Mobile health cycling: How Eastern European amateur cycling enthusiasts frame their experiences with Zwift and Strava

Abstract

Amateur cycling enthusiasts are increasingly engaged in digital media ecosystems that serve as mediating platforms for both indoor and outdoor cycling activities. The rationale for using particular solutions, technological affordances of the platforms and social media discourses all actively shape cycling narratives. This study critically examines practices associated with the Zwift and Strava platforms among a selected group of Eastern Europeans, based on an extended online questionnaire with open and closed questions (n = 80) and individual in-depth interviews (n = 10). Auxiliary data features analysis of social media and YouTube content closely related to the questionnaire's respondents. Building on the notions of mHealth technologies, the findings include an in-depth analysis of four main frames of reference emerging from the analyzed discourses on amateur cycling: social, hardcore, exploration, and training.

Introduction

This article examines how amateur cycling enthusiasts use and talk about indoor and outdoor cycling applications and digital platforms, focusing especially on Zwift and Strava. The study group was selected primarily on the basis of their engagement in local cycling social media, and the study was tailored to assess the connection between selected threads of cycling social media discourse and the perceived value of indoor and outdoor cycling among Eastern European amateur enthusiasts. This article examines a particular subgroup of cycling enthusiasts from Eastern Europe in order to show how narratives related to cycling media consumption refer to the self-perceptions of cycling platform users in a particular socioeconomic context. Data for this study includes individual in-depth interviews (n = 10) as well as an extended online questionnaire with open and closed questions (n = 80). The auxiliary data was collected by using a grounded theory-inspired approach (Charmaz, 2006) to analyze the social media channels associated with the participants of the study. Analytical categories only emerged during data analysis and in the process of generating concepts informed by the data. Such procedures made it possible to identify four categories of digital content consumed by the questionnaire respondents and associated with the Bikeshow.cc YouTube channel, namely travel vlogs, equipment reviews and discussions, guides and instructional videos, and sports-related footage. The data analyzed in this study encompassed a YouTube channel, a closed Facebook group and a Strava account linked to the Bikeshow.cc content creator. The specific inquiries were informed by the (chronologically) first part of the study, in which individual interviewees provided data on key topics that helped establish the recurring themes of the study.

The aim of this research is to identify and analyze narratives related to cycling activities accompanied by digital tools. A crucial aspect of this study is to juxtapose digitally enhanced indoor and outdoor cycling activities based on their advantages and key features as perceived by amateur cyclists. The intentional overlap of the largest sample of people who completed the questionnaire with members of one of the largest Facebook groups connected with the lifestyle cycling channel Bikeshow.cc on YouTube allowed for a broadened assessment of social media content and individual practices, as well as discourses developed within the particular community. This research is aimed at broadening the scope of cultural analysis of engagement with specifically profiled digital media from the perspective of the end-user and social media consumption (Khan, 2017). Building on the notion of mHealth (“mobile health”) technologies (Lupton, 2013), the data obtained in this research was assessed in relation to visual and metric representations of the human body, as well as individual participants’ quantified perceptions of their cycling-related activities. The starting point for establishing the key research questions was the notion of physical capital and sensory experiences (Themen and Popan, 2022: 619) of amateur enthusiasts who chose to engage with digitally mediated forms of cycling.

Based on the questionnaire and interviews, two basic dimensions of user engagement were established: social (outward-focused) versus hardcore (inward-focused) and exploration versus training. These axes are juxtaposed with an analysis of content published on social media platforms, with the intention of assessing the thematic and discursive correlation between the two elements. An important context for the study was the COVID-19 pandemic, especially as an initiating factor for those interviewees who declared that government-imposed restrictions and lockdowns were crucial aspects that led them to engage in diverse forms of indoor cycling. It is also important to note the emergence of business incentives focused on expanding the traditional reach of competitive sports media coverage into the digital sphere (Ke and Wagner, 2020), which has further increased the sports-specific content available to emerging cycling enthusiasts.

The local context pertaining to individual practices related to both indoor and outdoor cycling highlighted the intermedial relationships (Bolter, 2007) between online and offline cycling activities. This study underlines the importance of remediated technologies for establishing a hybrid, analog, and digital environment in which both social—hardcore and exploration—training ends of the spectra share similar affordances from an end-user perspective. The overlapping dimensions of indoor and outdoor riding were visible in the various forms of the digitally enhanced cycling experience, especially in the case of GPS devices used to track other users’ routes, as well as individual training progress.

The broader context of the study is the latest developments in online cycling media, especially content created and distributed through major online platforms such as Facebook and YouTube. The study shows how specific topics and online trends influence individual cycling enthusiasts—even if the results are not directly related to their daily practices, one can observe a recurring link between social media content and respondents’ opinions on equipment, training methods, and social practices associated with both indoor and outdoor cycling.

Existing research and main goals of the study

This study concentrates on the digital platforms Zwift and Strava. Zwift can be described as a type of “interactive cycling application which enables users to traverse virtual routes in their living rooms while riding their bicycle on a trainer” (Bentvelzen et al., 2022: 1), while Strava is one of the most popular activity-tracking applications, useful for providing crowdsourced data on cycling activities (see e.g. Hong et al., 2020). The research presented in this article problematizes its framing as “a global leader in a burgeoning ‘social fitness’ industry” (Couture, 2021: 184), pointing to the divergent strategies employed by Eastern European cycling enthusiasts in its use.

