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Cycling is great, and we probably don't need to convince you of that. But since its origins in the 1800s, the humble bicycle has provided transport, exercise, sport and community to people all around the world.
These days, an ever-growing body of research is extolling its virtues, with one review concluding that evidence that it can boost physical and mental well-being, reduce the risk of heart disease, and even prolong life expectancy.
The sporting side of cycling is what we do best here at Cyclingnews. We cover everything from the North American cyclo-cross races to the Tour de France and the World Championships. The sport has dozens of disciplines, including road, mountain biking, time trialling, cyclocross, and even gravel. Among the latest new iteration to develop is the sport of e-racing, or indoor cycling.
Indoor cycling isn't exactly new, but it has come a long way over the past decade. What was once a dull experience that many would have likened to watching paint dry is now a fun, interactive sport in its own right, packed with exploration, social interaction and self-improvement.
Thanks to the development of connective online apps such as Zwift and smart indoor turbo trainers like the Zwift Hub, cyclists can now take to two wheels in
the comfort of their own home while reaping all the benefits of real-world riding.
Breaking down barriers and boosting health with the Zwift Hub One
Broadly compatible, easy to set up and fun to use
Smart trainers explained
For the uninitiated, a smart indoor turbo trainer is a device onto which a bike can be mounted to provide electronically controlled levels of resistance, mimicking gradients and surface types in virtual worlds such as Zwift's Watopia while also allowing the user to control the pace of an in-game avatar to ride or race with friends online.
Most often, the smart trainer replaces the bike's rear wheel, so when pedalling, the rider spins the trainer's weighted flywheel instead. Sensors in the flywheel calculate the rider's pace, power and other metrics and transmit that to a computer, tablet or smartphone to control an in-game avatar. The harder you pedal, the faster your avatar will move through the online world, and as the roads undulate in gradient, the trainer's resistance reacts accordingly to create a lifelike ride feel.
The technology has certainly transformed indoor cycling and perhaps even cycling as a whole. For example, competitive athletes who would do their interval training back and forth on a public road can now get an even better workout without worrying about traffic and stop signs; elsewhere, the risk-averse can swap the early-morning winter ride in favour of a safe indoor spin and avoid the danger of dark wintry lanes or frosty roads; the racers can get their competitive fix without the cost or crash risk of a midweek criterium; and the time-crunched can jump onto Zwift for a race or a group ride at any time of day, knowing they'll be ready to continue their day as soon as the ride is done.
Cyclingnews' very own tech writer, Tom Wieckowski, who recently became a dad for the first time, is using Zwift to maximise his riding time without shirking his newfound responsibility or sacrificing family time. Read about that here.
This can lead to more consistent training, fewer injuries, and perhaps even less illness due to the avoidance of bad weather and the grime on the roads that often goes with it. For riders training with a goal in mind, whether that is a distance milestone or a local Strava segment, indoor cycling can lead to better fitness and improved results and ultimately surpass their goals. Just ask Mat Hayman, who used indoor cycling to train for – and win – Paris-Roubaix after he broke his collarbone earlier in the year.
The benefits go beyond the time savings, improved training, and risk avoidance too. In winter, many riders would typically see their weekly ride time shrink as bad weather and reduced daylight hours stop play, but the ability to jump on and go no matter the conditions means the fairweather among us can keep riding all year round, and perhaps most importantly of all, stay healthier.
Notably, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, the definition of health relates not only to the absence of illness or injury but a complete state of physical, mental and social well-being.
The physical benefits of cycling are well documented, but it is widely accepted that exercise can boost mental health, too.
Cyclingnews' very own tech writer, Tom Wieckowski, who recently became a dad for the first time, is using Zwift to maximise his riding time without shirking his newfound responsibility or sacrificing family time. Read about that here.
At $599 with a year's subscription to Zwift included, the Zwift Hub One is easily the best-value smart trainer on the market. That's exactly how the review team at Cyclingnews described it in their Best Smart Trainers buying guide.
It features fixed wide feet for stability, a drive wheel, and a 4.7kg flywheel for realistic ride interia feel through the pedals. It boasts market-leading specs, which include 1,800 watts of resistance, which is more than enough even for a professional sprinter; a power meter accurate to within 2.5%, complete with automatic calibration; and the ability to simulate gradients of up to 16%.
