it it reflects the the shortcomings of Zwift's, and and, you know, you talk about, things like engineering debt and and stuff like that. It it it might be difficult to to come up with new ways of doing things and surmount some of these some of these problems that can help people cheat. You know? So Yeah. Not not a simple thing on on Zwift's side, but but I think what the community is kinda pining for is minimizing the the the cheaters, minimizing the easy way to cheat. And so for for Zwift to be exposed that way, it's reflective of of, you know, some of their shortcomings of being able to address this stuff. And probably, they they didn't like what they were seeing. So Yeah. That's a that's a great example. Thanks for for sharing. Can we talk about kind of the state of of Zwift in in eRacing generally? You know, my whoosh is, like, all over, all over the the Pro Peloton bibs. I just learned today that apparently, they have capital. They have financing from, is it like UAE Sovereign Wealth Fund or something like that? Yeah. So they've got a lot of money. Is it They got oil. It's oil money for sure. They got Middle East oil money. I guess yeah. Like, I and and, you know, this there's also this related topic of of Zwift, you know, needing to make product improvements year over year and and enhance the experience for users to to be competitive and and keep Zwift as the the community what what it is, which is really special. Yeah. Where where do you think Zwift is in in as far as the competitive landscape? I think I I think they're the ones who have driven it forward so far. I think that there's there's still a lot of of growth that can happen there. If you're in if we're talking about about baseball innings, we're in we're in the 4th inning, I'd say, of of 9. I think a lot of that a lot of what's gonna happen in the future is you're just gonna see more cyclists on there. I mean, we're still I'd say that it's a minority of of cyclists, racers, especially who who use Zwift regularly. There's a there's a huge, huge audience there if Zwift can attract them. Yeah. And I I think there's there's maybe, serious cyclists that have been casual users and maybe jumped on out of curiosity. But I I just don't think a lot of people understand, like, how great it is. Yeah. It takes it takes a little bit of time, a little indoctrination to get on there and be, like, wow, like, Zwift racing is really awesome. You know, I can I can have a great experience with an hour of my day? The training plans, you know, or or if if you need a little structure are fantastic. And then, another thing I wanted to talk about was was the community. We we'll get to that next. But what do what do you think, in the landscape, like, Zwift is doing well and and what what areas could they improve on? I'll I'll do 3 3 improvements, 3 things that they're doing well. 3 things they're doing well. I think they're, I think the environment that they've created from from day 1 has has always been a very, like, positive and encouraging environment for whatever level you're at. And I think that's really important. I think that's important for bringing in new new, you know, rookie riders, folks who folks who aren't used to cycling, and and even even those who who are veterans. I I also think this is something people don't talk about. Zwift sometimes gets gets ribbed for the for the graphics quality. But I think that they got the writer animations right from the early days. Like, especially I mean, we know we we've we've watched the hind end of other cyclists for hours, and we know what that looks like. And on Zwift, that it looks pretty good. And I I I check out other platforms, and one of the things that just throws me off on pretty much all of them is like, what is why is that avatar happening? Something's not right. Something's not right in that. So I I think there's there's something to that. Zwift also has a they from from the early days, John Mayfield, the guy who originally developed it, he he talked about how he wanted it to work on a variety of platforms, that there would be a low barrier to entry. So so you can have a you can have a dumb trainer with a speed sensor in your iPhone, and you can be on Zwift just doing that. And a lot of the other platforms, you know, they require a PC, a gaming PC, but they're working on Android, working on Apple TV was a big deal, and then working with basically any trainer out there. I think I think those are all strengths of Zwift. Where they could use improvement? Three things I would say. 1st would be event the event management, event creation tools that they've given to clubs, if they could if they could expand those and let you create more be more creative in the events that you make, make amazing races that are that are different than the everyday race and and just make it easier to to manage those, that would be great. You know what? I I think that's a great that's a great point for the topic that we just touched on, which which is, you know, I was the one who personally got my