With the advent of a “paradigm shift” in sports-related research regarding the use of geographically localized data, it can be argued that “there is a need to be more open to interdisciplinary perspectives to create sport geographical intelligence for understanding the relationships between sport and space, location and landscape” (Tian, 2020). It can be stated that the same is true for the study of amateur sports, and the examination of the resurgence of nonprofessional, “lifestyle” cycling should also consider the possibility of critically juxtaposing data-driven cycling applications, the engagement practices of their users, and the interpretative frameworks provided by social media channels.

Existing research on the Zwift and Strava platforms in the context of cycling focuses either on providing an overview of indoor sports (Bentvelzen et al., 2022), an in-depth assessment of user motivation (Westmattelmann et al., 2021), or an analysis of performance issues (Westmattelmann et al., 2022). Given the relatively early stage of adaptation of digital platforms and technologies in both indoor and outdoor cycling, there is little research on amateur users’ perceptions of these two categories, especially factoring in the non-competitive, lifestyle-associated discourses proliferating through various social media platforms. Existing research on cycling platforms, while offering frameworks for understanding the underlying themes through which users talk about their experiences, such as “Flexibility, Communal sports, Control, Being like a pro, and Metrics” in the case of Zwift (Bentvelzen et al., 2022: 9), does not situate these analyses in the broader context of different social media. This study addresses this research gap by focusing on a social media-active, selected group of participants who share similar social and geographic backgrounds. Data from the questionnaire and individual in-depth interviews are analyzed in the context of cycling-related digital content available in the same language and characterized by the same cultural background as shared by the study participants.

Existing research identifies Zwift as a massively multiplayer online game (Reed et al., 2023: 190; Thorne, 2022: 23), thus highlighting Zwift's design as a competitive platform that is developing its own performance measurement system. The discrepancy between the factors that Zwift uses to evaluate the efforts of its users and the factors that are crucial for achieving success in outdoor cycling is important for this study, although the goal was not to examine individual metrics (such as weight-to-power ratio, for example), but rather to focus on the perceived value of indoor and outdoor cycling. There are ongoing discussions on how the changing features of Zwift and Strava shape the discourses of both amateur and competitive cycling, but providing their comprehensive assessment is not the goal of this study.

Instead, this study factors in noncompetitive, lifestyle-related discourses spreading through various social media platforms. One study on the COVID-19 pandemic and cycling identified the following “lifestyle” factors and reasons for engaging in this form of physical activity: a desire to pursue the latest trends, a way of overcoming stress, maintaining the social status associated with owning an expensive bike and conforming to the norms of certain social groups (Budi et al., 2021: 768). The data from the research conducted by the authors of this article partially corroborated the results of the aforementioned study, with an important caveat that local cultural and environmental context heavily impacts individual lifestyle narratives among amateur cyclists (Oosterhuis, 2016). Lifestyle discourses were also discussed in a study on urban cycling culture in Berlin, in which the author stated that

“research indicates that less tangible developments in lifestyle, hobby and amateur sports cycling…are especially relevant for the bicycle's recent symbolical revaluation to become an object of lifestyle, status and social distinction based on an increasing symbolical capital.” (Hoor, 2022: 250)

Therefore, in this study, Zwift and Strava are conceptualized not only as crucial platforms for professional cycling culture but also as an infrastructure for implementing both individual and collective practices of self-care. These include efforts to alleviate social anxiety through the community-based affordances of the platform(s), the operationalization of technological practices of the self (Brubaker, 2020) in the context of measuring and quantifying physical effort and, finally, playful engagement with the digital, immersion-enabling environment of indoor cycling. Both Zwift and Strava build on the concept of the “quantified self,” which refers to “deploy[ing] sensors and monitoring devices to measure and improve (…) own health and behavior” (Barrett et al., 2013: 168), which has the potential to foster engagement not only at an individual but also at a societal level.

Methodology

The research features three primary sources of data: a questionnaire, individual in-depth interviews and selected cycling video content available through digital social media platforms. The interviews, which formed the first part of the study, were based on a semistructured scenario. Respondents were asked to talk about their motivations for purchasing access to the platform and their usage practices in relation to other daily activities, also taking into account the change of seasons. The topics explored further focused on the relationship between indoor and outdoor training, the hardware and software equipment used, as well as opinions on training and the role of quantification methods and solutions to support the overall process. In addition, the interviews were designed to explore other topics that respondents considered relevant—and as such were later used to prepare the questionnaire. The questionnaire comprised both closed-ended and open-ended questions, with some answers including the option to add one's own comments on the subject. The cycling-related video content analyzed in this article comprised of YouTube videos posted on the Bikeshow.cc channel (43,500 subscribers as of 27 March 2024), and the questionnaire's respondents were members of the Bikeshow.cc Facebook fan page group.

The questionnaire was designed to incorporate findings from the previously conducted interviews with a selected group of 10 people who use Zwift or other dedicated digital cycling platforms. Following the key methodological principles highlighted in classic works on the method, the interviews were “focused on the subjective experiences of persons exposed to the pre-analyzed situation in an effort to ascertain their definitions of the situation” (Merton et al., 1990: 3).