To make the whole setup process as simple as possible, the Hub One comes with Zwift Click and Zwift Cog instead of a traditional cassette.
Zwift Cog, in this duo, is a single-gear cassette sprocket that is compatible with all 8- to 12-speed groupsets (that's almost all modern road and gravel bikes). All you need to do is mount your bike, no matter whether you have an eight-speed SRAM groupset or a 12-speed Shimano, it will fit.
The other half of the duo, Zwift Click, is an electronic wireless shifter that you place on your handlebars. It connects to your Zwift Hub One via Bluetooth, enabling virtual and silent gearing like you may have seen on smart bikes.
With that said, if virtual shifting doesn't feel right for you and you prefer the idea of sticking with a traditional cassette, the Wahoo KICKR Core trainer is an alternative option, complete a cassette of your choice and a year's subscription to Zwift for the same price as the Hub One.
The Zwift Hub One
Expanding compatibility
To mount a bike onto most smart trainers, you need to consider two main things:
1. Is your groupset compatible with the cassette on the trainer?
Given you remove your rear wheel and replace it with a cassette connected directly to the trainer, you need to make sure that when you try and change gear, it will actually work. This will also have knock-on implications, potentially affecting which freehub you need too.
2. What axle adaptors do you need to use?
Your bike is mounted to the trainer using the rear axle in the same way an axle is used to hold a rear wheel. To ensure compatibility with multiple bikes with different axle types, smart trainers come with various adaptors. Without the correct ones, your bike either won't fit onto the trainer at all, or it will fit badly and may become damaged while riding.
Not only does the Zwift Hub One's expanded compatibility simplify the purchasing process and the initial setup, but it will also benefit multi-rider households and those with multiple bikes, helping everyone involved save time and money.
Perhaps you're lucky enough to have a few bikes in your stable. It's not uncommon for cyclists to have a 'best' bike for summer days, a less expensive bike for the winter months, and maybe even a gravel bike. Or perhaps your partner, housemates, parents, or even your teenage children have their own bikes, too, and will want to jump on Zwift once you're done. Now imagine those scenarios, but with each bike having a different groupset with a different number of gears. To swap bikes it could mean needing to swap the cassette and even the freehub, too.
With the Zwift Hub One's broad compatibility, there's a good chance it will work with all of your bikes, your family's bikes, and probably even your mountain bike. This means everyone can get involved, and you can keep on riding when your normal Zwift bike is in the shop for its latest service.
This not only saves faff time between rides, not to mention the oily hands that go with it, but it saves money, too. There'll be no need to buy spare cassettes and freehubs for all of the relevant bikes, and no need to remember which cassette goes with which freehub and which bike.
Multi-rider households
Smart trainers have become so advanced nowadays that they run approximately as loudly (well, quietly) as a household refrigerator, at approximately 55 decibels. This means the noisiest part of your indoor cycling experience is actually the noise of your drivetrain, especially when you clunk heavily between gears.
Your bike's drivetrain noise brings the average volume to around 60db, or that of an office environment, with shifts between gears hitting vacuum cleaner volume.
We can all live with the ambient noise of a refrigerator, but if someone started up a vacuum cleaner in your spare bedroom at 7 a.m. on a Sunday, it'd quickly become tiresome. Spare a thought then for those you live with – and even your neighbours – each time you clunk down the cassette on your early-morning trainer session.
The Zwift Hub, with its Click virtual shifting, removes this potential noise complaint by instead providing an electronic virtual shift.
This two-button device, which can be placed anywhere you choose – from your hoods to your drops or even your down tube for maximum retro – provides 24 virtual gears in a straight-through formation, regardless of the gear ratio on your bike. That means equal gearing no matter if you're on a road bike, gravel, cyclocross or mountain bike.
Not only is it quieter, but this setup can also help your components last longer, helping you to save money in the long run.
On top of the compatible freehub and spare cassette that you've managed to avoid buying, the Zwift Hub One saves you from wearing out your cassette, and its centrally-aligned sprocket means there's no cross-chaining to accelerate the wear on your chain, too. Mechanical groupsets wear out with use, too, and with the virtual shifter putting in a literal and figurative shift, you needn't worry about replacing your cables either.
Silent virtual shifting
Conclusion
In this post-pandemic era, much of the world is in a cost-of-living crisis, and while the price of everything else seems to be skyrocketing, Zwift's Hub Classic trainer made quality indoor cycling more affordable to the masses.
