The servers would stay up one final month until the end of October 2023 – after which the cycling simulator would cease to exist and its servers given the long kiss goodnight. As a gesture of good will, RGT effectively eradicated any distinction between free and premium membership for this month.
A few trips on Cap Formentor up to the lighthouse, for good measure.
RGT always loomed in the shadow of the big orange gorilla in the indoor cycling software space, Zwift. It appealed to those of us who didn’t want to pedal in an overtly gamey virtual world – instead it sought to deliver a realistic experience all throughout its update history. Its secret sauce was the “Magic Roads” functionality, where one could submit a GPX or TCX file of a certain route, and RGT would control the smart trainer and generate basic route visuals to suit.
I thought Wahoo’s acquisition of RGT would mean breathing new life into the service, which had its loyal fan following but never generated the kind of massive user base Zwift did. Which is a shame. In hindsight, I suppose it was obvious that Wahoo’s rationale for buying RGT was to help sell its smart trainers. I just didn’t think that Wahoo was all too ready to ditch RGT without introducing any real improvements. Not like they had the money left to do anything, anyway, I suppose, after misjudging smart trainer demand and making one too many bad financial decisions…but the bitter pill at the end was that RGT was rumored closed down as part of a settlement in an ill-advised lawsuit Wahoo brought against Zwift.
Not gonna lie – this makes me a little upset with Wahoo.
Given that almost 100% of my riding is now indoors due to the demands of work and fatherhood, what does this mean for me? Well, I’ve tried giving IndieVelo a go. Right now it’s in closed beta, and access is free, so I figured I might as well try it out. It appears to be where most of the RGT faithful are headed.
There is some slight irony to IndieVelo receiving a lot of RGT’s rider base. When I tried it, it looked and felt a lot like Zwift, but with much of the overt gamification removed. Routes all happen around a big virtual island, but said island promises to offer a breadth of routes. Even the training mode – an area where I felt RGT had always faltered – seems to have taken some of the best ideas from Zwift. That said, under the hood, the physics modeling, drafting, and race mechanics all seem to lean more towards the more realistic RGT side of the spectrum.
I suppose this is where indoor cycling smart trainer software has to go to expand a user base. Time will tell if there is enough room in the market for multiple competitors in this space, or if there is even any hope of going up against Zwift at all.
For now though, thank you, RGT. This tiny team of developers can leave with their heads held high, knowing that they had delivered on a fine product which sadly not enough folks appreciated.
With a brand new little human in the house, things have not quite been the same for me as a cyclist. And yet, they haven’t really changed a huge amount, either.
The first few weeks or so after my baby was born were a whirr of activity. Generally speaking, it was getting used to the impact of now having a third human in the household, one who was pretty helpless by himself, and had his own schedule that paid no respect to ours.
Eventually though, my wife and I found a routine that worked, and my son slowly became a creature of habit. We lucked out in that his sleep schedule mostly worked itself out, only requiring nursing from my wife every couple of hours in the first two weeks.
While my wife and I grew up with househelp and nannies around the house, thing hadn’t really gone our way when it was our turn to be parents. After a number of false starts, we simply decided to go it alone. Living in the age of remote work, we were lucky that we were spared the need to commute to the office most days, making it easier to look after our little rugrat.
All this meant I had to be creative with how and where I carved out time for riding. Doing so outdoors just isn’t an option for now, so I was very appreciative of my indoor cycling setup. I applied said creativity by taking to the trainer on weekday mornings at 4 am, just before my work shift. I found I could sneak in 60-75 minutes of pain cave time this way, while still being present in the afternoons to watch over my son as my wife goes on her own work shift.
That early morning schedule poses its own challenges. My legs are barely woken up at 4:30 am, and so it’s a challenge to do much of anything other than steady Zone 1 and Zone 2 efforts. I’ve tried 40/20 intervals once or twice, but repeatedly hitting 120% of my FTP is a big ask within these conditions and the limited amount of time, so I’m keeping those days rather infrequent. All this means the training stress load isn’t quite as effective at building a higher FTP – it’s really more of fitness maintenance than anything else.
The final area changes have had to be made is with my bike Hyro. I swapped the 32 mm Continental Hometrainer indoor trainer tire back on, now that I’ve gotten used to riding the 40 mm Panaracer GravelKing SKs. The Conti necessitates the use of an inner tube, but I’m currently at the point where maintaining a tubeless setup makes zero sense anyway, and so I switched all my other wheels back to inner tubes. Not enough outdoor riding is happening for the sealant to circulate and permeate the tires, and they’ve simply gotten progressively worse at holding air because of it. For my current use case, keeping on top of tubeless sealant levels is a task I simply cannot be bothered with. I’ll just save the sealant for when outdoor riding becomes more frequent…which may take quite a while longer.