In order to test out new perspectives on stationary cycling applications, the study focused on a group of respondents (N = 80) selected from members of a Facebook group of cycling enthusiasts (7500 users) linked to two popular non-English-speaking, Eastern European YouTube channels on lifestyle and cycling, Bikeshow.cc and Dobrerowery.pl (36,400 subscribers and 66,400 subscribers, respectively). Due to the privacy protocols for the social media group studied, no data allowing identification based on gender and age was collected. Thus, this study was designed to pilot further research on a selected cohort of participants who would agree to share potentially sensitive data in the future. The data acquisition was based on voluntary participation, although protocols associated with opportunistic sampling (Onwuegbuzie and Collins, 2007) were introduced to incentivize the most engaged and active users. Although opportunistic sampling may not produce generalized results, it was chosen to allow for adaptive methods of inquiry in subsequent stages of the research.

It must be acknowledged that the response rate obtained is very low. In addition to the factors discussed previously, the way in which the questionnaire was distributed was also significant. The questionnaire has reached all members of the group, but this includes all those who have joined throughout the group's period of activity. The number of active members at the time the questionnaire was published was undoubtedly much lower. The rationale for using the data despite the caveats mentioned is that recent research has shown that the relationship between response rates and nonresponse bias is scant (Hendra and Hill, 2019). In addition, the qualitative part of the study was treated as an exploratory tool. Focusing on a dedicated group of users of digital cycling apps helped to mitigate the negative consequences of the diminishing “validity and reliability of self-reports” in relation to “the contemporary high-choice digitalized media environments” (Stier et al., 2020: 505). Targeting users who declare that they self-track their fitness activities contributes to partially overcoming this issue. Thus, while the data lacks some sociodemographic factors due to the policies of the private fan page and platform, it does offer insights into the routines of amateur cycling enthusiasts and their struggles with the increasingly quantified platformization of their hobby. Planned further steps for the research are likely to include a relatively novel approach to collecting and processing digital trace data (Macke et al., 2024).

The questionnaire comprised 18 questions, of which 6 were open-ended, which means that respondents could add their own comments and include them in the answer sheet. Respondents had the option of submitting the form without answering all the questions, and some specific sections could be skipped if the person answering the question declared that they do not engage in a particular type of activity or platform. This study took into consideration only those respondents who answered “yes” to question No. 2, which read “Do you use (social media) applications that track your physical activity?”

The specific areas of inquiry that formed the basis of the questionnaire part of the study were selected by using a mixed-method approach based on the guidelines established by the grounded theory methods. The open coding phase (collecting raw data and breaking it down into segments) followed by axial coding (mapping different categories and relationships between them) and finally selective coding were especially useful in the analysis of video data and auxiliary social media sources such as comments and posts. The initial stages of the analysis followed the open coding phase (Strauss & Corbin, 1998: 581), that is, collecting the data and compartmentalizing it into sections. The interviews followed the interactive, situational, and generative approach to the acquisition of data (Mason, 2002: 225). After the application of the coding procedure, four categories by which respondents framed their experiences were identified: social, hardcore (as in: invested), exploration, and training. These categories have been defined and discussed differently by different users, but nevertheless remain at the top of the list of motivations for using cycling applications and related digital platforms. All data from the questionnaire, individual in-depth interviews and YouTube channel videos were analyzed in order to select key, recurring phrases. For YouTube content analysis, only videos with more than 30,000 views (as of 27 March 2024) were considered.

Of the questionnaire respondents, all claimed that they actively use Strava or other digital tracking services (such as Garmin Connect), with 55.7% saying they use a dedicated sports watch and 87.5% mentioning using stationary training equipment. Participants were informed of the goal of the questionnaire; Zwift and Strava were used as keywords in a post inviting Facebook group members to take part in the study. No monetary compensation was offered to potential participants. The Facebook group's administrators were informed in advance of the study's methods and objectives and raised no objections to the proposed format of the voluntary questionnaire.

Discussion: General findings

The study shows that narratives about digitally enhanced forms of both indoor and outdoor cycling were more often associated with other common, everyday activities than with festive, sportive occasions, such as amateur races or other competitive, public events. Some social media activities displayed by participants in interviews could be interpreted as digital remediation that supports personal reflection (Thomas et al., 2018) in the self-fashioning frame (Zhu, 2015). Comments about long working hours or having to prioritize work or family over regular training were common among those respondents who viewed Zwift as a convenient means of providing structure and maintaining an indoor riding schedule regardless of environmental and social circumstances and obligations.