The repercussions of that alone mean that more people are able to reap the rewards of cycling, but the Hub One goes one step further.
Going one better than Spinal Tap and turning the dial beyond 11 and back round to one, the single-geared nature of the Hub One makes jumping into the sport of indoor cycling easier than ever, meaning more people on bikes, exercising, and living healthier lives.
The world of the smart trainer has grown increasingly crowded, making it no easy task to choose the best turbo trainer to match your needs.
"The single-geared nature of the Hub One makes jumping into the sport of indoor cycling easier than ever, meaning more people on bikes, exercising, and living healthier lives"
A study by Andrea L Dunn and colleagues in 2010 even concluded that there is increasing support that exercise can help to treat anxiety and depression, while a review of 129 studies relating to exercise and mental health by Kathleen Mikkelsen et al. concluded: "It is clear that exercise improves mental well-being and is a viable preventative or adjunct treatment option for improved mental health outcomes."
Anything that enables more exercise can only be positive, especially given that it can benefit social well-being too, regardless of the participant's age. Another study by Hiroko Komatsu and colleagues in 2016 found that ‘regular group exercise contributes to balanced health in older adults’ after testing 26 adults with a mean age of 74.
But like any new sport, Zwift – and indoor cycling as a whole – has its barriers
to entry.
Firstly, there's a setup cost. This includes buying the smart trainer and any necessary accessories (such as a fan to keep you cool). You might also need a computer or tablet, and you might even need the bike.
And secondly, there's a learning curve to be had. You'll need to make sure your bike is compatible with your chosen smart trainer and that you use the correct adaptors when setting up.
Enter the Zwift Hub One, which is tearing down those barriers to make indoor cycling as affordable and straightforward as possible.
zwift explained
You just want to ride your bike indoors; you don't want to have to learn complicated terminology and compatibility rules. Luckily, given the Hub One is compatible with almost all modern bike groupsets, there's no need to worry about choosing the right cassette when buying, whether the freehub will be compatible, or what the difference between XDR and HG is. Bikes are full of jargon, but indoor cycling needn't be. With the Hub One, as long as your bike has between eight and twelve gears at the back, you're good to go.
The process for axle adaptors is easy, too. You no longer need to dig through your bike's manual to work out whether your axle is 142mm or 148mm wide. Zwift's clever packaging for the axle adaptors includes a built-in measuring rule. Slide that between the dropouts, and if it fits, use that adaptor.
All of this simplicity means the learning curve is significantly reduced, meaning the barrier to entry is lower and thus, more people get to ride their bikes.
The connected online nature of Zwift means riders can join group rides with real people from all around the world at all times of day, forming global communities of like-minded people and real-world friendships. It also means riders can race safely, at any time of day on any day of the week, with regular series and even real-world professional contracts for a select (deserving) few.
Zwift also hosted a virtual Tour de France as well as multiple editions of the UCI eSports World Championships, and the Zwift Games race series set for early 2024 is poised to be the most attended eSports competition to date. It's not all about competition, though. Anyone can create a group ride with friends, and with the 'Elastic Band' switched on, the game will ensure all riders stay together, irrespective of each rider's power output.
It also lets riders explore different worlds, with Zwift's virtual world of Watopia joined by replicas of real-world locations, including the Champs Élysées in Paris, the famous Mont Ventoux mountain, and even an adjusted version of Central Park in New York. While exploring, riders will earn XP to unlock different levels and new equipment, providing incentivisation to ride more.
INside OUT
Quiet, smooth, and consistent—the virtual gearing of Zwift Hub One turns your bike into a smart bike.
VIRTUAL SHIFTING
The heart of Zwift Hub smart trainer is its power meter, which accurately measures your pedal power output in watts. Knowing your power levels up your indoor training when paired with Zwift workouts and training plans.
POWER METER
Zwift Click controls your virtual gears and can be mounted on any type of handlebar, wherever you like.
ZWIFT CLICK
Zwift Cog works with almost any
8-12-speed bikes, unlocking maximum compatibility and keeping maintenance to a minimum.
ZWIFT COG
Zwift Hub’s automatic resistance realistically matches the gradient of the virtual road. You’ll glide down hills and feel every climb.
REALISTIC RIDE
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