In this monotonous fast-paced lives that we live nowadays, we often get time to go to the gym. This is the very reason that a lot of health conscious people have now started exercising indoors in order to save sometime and burn out some calories at the same time.

While exercising indoors might be time saving, but after a certain point of time it also ends up becoming boring and monotonous. This is where technology comes to our rescue. The tech sector has worked hard to make indoor exercising as much fun as it could be made possible by giving birth to a trend known as the ‘gamification’ of cycling. California-based Zwift is an important player in this segment.

Founded in 2014, Zwift has designed a digital training software that creates a virtual universe in which riders from all over the world can train together in digital harmony. Though the company faces stiff competition from other players in the segment like SufferFest, Peloton and TrainerRoad, but Zwift has been successful in holding a significant ground in the market as it adds layers of social gaming to the experience. This is the reason that till date about 250,000 people have availed the company's $10-a-month service and given indoor cycling a magnificent makeover. The company has raised a total of $45 million since inception.

ZwiftCycling

Co-founded by four individuals, Eric Min, Alarik Myrin, Scott Barger and Jon Mayfield, Zwift is quickly becoming a byword for indoor cycling all around the world.

Zwift allows its subscribers to ride in its virtual world, which it has named Watopia, as well as on online recreations of the RideLondon and 2015 Richmond World Championship courses. The riders are provided with an option of joining group rides and competing with cyclists from more than 150 countries or creating their own training sessions and plans. Zwift membership costs £8 per month.

Zwift

According to a Zwift official, community is at the heart of Zwift. It aims to promote a sense of shared experience by the game’s functionality and it is propagating the same through any number of social media channels, mainly Facebook. There are over 100 Zwift-centred groups on Mark Zuckerberg's Facebook.

Over the last few months, Zwift had been occasionally teasing the world about its ambition of expanding its cycling focused platform to other interests as well. One of those being running. Time and again they would tweet various screenshots of people running on Zwift and even spoke about it at a couple of Zwift events. And finally, the platform's latest version released earlier this year includes unofficial support for running on PC and Mac platforms. It is important to note that this is not an officially supported feature, since it is still pre-beta and available only as an Easter Egg for those who know where to find it. With the pre-beta version already here, we're sure that the feature would see an official release in the next few months.

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