The most frequent motivation for choosing indoor cycling was “the desire to gain or maintain physical fitness” (68 respondents out of 80, representing 85% of respondents). The second motivation was economic factors (25.7% of respondents). The cost of maintaining outdoor equipment is a recurring theme in both the questionnaire and interviews: even without serious accidents, bicycles used outdoors in typical Eastern European weather conditions require regular maintenance and periodic replacement of mechanical parts such as cassettes and wiring in nonelectronic group sets. In promotional material on the Bikeshow.cc YouTube channel featuring one of the leading local custom bike manufacturers, its founder admits that even on models costing over 10,000 PLN (approximately 2400 EUR / 2500 USD), customers sometimes opt for cheaper, more basic group sets (such as the GRX 400) due to their relatively low usage cost and greater compatibility with other, cheaper mechanical equipment readily available on the market. ¹ This fact highlights the existing barriers to entry for those who want to regularly engage in outdoor cycling activities. However, when asked to elaborate on the key advantages of using an indoor trainer, only two respondents mentioned the equipment, and they did so due to easier maintenance of its “cleanness” rather than out of concern for its durability. It is important to evaluate these responses, factoring in the pandemic and post pandemic shortage of bicycle equipment and spare parts, which has further inflated the cost of owning and maintaining a bicycle in the period from 2020 to 2024. It is also worth noting that relatively few respondents mentioned that their stationary equipment is prone to damage from excessive sweating generated by intense workouts. Such reasoning appeared explicitly in only 2 responses, but “high temperature” as a detriment appeared in 12 of the 61 responses to this particular question. The perceived high cost of equipment for dedicated indoor trainers also emerged in the questionnaire results. One respondent explicitly mentioned a “direct drive” system as a must-have technology in this context, while others indicated that appropriate space arrangements were needed to maintain suitable indoor riding conditions.

The most common responses focused on indoor trainers as tools for easier, safer, and temperature-independent cycling during winter or other inclement weather conditions (31 respondents). Ten respondents said that indoor cycling is more convenient in terms of time, and 6 respondents said that an indoor trainer allows for a more precise training plan, such as “2.5 hours of [zone 2/below the threshold level] training that would otherwise be difficult to do in the city.” One respondent cited family issues and time constraints as key factors limiting the time that can be spent cycling. Interestingly, the accounts of both pleasant and unpleasant sensory experiences accompanying training rides were more common among the in-depth interviewees, who mostly complained about the negative aspects of indoor physical activity.

There is a correlation between the most popular (over 30,000 views) Bikeshow.cc videos on YouTube and the narratives emerging from the questionnaire. The analyzed videos can be divided into four categories: travel vlogs, equipment reviews and discussions, guides and instructional videos, and sports-related content. Even though some of the content does not strictly follow this division due to the occasional inclusions of auxiliary topics, the titles of the videos offer a good approximation of the range of topics presented in a given footage. To evaluate this data, entries that fit into the categories listed above were counted. Videos that divided the topics more or less evenly were counted as 0.5 in each of the relevant categories. The results were as follows: the travel category encompassed 34 videos; equipment reviews and discussions—53.5; guides and instructional videos—13; sports-related content—3.5. With equipment-focused videos dominating over the other topics, it is important to mention the commodification of cycling and cycling media that is rampant on platforms such as YouTube, with the most popular channels (such as Global Cycling Network) presenting “reviews” of newly developed bicycles in numerous sponsored videos. It is also important to note that Zwift offers its users the ability to unlock some cosmetic features to mimic nondigital cycling equipment (Reed et al., 2023: 189). The focus on equipment and clothing, which was also evident in the interviews and questionnaire results, has overshadowed health-related topics in terms of scope and quantity. Therefore, it can be argued that the notion of “datafied” body, which is achieved through the combined use of self-tracking devices and their social media affordances (Couture, 2021: 186) has been at least partially replaced by commodified body-equipment hybrid. Outdoor group rides, in particular, have been seen as environments where inclusivity and acceptance are conditioned upon an individual's willingness to engage in suitable clothing and equipment practices and to follow codes of conduct consistent with the computational logic of the self-tracking apps.

As far as equipment is concerned, the analyzed YouTube content focused predominantly on more expensive items, with some of the most popular videos showcasing high-end, often custom bicycles. However, Bikeshow.cc's sister YouTube channel, Dobrerowery.pl, which operated in partnership with a local bike shop, presented a completely different content format, focusing on short presentations of entry-level equipment.

It is worth noting that some form of equipment advertising also appeared in the travel category footage, where the hosts commented on the cycling gear they bought themselves or received as a result of a partnership with a particular sports company. The commodification of cycling arguably stimulates practices of merging the spatial dimensions of cycling, and the transition from stationary trainers to exploring local routes (aided by dedicated GPS devices) proved to be a challenging process in this study. The study partially corroborated the conclusions from previous studies on various aspects of gamified, networked fitness practices. The overlapping dimensions of digital and physical cycling spaces could be described as “the alignment between the quantified self, self-monitored fitness and geosocial networking” (Brabazon, 2015: 10). Some Eastern European cycling content creators, who are also involved in equipment reviews, use Strava achievements as a form of indicators for evaluation. One of Warsaw's popular cycling YouTubers explicitly stated that he achieved several personal best times during a test ride, using this fact to praise the reviewed bicycle. ² The ecosystem of cycling apps provided an interesting insight into the balance between key dimensions that are subsumed under the “quantified self” regime. Arguably, an important factor in determining the impact of the data collected by a particular program or device was the degree to which it integrated with the basic cycling equipment used by the respondent. The assessment of Strava as a platform and the stationary trainers as training devices revealed that both were perceived as equipment that did not so much help cycling fitness as replace the primary activity of outdoor cycling. Those few respondents who reported advanced and intensive use of these devices were more likely to refer to “training rides” and “workouts” rather than “bike trips” or “bike rides,” which is perhaps not surprising given that the jargon introduced by Strava changes the context of cycling activities. On the other hand, the majority of respondents in the study could fit into the category of “communal” self-tracking (Lupton, 2016), in which collecting data and sharing it on digital platforms results in a sense of belonging to a particular group and building a shared, discursive understanding of cycling activities.