friends to and said, hey. ZRL is awesome. Like, let's give this a shot. Racing as a team is so much fun. You know? And if you get you empower people like me in that circumstance to to be creative, maybe that onboarding flywheel starts to spin a little bit more quickly. Yeah. And Eric Min has said that repeatedly. He has said, Zwift needs to get out of its own way and let the community create content. That's what they call it, content on the platform. And that's basically events of some sort. Right. And I totally agree. Like, you've got this rabid community that wants to do big things. They're just they're hamstrung right now in in some ways. They're you can do more now than you ever could on Zwift, but there's there's so much more that could be done. Second thing would be club capabilities. I mean, the big thing with clubs was it was they were created so that you could you could create these virtual communities just like your real life club, and you could hold events. But the clubs are they're super basic in what you can do. It's basically just kind of a holding place for events, and we already talked about how events are pretty basic. Mhmm. So if they could expand the club capabilities, make make the message boards on the clubs more powerful, which wouldn't take much, let clubs have custom kits in game. That's a that request happens all the time. Everybody wants a a custom kit in game. That would be that'd be big. So so and is the problem with, event creation on the on the user level and things like you know, kits for the clubs. Is it is it just not, customizable enough? Like, I feel like the, you just there there are not enough options. Is that the problem? The events I'd say with the events, there's not enough options. Yeah. I mean, like, hey, I wanna have a, well, you can't even organize a race. You can't just set up an actual race. You it has to it basically is just a group ride that you pretend is a race. But what about, like, I wanna do a points race, or I wanna have this cool customization. All the cool things that that Zwift offers. Yeah. Yeah. Kits, they I mean, you you basically can't do anything with kits. I mean, you you can't even set if you set up a club event, you can't say everyone's gonna wear this particular in game kit. You that's not even possible. Zwift has to do that on their end. Their events team has to. But if you could go on and actually design a kit, I mean, there's virtual kit designers already out there, right? We've all, we've all used those. That's how you do your club kits. That just needs to, that needs to be a thing in Zwift somehow. Should be should be doable. Third one is kind of, I mean, it's AI related, I would say, but it's that idea of detecting your detecting the fitness of cyclists and advising them on what to do next. Like some kind of a some kind of a virtual coaching capability, which should just I hope Zwift is working on this because it seems like such a no brainer that you would build that into any any sort of indoor fitness. Got the hard stuff. The data you need. Yeah. Like, I wanna just be able to go on there and say, okay. What's my goal? I want I wanna do better at b races on Zwift. Okay. Here's what you need to do. Like, that should just that should just be it. And I hadn't, you know, the this is a this is a great idea, Eric. Like, I hadn't even thought about it. But right now, my thing as a new dad is I'm working on my 15 second power. Like, that's all I have time for, is is trying to improve my sprint. So, like, you know, benchmarking me in my 15 second power against other folks that are my, you know, my weight and my general ability, like, how cool how cool would that be? It's like, hey. You wanna work on your sprint? Like, you're you're at 50th percentile. And then start to, you know, a little bit of a gamify feature. The the Breakaway app does that. The iPhone app, which I I use, and actually, I've written an article about it because I that was the feature I called out in that app. I thought if Zwift needs this, it needs this chart that basically puts your power curve against the population. Shava is. It's yeah. Okay. Anyway, I yeah. I I love that kind of stuff. So okay. We're we're in the 4th inning here. What what do you think is is the future for for Zwift? Where where are we heading? For Zwift racing in particular, I think the next big thing that's going to change it is Zwift Racing score. Are you familiar with that? With the concept. I am. I always forget what the I always forget what the different scores and metrics are on Zwift Power. So for for listeners who are in the know and or on Zwift Power and not on Zwift Power, can you and and by the way, Zwift Power is, and and were they acquired by Zwift? Yeah. So that was a, it was a community website that was used to track races and kind of finalize results for Zwift races. And then eventually Zwift Zwift acquired it, and it has an overall Zwifter ranking. So Zwift power kind of it's actually based on the USAC, algorithm, same one that USA Cycling uses, but