Technology

The technology is truly plug and play however several notes below may be useful.

Smart trainer

It is not essential to have a smart trainer. If you can calibrate the breaking power versus slope of your trainer then produce a simple table of brake application vs slope this will suffice. Zwift produces a graph of the slope present, past and future at all times in one corner. I opted for the interactive version. Interactive means the Zwift software does all the settings for you in terms of slope simulation. I settled on a TACX Vortex T2280. There is a cheaper version T2240 the base lever smart trainer from the same company but the T2280 has about 100W more braking ability giving me a 7% slope instead of the 6% of the lesser model which I thought was a bit marginal in performance. Even on the flat route in Watopia a 5% slope is present. There are various other trainers out there, pay your money take your chances. I am not recommending this trainer above any others I leave this to the cycling comics.

Preparing the bike

The bike needs to be fitted with a TACX of similar mounting skewer. You bike also needs a rear training tyre as the friction in a trainer is greater over a smaller area of the tyre and produces high temperatures at the point of contact. There are trainers without the need for a training tyre but they usually start at £1000 upwards.

Training mat

You will need a training matt. The mat has several purposes as follows:
* Is anti slip so your trainer will stay put
* It will insulate you from the floor reducing noise and wear marks on the floor (if your floor is of a delicate finish).
* It will collect any stray sweat, as their will be lots of it, and you should have an old towel as well.

Cooling fan

It is absolutely essential to have a cooling fan, in a situation where the human body is generating anything up to 950W (in the case of my trainer) then you will need a fan directed efficiently at you. I used a Tower type fan from Dimplex. The benefit from a Tower fan is you can more ideally place it relative to your bike and it is quiet in operation. I extended the height of it to match my position on the bike. I also open all the windows during a session to let the condensation out as my training room is an unheated conservatory.

USB to ANT+ converter

If your trainer or LapTop does not have Bluetooth this is an essential requirement and various low cost versions can be found on Amazon/Ebay/ Wiggle etc cost £10 for the cheapest. I use the cheapest. You will need a USB extender as despite the spec saying effective up to 5m I had problems at 2m.

Computer

There are a variety of options here and they are covered more fully on the Zwift web site. However if you go the Mickeysoft  route you will need a 64bit I5 machine with fairly capable graphics. I did not have a compatible machine before building my trainer and I found a used Dell E6420 with 8Gbit ram a cost effective solution cost = £250. You need about 25-30fps to give a realistic presentation of the graphics.

Display

The key to the usefulness of this technology lies in the display. The bigger the display, the higher the resolution and nearer you are planted to it the better. This is the best route to suspend reality during a session. The 14" disply on the laptop was just not going to hack it for me. I borrowed a redundant 19" display from a friend and mounted it on a tripod and placed it right in front of the bike. The display and laptop have a high speed HDMI  interface.

Mobile phone

The mobile is useful as the LCG use it to communicate on the cycle and to meet up at the start line. It is also useful to control the Zwift software from your handlebars.

Map

Watopia Flat

I find it useful to have a printout of the route up below the screen. I am not sure if this is possible on Zwift but I have not found a feature that gives my orientation on the track. LCG use this flat route for their Thursday night bash.

Strava

The Zwift software is linked to Strava training records. You get credit for your efforts on Watopia despite it being a virtual cycle.