Both Zwift and Strava provided a distinct language of “quantification” that replaced older discursive frames of reference used by respondents to describe their cycling-related activities. It may be informative to refer to the three basic dimensions of sports-related self-tracking devices, which in the case of “wearable mHealth technologies afford the temporal, spatial and interpersonal nature of health surveillance” (Lupton, 2013: 3). There is an interesting overlap between these dimensions in Strava and Zwift, as rides and workouts performed on Zwift's digital courses can be uploaded to Strava and are presented using the same interface features as data uploaded from self-tracking devices used during outdoor riding. The “kudos” system (similar to “likes” on Facebook and other social media platforms) and dissemination options are not significantly different for stationary and outdoor activities for Strava and Zwift users.

On another note, the questionnaire's respondents discussed their interactions with Zwift and Strava in categories that were characterized by a similar ratio of responses and comments indicating the discourses of exploration, sports, and equipment. This observation could be interpreted as a direct influence of the Bikeshow.cc YouTube content creator on his audience, although the rationale provided by the respondents and interviewees was generally more grounded in local environmental and socioeconomic factors that encourage amateur cyclists to think about Zwift and Strava as both training tools and social media outlets.

Turning to the assessment of the two pairs of framings identified in this study, social versus hardcore and exploration versus training, it may be informative to present the Weberian ideal types associated with these four categories. The enumeration of characteristics connected with idealized categories is used in contemporary sociological research to better delineate the defining, generalized features of the analyzed phenomena, which would otherwise be difficult to conceptualize (see e.g. Throsby, 2015). Following the classical view of ideal types (Weber, 1949), they were used as “a way of conceptually grasping something that approximates reality by identifying and accentuating particular features of a given phenomenon” (AlHashmi et al., 2024). In general, the idealized approximation of all four frames of reference is tied to the engagement of users in certain aspects of digital cycling platforms. The social frame thus involves commenting on routes posted by other users on Strava and taking part in communal activities on Zwift, such as participating in club rides. The hardcore frame refers to the use of performance-measuring metrics, training plans and self-monitoring of biodata in a structured, goal-oriented manner. The most important feature of the exploration frame is connected with geolocation: it is the use of other riders’ GPX files to enhance one's experience on the bike, combined with the use of cycling apps as tools for tourism-oriented cycling. The training frame bears some similarities to the competitive frame, although the digital tools used in it focus on individual self-monitoring rather than reaching a threshold enabling offline or online rivalry. While the hardcore frame implies reaching for “marginal gains” and seeking the latest technology from the cycling industry, the training frame refers more to the regular use of mHealth devices without the need for any tangible results in a competitive environment. This distinction is important because of a significant trait in the data, indicating “training” rather than cross-training for other disciplines (e.g. running) or practices to maintain a desired level of fitness. The latter was especially evident in respondents’ strive to achieve a “healthy” work-life balance through engagement in amateur cycling.

Social and hardcore frames

Responses to questions concerning practices of interacting with Zwift and Strava can be divided into two groups. The first one is related to general wellbeing and maintaining a desired level of physical fitness and is directly connected with physical and social activities. One of the most common comments about the motivation to stay in shape is the desire to be able to participate in sports and social activities with peers. Commenting on the inducements associated with using activity-tracking digital platforms (such as Strava), 67.5% of respondents indicated “being inspired by tracking the achievements and workout routines of others,” while only 56.4% chose “tracking personal training data in real-time.” A key factor shaping the discourse of mHealth technologies is how users “react to others’ responses when (…) data are shared” (Lupton, 2013: 8). While most fitness-focused digital platforms have their standardized methods of providing feedback on other users’ activities (such as Strava's “kudos” system), the study indicates that emotional responses are equally important and do not necessarily result in interaction at the level of an app's interface. The shared GPS tracks and available biometric data on Strava are not subject to separate rating mechanisms that would allow users to give direct feedback on one's heart rate or cycling cadence—such discussions are reserved for the comment section placed under each published activity. While platforms such as Strava offer limited ways to engage at this personalized level, more traditional social media platforms such as Facebook have the potential to take over as social hubs for community-based cycling activities where more extensive and individualized feedback is possible. This factor may be contributing to the constantly growing popularity of the closed Facebook group analyzed in this study.

The second dimension of engagement and interaction with cycling-focused platforms, applications, and equipment is related to a more performance- and training-oriented approach. While 35.6% of the questionnaire's respondents declared that they are “not interested” in online contests on digital cycling applications and platforms (including Zwift), only 22.2% have never taken part in such competitions. Interest in digital competitive cycling declines when it comes to viewers, with almost half of respondents (47.1%) admitting that they are not interested in online races and do not follow their coverage on any platform. These results are in line with the profile of the Bikeshow.cc YouTube channel which is targeted to “romantic” cyclists rather than those interested in cycling from a sports fan's perspective.