it's, slightly modified. But they have a a whole ranking system. So you can go on there and say, who are the top ten a riders in the world? Who are the top 10 b's? Every race you do, if you if you get a good enough result, it'll help your score. And if it doesn't, it just goes to 0. But, Zwift racing score is I mean, they you could look at it as maybe a replacement for the Zwift power ranking, although that's not necessarily what it is. But Zwift racing scores is going to be their way of of ranking all the racers on with Zwift's own algorithm, and they're going to use that instead of your power numbers to categorize you, which is a that's a huge change because the way you might not have noticed this in the a's really, but all the other lower categories, what has happened is the top the strongest riders are basically sandbagging the category where they like in the bees where I race. They keep their weight up to stay down in the bees. They wash their power numbers. So that they they're right at the right at the limit, but they have no incentive to go above it because then they're just gonna get their butts kicked in the a's. Well, they do have an incentive. If if you're if you have half a brain and you're a cyclist, you know that racing with stronger people makes you stronger. But we're also humans who like to win. So that's the that's the battle. Right? So so again, sorry, just just to explain this for for folks that are not on on Zwift or Zwift Power, you can manipulate your your weight, and then all of the Zwift categories are based on watts per kg. So if you're 2 to 3, you're in c group. If you're 3 to 4, you're in b group. If you're 44 and above, you're you're in a. So if if, like like Eric says, you wanna, continue getting your podiums and you're in b, you're you're incentivized to maybe cheat your weight up a little bit, as opposed to And a lot of them aren't even cheating their weight. A lot of them are just Keep the power down. That's all it is. Because you Right. If you have a good sprint, the the guys who are at the top are guys who have good 15 second to 1 minute power. And they will keep their they'll just sit in the Peloton, and then you get to the end of the race, and they they out sprint everybody and they win. And they can do that consistently, but they never hit the power numbers to upgrade themselves. With Zwift Racing Score, that would they would get an upgrade and they'd be bumped up. And and if they decide to take it easy in a race and not get good results, then they're gonna be bumped down, they're gonna lose the race. So it's it takes away the sandbagging component. And and the other thing is, if Zwift does it right, which I keep telling them they need to do this, I hope they do it from the beginning, is let event let the race organizers set what those racing score windows are for each category so that they can be different. So so say the racing score, Zwift racing score is, from 0 to a 1000 is what it's going to be. So you could say, like, theoretically, the d's are 0 to 250, c is 250 to 500, b is 50,750, 750 to 1000 is a. That that's one way you could break up the categories. Or you could say, oh, d is 0 to 500, You know, C is 500 to 600. Whatever. However you want to do it, but that way, different races, you're not racing the same people all the time. And in one race, you might be kind of near the bottom. One race, you might be more near the top. So it it lets lets it get mixed up that way too. But I think just taking away the sampling is a big thing. Is that on their product roadmap? Are they are they gonna be implementing that or yeah. Yeah. It was supposed to the they they were going to release it back in December and then decided to hold on it. And then they they did the big layoff and decided to delay it more, but they I keep bugging them about it, and they're saying we're we are working on it. We do plan to release it. My guess is they'll release something in the summer and get it and and tweak it and test it so that it can be launched before Zwift season begins, you know, September or so. I think that's a great that's a great one to bring up because I when I was really into Zwift racing, I was looking at that, Zwiftower score. Is that is that what it was called? Zwift racing scores is what they're called. Yeah. And I and or or I'm sorry. Ranking. The and it was really fun because I I was getting faster to see how how I stacked up with with every everyone else, on Zwift. And and, you know, it's more fun when you're in shape. But that that was cool, and that and those are that those are ambitious goals because, like I said before, there are there are a lot of really strong people on on Zwift. So I would I would kind of get excited when I was racing with someone that's, you know, top top 1,000 racer on on Zwift and and, you know, hanging with with him for a while. So so yeah, great point. It's gonna make it more sticky for for people that that like racing. Yeah. Yeah. It'll be a big shake up, and it'll be a good shake up. Nice. We didn't we didn't talk