Week one Cycling in VR with VZ Fit Explorer, Oculus Quest 2, and My Exercise Bike

 I LOVE VZFit Explorer...

The Oculus Quest 2...

And my Exercise Bike!

I LOVE bike riding, and I always get depressed in winter when I can no longer hop on my trusty bike and go for my rides. I love taking my camera along and exploring new paths.

A few years ago I got an exercise bike for Christmas, and while I was initially excited about it, the excitement wore off as I found it sooooo very boring, lol.  Plus the seat hurt my butt.  A lot.

Well, last year I got into VR (Virtual Reality), when I got the Oculus Go for Christmas. I LOVED it and soon upgraded to the Oculus Quest...because I wanted to try an art program that wasn't available on the Go. 

I had a blast and used it almost EVERY day during the Pandemic.  If ever there was a year to escape to virtual reality, 2020 was it.

Then this year the Oculus Quest 2 came out and I decided to get it right away so that I could at least have it for awhile before they came out with the next upgrade, lol.  It was cheaper, lighter, with far better graphics and I regret nothing. I still use my Quest 1 for Beat Saber (because I always run the battery down) and I even jump into my Go sometimes, although the graphics are not great compared to the new Quest 2...it's still fun and I still love it.

It's no lie to say that bike riding and Virtual Reality have kept me (relatively) sane this year.  So when I learned about a company that connects bike riding with VR...I had to try it.  I just had to order a sensor from Amazon first, to connect my exercise bike to the app...and it was under 20 dollars.

The company's name is VZ Fit and I LOVE it.  They have two apps; VZ Fit Play, which lets you play racing games on your exercise bike, and is fun and VZ Fit Explorer, which lets you go for a virtual bike ride anywhere that the Google Earth Car has gone, which is just about everywhere.  There are over 10 million miles to explore.  10 MILLION.  That's crazy!

There are many premade rides but so far, I am really enjoying creating my own rides, in my own area.  It is such a blast to cycle down roads I recognize, and to see familiar landmarks.

I created a series of rides that go along the Trans Canada Highway, starting at my house, and heading North, with a lot of the drive ride beside the gorgeous bays of Lake Superior.  

I can't ride much more than half an hour at a time so I made them shorter rides, less than 15 km per ride, for each stretch, but I'm having a blast and have cycled over 82 km this week alone...and I took the day off for Christmas day.  

Part 1/Day 1 of Superior VR bike trip:

It's super cool that I can choose to start at my house, so that's exactly what I did for the first section of the ride.

This is the route I took for part 1 of my trip, courtesy of STRAVA, which can be connected to the app. 

This section of the trip gave me beautiful fall colors and bright blue skies. It was so beautiful!

When I finished the ride, I was able to take a photo of my avatar going through the finish line.  Part 1 of my Superior Ride was 12.6 km. 

Part 2/Day 2:

Day 2's section of ride was cloudy, but I got to pass some pretty scenery, like this river. 

This is the section of the map from day 2. 

And this is my avatar going through the finish line of part 2/day 2.   

Part 3/Day 3:

Day 3 had me riding past the turn to our family cottage. This bridge on the highway is so familiar to me; when I was a very little girl...pre kindergarten, I used to sing "Look at the water! Look at the water!" as we crossed the bridge. It was soooooo cool to cycle under it in VR, while riding an exercise bike!

Here's my Strava map of my route for Day 3. 

And here's my avatar going through the finish line.  When I ride, I don't see my own avatar; she only shows up when I take a photo via the "upload photo" part of the app.  I ride my bike in first person, and when I look down, I can see my bike, and ring the bell on my handle bars. When I look ahead I see the road, and when I look side to side, I see each side of the road. Looking up shows me the sky, and often times birds flying over head. It is so cool. 

Part 4/Day 4:

On this section of the ride, I tried out the TRAINER feature.  You can choose a male or female. I chose the male because he was bigger and easier to see when he goes up ahead, lol. He can talk and give encouragement, but I chose a strong silent type instead. There are various types of training you can choose.  I chose the one where I am supposed to maintain a steady pace with the trainer. But every time I stopped to take photos, he went on ahead and I had to pedal hard to catch up.  It is so cool that the faster I pedal, the faster I go. When I stop pedaling, my VR bike stops, If I pedal slowly, so does my VR bike. It's so cool to have that much control. It really feels like bike riding.

This was a pretty section of the ride, with big rock cuts, lots of forest, and lakes.

You can see on the map that this section followed the lake pretty closely. It was such a pretty ride.

But it was over soon enough.  Each ride takes me about half an hour.  My butt hurts too much to go longer. I ordered a gel seat cover and am hoping it will come in the mail soon so I can ride longer.

Part 5, Day 5:

I chose the male trainer again on Day 5.

There were some really gorgeous sections to this ride, too. 

This was my longest ride of the week, at 15 km. 

It was so much fun, and I can't wait to continue on. 

I also did other random rides earlier in the week. Strava counts from Monday to Sunday, so today was my last day of the week. I only missed one day; Christmas day. 

Here are my Strava stats for the week: 

The light gray bars show how much I cycled each day. Friday has nothing because it was Christmas Day and I didn't cycle that day.  The green bar shows that today is Sunday. I did 83.7 km this week.  I am thrilled, absolutely thrilled with that.

I'm much faster on my exercise bike than I am on my real outdoor bike. My real bike is a Townie by Electra, and it's a comfy but heavy bike. Plus I carry about 10 Ibs of stuff on my bike on a normal day; more if I'm going far and need to pack a lunch and extra water.  The exercise bike has no weight to push, and there is no elevation. 

I've been riding on a difficulty level of 5. I'm not sure if I'll up the difficulty or not because there are over 10 million miles to explore and I want to see as much as I can, lol.  So even though I'd like to up the difficulty so I'm slower, in reality, if I were riding a speed bike, I'd be able to ride faster than I do on my heavy bike.  I need to think about it.

I am so happy that I found VZ Fit.  We're back in lockdown because of the pandemic, and even though we can leave the house to exercise, there's a ton of snow out there so I'm happy exploring the world from the comfort of my living room.

Thanks for spending time with me. I hope everything is OK with you guys. 

Take care :-).