The assessment of responses encompassing both these aspects of the spectrum from the selected group of amateur cycling enthusiasts allowed us to map the intersections of leisure and competitive discourses in relation to content available on traditional digital and social media platforms, such as YouTube and Facebook. Since the majority of respondents (74.3%) report using an indoor trainer on a regular basis, it is interesting to see different discursive frameworks associated with narratives about its uses. In the data gathered in this study, there is a distinct notion permeating the accounts of the noncompetitive respondents that the actual fitness level and biometric data are less important than the achievement-tracking features. Furthermore, mental health and positive social feedback are often considered of greater importance than extraneous modes of assessing one's power output or the calories burnt during a cycling session. In the case of Eastern European cycling enthusiasts, the additional factor weighing in those observations is the recent state of the cycling industry, with performance-oriented technologies, including electronic shifting and carbon equipment, remaining still relatively expensive for an average user.

A significant context in discussing the importance of the Strava platform is the social media circuit in competitive cycling. Training rides recorded by professional cyclists can contain critical data disclosing their current fitness level or training routine, potentially pointing to specific races and stages they wish to target in the upcoming season. Such power data could be used to create more tangible rider-to-rider comparisons than just a simple juxtaposition of race results, yet the level of performance at the highest levels of cycling could raise doubts about the validity of the results achieved. With the advent of cycling media outlets that combine entertainment value with an in-depth, performance-oriented analysis of World Tour races (such as the Lanterne Rouge YouTube channel), the knowledge of the key performance measurement protocols used by Zwift and Strava not only is increasing among amateur enthusiasts but the data is scrutinized and dissected in ways previously unavailable to nonspecialists in the field. The increasing popularity of Strava among top professional cyclists, however, has its caveats: even though “power data from professional riders has been accessible through Strava for a number of years” (Stróżyk, 2023), data from the most demanding performances remains hidden from the public. For example, the Tour de France winner “Egan Bernal catalogues almost all of his training on Strava (including power data), but when performing at a high w/kg level in races, like on Monte Zoncolan in 2021, he will typically not even upload the ride file to Strava at all” (Stróżyk, 2023).

The “hardcore” framing for Zwift and Strava-assisted cycling activities had some overlap with the “training” framing, although there were clear differences between respondents using the equipment and applications to exercise regularly and stay fit (the “training” discourse), and respondents who directly used the performance-oriented discourse. One of the most elaborated responses to the question about “the most important advantage of using an indoor trainer” enumerated “time savings, ‘sterile’ training that gives the opportunity to do a very precise workout based on the chosen goal—intervals based on the power, heart rate or time; safe conditions to meet one's own endurance or power limits” (Res 50). This comment differs from seemingly similar remarks indicating that training can be done regardless of the time of day, or simply stating that Zwift allows someone to “ride a little at all, because I have three kids and no time for anything” (Res 36). Therefore, it can be argued that the spatial dimension of digital cycling platforms and self-tracking devices extends beyond the quantification and visualization of one's rides, but also affords a structured, digitally imposed scaffolding used to carve one's private space, one's own hybrid, digital/physical space for individually realized exercise. Such activity can, but doesn’t have to, be further shared socially through the affordances of social media platforms. The “bodily self-discipline” encouraged by Strava (Couture, 2021) was perceived more as an option than an imperative by the respondents of the study. Another factor potentially detracting from the “health surveillance” framing of mobile health technologies (Lupton, 2013) could be associated with Zwift as a platform that potentially helps to maintain an “athlete identity” rather than serving merely as a convenient training tool. This kind of approach to Zwift has been seen with elite athletes during the COVID-era lockdowns (Fincoeur et al., 2021). In the questionnaire, one of the inquiries asked respondents to elaborate on the disadvantages of indoor riding (“In your opinion, what is the biggest disadvantage of riding on an indoor cycling trainer?”), and 18 of the 61 detailed responses mentioned the keywords: “monotony” and/or “boredom.” These results, juxtaposed with answers to another question (“In your opinion, what are some of the most important features of a Zwift route?”), point rather to the community-building aspect of indoor cycling activity, with more than 37% of respondents who provided their insights for this particular question choosing “its popularity among other users.” Trusting the judgment of fellow digital cyclists also extends to the use of Strava GPS data as an inspiration and meaningful help in organizing one's time on the bike—an important aspect of the next two discursive framings emerging from this study.

Exploration and training frames

The Bikeshow.cc YouTube channel presents itself as one that avoids content related to the competitive, athletic side of cycling activity and focuses instead on promoting a more laid-back, cycling-focused lifestyle. The emphasis is put on equipment reviews from the perspective of a non racer, and much of the video content is devoted to travel and vlogging from various locations, including such cycling hubs as Calpe and Palma de Mallorca in Spain, as well as more local areas and, for example, potentially attractive cycling routes located in the Świętokrzyskie Voivodeship in Poland. There are comments on videos featuring the exploration of interesting cycling destinations, in which users directly mention that they are watching the YouTube content while riding on an indoor trainer. And 57.1% of the questionnaire's respondents declared that they “watch movies or TV series” while riding on an indoor trainer, and 27.1% mentioned an active form of engagement with other media while using Zwift or Strava, such as “answering messages.” A recurring theme in the individual in-depth interviews was tourism-related exploration. One respondent said: “The routes I cycled on the app during the pandemic, I would like to see them live someday—especially Mallorca and France” (R5). Another respondent stated that, for him, the indoor trainer is “just a preparation for cycling trips” in the warmer months of the year.