about community yet. I mean, what what, you you've made this a significant part of your life, the this virtual, riding and racing community. What, like, what does it mean to you? What what have what have you gotten from it or on the personal side? A lot. I mean, I've I've got I've made a lot of real relationships with people. I was just thinking back the other day, there's, a guy there was a there was a guy and girl who met on Zwift as cyclists who ended up coming to my house here and meeting for the first time in the real world because they were interested in dating each other. And they need they wanted, like, a neutral place to meet and hang out for a few days. So she flies in from Germany. He flies in from across the country, and we hang out and we ride for a few days, and they just get to know each other. What? And they're and they're married now. Oh my god. Incredible story. And and they're, like, and they've heard a fly from Germany, and Yeah. And he's he's American, I take it? Or Yeah. It's, it's Nathan Guerra and Gabby. I don't know. I mean, you probably heard of Nathan because he's the voice of Zwift Community Live. But Gabby Gabby just got 2nd place overall in the Zwift games. She she was this close to taking the whole thing. She's she's a super strong rider, and Nathan is too. What a great thanks for sharing that. It was not easy to follow their wheels riding bikes around here. But, yeah, that's a perfect perfect example. Wow. Yeah. I told you the story of the the swifter who we I met him in real life for the first time when I flew into London, and he handed me the keys to his Jaguar and said, here, borrow this car and drive it around the UK. And I was like, those are most stressful week of my life driving this really nice jack on the wrong side of the road for hours. And I I shared with Eric how when I when I did that, when I was in the UK and and rented a car, I'd I'd smashed up the side view mirror immediately. Yes. Yes. So Yes. Glad glad he, he delivered the Jaguar in in one piece because I I sorted it out in my my car. Anyway, yeah. I've been I've been able to go on trips to amazing places, meet super cool people, and and it feels now it it feels now like when I even just when I hop into the game and I joined, you know, the Coco crew, the the robo pacer ride, just ride. I'll I'll always just pop in and say, hey, everybody. Just pop it in. How's it going? And people every bunch of people say, hi. Usually, somebody will thank me for my site and tell me that they love it. And it's just yeah. I feel like I it's a it's a community I'm really a part of. And you see, I mean, it's not all good stuff too. Like, you've like, I've seen people have big health issues, like like friends that I made on Zwift who, like, you know, they have a heart attack. They have a a brain aneurysm, like, crazy stuff like that. And you're and then you're staying in contact with them, and you're watching them struggle to get better and get back on the bike. And, I mean, all that's happened. It's it's life. Yeah. But it's a it's it's been a very cool experience. You've been on this on this sort of career and entrepreneurial business journey. And it's, you know, it's not the venture backed startup story of of, you know, taking on an absurd amount of of risk and and, you know, going through those trials and tribulations. You you've really taken, a path where, you know, slowly and and steadily, and I it sounded like it was a big commitment, when you first started your your web development business, but created a a life and a lifestyle that, you you got to be your own boss doing something you love, but still, you know, made the time for for your family and and your passions and, you know, bike riding and playing instruments and and keeping you human, which I I really I think I have a ton of respect for when you look at some of the the venture backed, founders where they, you know, they sacrifice their their personal life, their their Yeah. Marriages and and their health. And and, I'm just wondering if if you ever consider kind of the the parallels between entrepreneurship and and kind of the business world and and, you know, bike racing and, the endurance that that takes. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, there's tons of parallels as as I'm sure you've got in your head. A lot of it, I think, comes down to endurance for me. That idea that in bike racing, the only way you're going to be successful is by doing the right thing in the right direction for a long time. Like, you're not just gonna go from the couch to the front of the P12 field and win races. Like, you gotta you gotta put in the time and train smart and and just do it steady. And it's not a sprint. It's a marathon sort of a that sort of concept. And it's the same with entrepreneurship. Like, you don't you you're not gonna be a success overnight. You you're gonna, especially if you're, if you do it like the way I did, where you're not, you're not starting with a lot of funding, you're not hiring a big