I woke up this morning to news that RGT Cycling has been acquired by Wahoo Fitness.
I’m not quite sure what to make of this development.
In isolation, both firms have delivered very good products. I use Wahoo’s KICKR SNAP trainer and ELEMNT BOLT GPS computer, which I’ve reviewed here and have a very favorable opinion of. RGT’s indoor cycling platform delivers a great experience with routes based on real roads and gravel routes around the world, and even has the capability of generating user-submitted “Magic Roads” based on GPS data.
However, this acquisition means my days on RGT’s free use tier are numbered. That free access and use was one of the biggest draws of RGT for me, even with the restriction of a handful of real-road routes being offered on rotation every so often.
Prior to this announcement, I was actually mulling over ponying up the $10/month subscription fee to unlock the full RGT experience – structured workouts, races, and full access to all real roads and Magic Roads. I mean, I have extracted almost two years of benefits from RGT for free. I know the company is a small one with less than 15 employees, based somewhere in eastern Europe, and I wanted to subscribe as a show of support. With the Wahoo integration however, a subscription now matches Zwift’s rate at $15/month, although paying for a whole year up front is a little cheaper.
As a corporate entity, Wahoo is a magnitude larger than RGT, for sure. Having recently left my previous employer after its own acquisition by another firm, the tenor of the subscription has somewhat changed with Wahoo stepping in. In the short term, the promise is that the RGT service won’t change (what self-respecting corporate PR department wouldn’t say so?), but how it changes longer term is a bigger question mark for me.
The infusion of Wahoo’s capital will no doubt give RGT’s dev team more resources to further improve an already great service. I hope that’s all there is to it, and that RGT doesn’t go sour. We shall see.
the accidental randonneur 