It should be noted that Zwift does not generally offer routes that correspond to real-life ones, focusing rather on simulating the specific difficulties that can be encountered in non-digital courses. The respondents may have used other indoor cycling apps, such as ROUVY, which provides digital equivalents of famous real routes. Nevertheless, there are community tools to help find the equivalent of a real route in the Zwift ecosystem. One example of such a tool is Zenturizer, ³ a simple web-based program that calculates which of the available Zwift rides resembles a real-life ride, based on distance and ascent metrics. There are also several solutions for converting a GPX file into a Zwift workout, with the added benefit of available adjustments to the “intensity factor” to suit how challenging the digital rides are. ⁴ It can be noted that the enhancement of performance-oriented affordances of digital cycling platforms with more social-oriented and exploration-oriented features is evident in ROUVY's special events, such as “social rides” with the stars of competitive cycling, featuring Belgian rider Wout van Aert. ⁵ However, the motivations for respondents to start indoor cycling appeared to be more down-to-earth than the desire to participate in such promotional events.

For participants in the individual in-depth interviews, the main incentive to try out the indoor trainer and log into a Zwift account was the COVID-19 pandemic. The motivation for using the Strava application, which allows easy connection to popular social media platforms, can be directly related to the desire to share one's data with a designated group of people on Facebook or other platforms. In a telling comment, one participant said: “The fact that I can share [my ride] with others on Facebook is more important than the info about my wattage output [during the training ride]” (Res 23). This statement corresponds well with previous research that highlighted the pervasive interaction patterns with platforms such as Zwift, where the social aspect constantly clashes with the self-contained nature of solitary indoor training. It has been noted that “the advent of Zwift has added an undeniable element of public performance to indoor cycling in private homes, which has historically been a reclusive practice” (Reed et al., 2023). Interestingly, some respondents mentioned visiting designated areas where stationary cycling trainers are placed in public spaces to promote social engagement and user competition. The motivational model of the participants in this study seems to deviate slightly from the list of factors mentioned in a recent meta-analysis on mHealth technologies, which lists “belonging to a community, quantifying and keeping a record of one's activity, analysing and comparing data, and discovering new practice routes” (Soulé et al., 2022: 182) among the key incentives for people to engage with sports and fitness apps. Among the respondents, inspiration from YouTube content consumption and social media engagement seems to have diverged from the exercise-based model, with a preference for time-conscious exploration of new ways to enjoy cycling rather than simply tracking health data. Spending time on an indoor trainer or logging one's outdoor cycling rides on Strava was more often identified as a lifestyle choice rather than a sport- or performance-related activity.

The Bikeshow.cc project consists of three separate social media channels: YouTube, which is its main and most popular medium, a Facebook group that served as a recruitment platform for the questionnaire conducted as part of this study, and the Strava account of the host of Bikeshow.cc, which has over 18,000 followers (as of March 2024). Each bicycle trip or outdoor bike ride featured in the YouTube video has its GPX track uploaded to the Bikeshow.cc's Strava account, which allows community members to download and use it on their own trips. The effectiveness of this practice is reflected in the data from the questionnaire and fan comments on the Bikeshow.cc YouTube channel. And 67.5% of respondents who answered the question about “the most important reasons for using Strava or other activity tracking applications” chose “motivation and inspiration through the routes and training tracking data of others” (54 replies). The host of Bikeshow.cc includes information about a Strava link with the ability to download a GPS track in almost every video showing the exploration of a new bike route. Still, such YouTube content often receives comments from users requesting these files. In her digital esthetics-focused analysis of Juliet Elliott's cycling blog, researcher Julia Bee noted that

“[r]ather than the pursuit of sport alone and the enhancement of performance, this channel targets the creation of a cycling lifestyle and utilizes an affective strategy of branding very common to influencing in general.” (Bee, 2022: 99)

A very similar observation can be attributed to the Bikeshow.cc channel, where “[T]he kinesthetic and mobile perspective as well as the staging of cycling culture allow the viewers to relate to their own cycling practice aesthetically” (Bee, 2022: 100). The host of Bikeshow.cc uses real-time cycling esthetics to enhance the viewing experience, including a GoPro Bite Mount to record high-speed descents on scenic trails. Some comments on the YouTube channel also mention the practice of watching the on-bike footage while riding indoors on a trainer.