team, you're, it's, you're just kind of going from the ground up. Like, you've you've got to know that there's there is a runway that it's it might be a year down the road. It might be 3 years down the road where you're going to feel like the first twinge of success. But, so you gotta have that vision and patience, I guess. So that's one of the things, endurance. Another another thing that I think is valuable is that you don't have to be 1st place in order for it to be a win, it just depends on your perspective. In cycling, I mean, you go to a Zwift race. I've lost over a 1000 Zwift races. I'm really good at losing Zwift races. And I've won I've won, you know, my fair share too, but there's there's 80 riders. There's only gonna be one winner. And and it's the same it's the same in business. I mean, you're you're not gonna you're not always gonna be the best. But here's the thing, you don't have to be. Like, in business, you can you can be successful, make a great living, and enjoy your life, and not not be the very best in the field. You just just be good at what you do and make your customers happy. And in in bike racing, like, I for me, when I every race I do, especially when I lose, I look back on it and I go, what's the lesson to learn? How can I how can I do better? What? And what was the benefit like? Oh, that was that was great training. I pushed myself to my limit and I learned these lessons and there's value in that. So it's not just it's not just this binary, you know, 1st place or it was a total waste of time thing. It's like, no, there's there's value in there's value in just doing your job, They can win. Well said. And and that just brings to mind, like, I I don't I don't race much in in real life. And and when when I do, like, I'm so proud of myself just for showing up and and getting there. And then on Strava, when when I see other friends that don't race that much and just show up and and, you know, get on the start line and and give it a give it a go, I always I always give them props, like, Yeah. Because that that's what you wanna really encourage. Like, the the winning the podium is the the icing on the cake, and that that's awesome. And that, you know, rarely happens for a lot of us. But, like, the thing to applaud, I think, is just getting to the starting line. Yeah. Yeah. What else? And, another another one would be that it's it's your it's the fundamentals that are going to bring you success. It's not the flashy stuff. And this definitely applies to bike racing, because you got the you got the weekend warriors with the the $15,000 bike who, you know, who are£50 overweight. Like, that's, you know, and they're and they're not putting in the time to be fit. You're not gonna win just because you you have the expensive bike. You're gonna win because you've put in the training to have a strong VO 2 max and good, sprint technique and an FTP that lets you ride guys off your wheel. And, And it's the same with business. Like, you can you can be as flashy as you want, but you gotta look at the numbers. Is this actually gonna pan out? It's gotta it's gotta work in the end. You can't be can't be a non profitable you can't be a nonprofit, basically. Yeah. The flashiness only tends to only work for so long. Well, these are great on a Yeah. 2 more. It feels really good when you earn your place at the top. And that's that's true in in business and bike racing. There there is a there's a good feeling about about putting in the work and and achieving something. Again, that's been very rare for me both both in business and in cycling. And the the last one would be when when it gets really competitive, you need a team to win. And I'm I'm always I love community stuff. Like, I like I feel like I'm a community builder, and I've been that in my life in a lot of different avenues. But I I mean, it's the same in business. I had a small team with my my web business. It was anywhere from 2 to 5 employees for the 20 years that I ran it. But you it you're gonna get to the spot where you can't do it all yourself, and you need you need people who are better than you at things. And that's definitely the case in business. And in cycling, of course, we know that's the case. You you need a you need a team when it's you don't need a team when you're a Cat 5 racer. Right? Yeah. But when it's the P12s in NorCal, you're not going to win as a solo rider. Your your teams you need the team to pull back the brakes and everything else. Yeah. Yeah. So those are my those are my niches. Great, list there. Thank thank you so much. And, man, Eric, like, I'm a I'm a fan of of what you've built, and and, you know, I I just I really appreciate you for for making time, and and, what what a great serendipitous meeting for for me to have, raced with you and and then giving you a shout to to ask you to be on the show. So Yeah. It was fun. I'm glad glad it went down. Good. Yeah. Yeah. I'm I'm really I'm just thrilled, and I'm a big fan of of Zwift Insider. So thank you so much. Yeah. Thanks for the interview. Absolutely.