Disclaimer: Don’t take this blog post as a substitute for a professional doctor’s or podiatrist’s diagnosis. I am neither of those things. I am simply narrating my own anecdotal experience. Use this information at your own risk.
This time around, I couldn’t put all the blame incorrect cleat positioning like I had previously, although addressing that certainly helped my on-the-bike comfort and I’ll mention it later. Now, it was down to a couple of more insidious things.
On the Sunday the ball of my left foot – aka the first metatarsophalangeal, or “MTP,” joint – started to flare up with pain, I had capped off a pretty grueling final week of August on the indoor trainer, complete with two earlier FTP test attempts and what I thought was a relatively easy session around Wahoo RGT‘s Pienza hill loop that morning. What appeared to be “enough” rest turned out insufficient, as the familiar pain got worse and forced me to hobble around loading the outside of my left foot with my body weight for at least ten days. Weighting up the ball of my left foot meant having to flex my big toe forward to push off, which is exactly the kind of motion I had overused, and led to this situation.
The final week of August, I noticed the old 700C x 28 mm slick tire I used for trainer duty had started deteriorating into a fine black powder dusting the floor of my training room, signaling that it had had one too many heat cycles pressed against my Wahoo KICKR SNAP‘s resistance unit. Tucked away in my spares drawer was a Continental Hometrainer tire specifically made for indoor trainer use; the German company will warn you that it is not supposed to be used outdoors.
I thought it was about time I put it to use.
There was a catch. The Hometrainer rubber I had installed onto my wheel was a 700C x 32 mm size, and I blindly kept pedaling through the same cogs without accounting for the larger tire. Since my training wheel now had a slightly larger external circumference, I really should have shifted to easier gears to compensate. The effective gearing difference was enough to bludgeon my MTP sesamoid bones and tendons within two or three rides.
The day I succumbed to sesamoiditis, I distinctly remember I was pedaling without the Ergon x Solestar IP3 insoles in my Specialized S-Works 6 XCs. This meant that I was pronating my left foot (i.e. turning it inwards), generating big point-loads on its MTP joint. While the S-Works 6 XCs have sole and arch support baked into their stiff midsoles, apparently it wasn’t enough, and the insoles gave this back in such a way that my sesamoid bones could receive less weight.
RECOVERY AND TWEAKS FOR PREVENTION
All in, it took me about 16 days to properly recover – mainly involving rest and being off my feet. While I did an exploratory indoor trainer session on day 11, I pushed every left pedal stroke with a bit of trepidation. I was feeling out how solid my left foot was, wattage be damned. That ride was okay but still felt somewhat wonky. My second indoor trainer ride on day 16 felt much better.
As of this writing, I’ve been slowly progressing with the time, distance, and ride intensity I spend on the saddle, taking care not to overdo it at the same time. I’ve successfully done two-hour stints riding Wahoo RGT’s Borrego Springs flat time trial course, each covering at least 50 km, and I haven’t had sesamoiditis flareups yet.
At the same time, I studied how I could continue riding while avoiding another flareup of sesamoiditis in the future – especially in the middle of my second 200 km audax attempt. Based on medical resources I dug up, it seemed I was on the right track in consciously reprogramming my left foot’s loading pattern, supinating (i.e. shifting weight to the outer edge of the foot) to make up for my relatively flat feet, and minimizing big toe movement. That said, over-supination isn’t good either as it can lead to another type of pain.
I combined the use of the Ergon IP3s with moving my cleats as far back as I could to further unweight the sesamoids. These tweaks worked, even on my less-stiff Fizik Terra Powerstrap X4s. My insoles are still in decent condition on their fourth year of service, but I’m getting another pair of the next-level-stiffer Tour or Kontrol insoles in the future so that both pairs of my cycling shoes have them.
Off the bike, recovery came in a surprising package: Birkenstock’s Arizona sandals. I bought them enticed by reports of their longevity, sustainability, and cobbler-friendliness. As it turns out, they are perfect for sesamoiditis recovery and redistributing the loads on my feet – much better than plain flip-flops, because their signature shaped footbed prevents foot pronation. I enjoyed my pair so much, I got another pair a week later.
TAKEAWAYS
If this second brush with sesamoiditis has taught me anything, it’s that this is fundamentally going to be an ongoing cycle of management and rest alongside my riding and training, because it can strike again. Perhaps some of it is also due to age, as I’m not getting any younger either. Riding big distances on my bike injury-free need not be impossible – it just has to be approached smartly.
the accidental randonneur 