A potentially interesting synergy between the “exploration” and “training” frames occurs in the case of Zwift. When answering a question about the most important features of a Zwift route, 37.2% of respondents selected “its popularity among other users,” while 72.1% chose “characteristics and denivelation.” Zwift provides tools to simulate the outdoor environment through various means. Increasing the resistance of the trainer as the in-game avatar rides uphill is perhaps the most straightforward example. However, some respondents reported using additional measures to bring the indoor cycling experience closer to the outdoor one, such as using a fan directed at the rider's face. Purely training-focused usage of Zwift was marginal in the research data: only three respondents referred to sports motivation (2.3% of all respondents who answered this particular query). The most telling comment was that “it doesn’t matter [which Zwift route I choose for my ride], I go for a targeted watt-based training plan” (R3). The results from the Zwift part of the study confirmed the findings from the Strava-focused research on the most prevalent type of self-tracking mode used by Eastern European amateur cyclists, which is the “communal” mode. As argued in research on diverse domains of the “quantified self” in mHealth, communal self-tracking “fits into the wider discourse of content creation” (Lupton, 2016: 109) and ultimately still serves mainly the needs of the individual rather than a discursively constructed community. This factor emerged in this study when respondents made unprompted remarks on some particular economic, family, or social circumstances affecting their use of digital cycling platforms.

One of the recent studies on the motivational affordances of the technology of Strava names four different discourses through which the surveyed users of this platform discussed their experiences: self-tracking, data, community, and dependency (Rivers, 2020). These four framings also appeared in the research data of this study, although the “dependency” discourse, which refers to the degree of dependence on the platform for providing the motivation to continue one's engagement with cycling, was relatively marginal. If it was present, the “dependency” frame referred more to the social than the strictly athletic aspect of the activity. In the case of Strava, the percentages of the questionnaire's respondents who selected “navigation: finding and mapping routes” and “tracking training data in real-time” as key reasons for using the application were exactly the same (56.3%). This fact points to the overlapping dimensions of using Zwift and Strava as cycling applications—Zwift's digital training sphere provides data that informs prospective outdoor activities, while Strava's tracking is equally important as a training tool and a community-driven resource of potentially inspiring GPS tracks. Interestingly, the assessment of the geographical space that is traversed in the popular “romantic” (but still quantified) mode of cycling contrasts with some of the broader trends mentioned in the meta-analysis of research on self-tracking apps. As stated in a large-scale report on France, “self-monitoring mainly involves men, urbans, the most qualified, and those who practice almost daily” (Soulé et al., 2022: 170). The results of this study indicate that cycling-related self-tracking devices are increasingly popular among people who do not commit to regular sports training but are still subject to quantifying discourses embedded in the logic of location-based solutions that augment exploration as a mode of using a digital platform such as Strava. While Lupton (2013) mentions the “responsible, entrepreneurial citizen” (p. 6), who is the ideal figure possessing both the motivation and economic resources necessary to engage in the health-focused self-surveillance afforded by mHealth devices, it seems that stationary solutions such as Zwift are more effective in evoking the competitive dimension of cycling than the ostensibly performance-focused Strava.

Conclusion

The four discursive frames through which indoor and outdoor cycling apps were discussed among the groups surveyed in this study are generally in line with previous research on digital tools used in amateur cycling, although there were some significant differences that were exacerbated by the regional, Eastern European context of the study conducted. The social, hardcore, exploratory, and training dimensions were present in the context of both Zwift and Strava platforms, but the last category was surprisingly more associated with narratives about wellbeing, budget issues and work-life balance than with competitive, athletic preparations for the outdoor season. The concept of mHealth technologies and their methods of invoking the figure of the “quantified self” helped to establish a scaffolding of interface affordances common to both indoor and outdoor cycling apps, although the questionnaire and interview data indicated a shift from body- and health-focused social practices to fashion- and equipment-focused social practices. The “lifestyle” frame of reference was noticeable throughout the whole dataset analyzed in this study, with key themes such as travel and equipment being focal points that influenced discourses on issues such as health, wellbeing, or socializing with other cyclists. Further research is needed to assess other factors affecting how Eastern European amateurs use digital cycling apps, especially given ancillary considerations such as fixed or nonfixed temporal and spatial usage patterns (Ma et al., 2024). The increasing ease of use of cycling-focused mHealth technologies corresponds with their ability to provide a “simulated,” algorithmically constructed image of the body and its quantified performance (Lupton, 2013). This image, however, seems to be approached with caution: in the case of both the respondents and the content from the Bikeshow.cc channel, the framing of cycling activities contained a fair amount of self-consciousness associated with a certain distrust towards the persuasive data visualization tools offered by mHealth solutions.

The notions of the “quantified self” and “metric culture” (Ajana, 2018) seem obvious reference points for the discourses related to mHealth technologies analyzed in this article, with Zwift and Strava offering numerical feedback for virtually every type of use case associated with cycling. However, the data from this study leans towards “a narrative about self-tracking that is more about well-being than about self-optimisation” (Kappler et al., 2018: 79). Although reaching such a definite statement would require a follow-up study, preferably informed by digital traced data collected from informants (see Methodology section), it is safe to say that the discursive framings of tools-assisted indoor and outdoor cycling activities reported by Eastern European amateurs were more indicative of respondents’ self-care rather than their self-discipline. Concern for one's wellbeing and comfort also emerged in responses that focused solely on measuring the watts per kilo output during indoor training rides. It can be argued that the findings of the study are consistent with a gradual yet tangible shift in the cycling industry, from equipment designed for (aspiring) professionals to bikes and digital solutions aimed more at recreational and amateur users. The increasing number of “endurance” and “road+” bikes in the catalogs of leading bicycle brands, with less performance-oriented geometry and wider tire clearance, may be a sign of such a shift, although confirmation of such a thesis would require a separate study.