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 :-). 

Wow, it's been so long!

Hi Guys,
OMG, I have been AWOL for quite some time.  I blame my bike, lol.  As soon as the snow melted I hopped on and so far have not stopped riding.

I'm having an amazing summer and get out whenever I can, weather permitting.  We've had a crazy hot summer...global warming is real when we have a heatwave in Northern Ontario, Canada!  We had an entire week of temps higher than 100 F, which we are totally not used to.  Some nights it was even hot at night.

I was having to wait until after 7 or 8 pm to ride my bike, which meant short rides as it gets dark at 9:30 PM here.

Thankfully we're back to our normal weather now, and yesterday I was able to leave the house earlier than usual. I spent the entire day on my bike and it was wonderful.

Here are some photos; I hope you'll like them.

This is an abandoned building near the bike trail.  I think it is cool looking.

 This portion of the hub trail is so pretty; it follows the river and I love seeing the blue sky over blue water.

I stopped and had a nice break on this bench.  The wind gusts were up to 40 km/hour so it got super windy, but it was a nice relief from the heat.  I was so hot my clothes were soaking wet and I drank my entire bottle of water and had to buy more. The wind was lovely and dried me off, lol.

The trail runs behind the Bushplane Museum, and it's fun to see the tiny water and bush planes. Some are still in use and it's amazing to watch them take off and land in the river.

On the way home I popped in to see the wildlife on Whitefish Island.  There were several beavers, ducks, geese, loons, squirrels, chipmunks, and redwinged blackbirds here.  The chipmunks were angry because I didn't bring seeds for them.  One tried to climb my bike, lol.

I stayed to watch the sun set and enjoyed watching the clouds and sky change colours.

 My favorite time of day is just before sunset, when the sun casts golden shadows over the treetops.

 Here's my bike on the walkway over the beaver pond.  I sat there for at least half an hour, watching beavers eat.  They float on top of the water and remain almost motionless, except for their little paws stuffing food into their mouths, lol.  It's so funny.

This shot, below is my favorite.  Geese on the pond under cotton candy clouds, which are reflected in the water.

 The geese swam over to see if perhaps I had some food for them.  I felt bad that I didn't, lol.

 I stayed until dark, although it's hard to tell in the photo below. My camera lightens everything up quite a bit.

I ordered a new camera, an inexpensive offbrand GoPro type of deal, and can't wait until it comes in.  I'm planning another bike camping trip for August, but in the meantime, I am thinking of riding out to the beach tomorrow, just for the day.  It will be almost 20 km one way, so a 40 km bike ride round trip.  I'll have to wake up early so I can ride in the morning, spend the afternoon at the beach, and ride home in the evening, before it gets dark.  Yesterday's ride was 25 km and exhausted me, but it was super hot.  Tomorrow is supposed to be cooler, so we'll see.

Thanks for popping in. I hope you're having a nice summer too!

32 km bike ride along the Hub Trail

Yesterday I did an almost 32 km bike ride, and it was difficult because half of it was extremely hilly, but I made it.

The hub trail, SSM

I lost the trail for a bit but found it again.  Most of this ride is on bike paths, but some spots are on road, on either bike paths on the road or wide paved shoulders.  Only a few blocks on the actual trail were on roads without paved shoulders, but those portions were in quiet neighbourhoods.  I have to ride through neighbourhood streets to get to the trail, and to get off the trail too.

Hill at entrance to trail

 The above photo was taken from the top of the first hill.  It's kind of hard to see the street way down at the bottom of the hill, with the tiny cars, but that is where I came from, and it was quite a steep hill. I made it to the top but it made my entire body shaky for over an hour after. I have no idea what caused that shaky feeling.

Fort Creek

 This is the main creek that this conservation area is named after: Fort Creek.  There are also loads of smaller creeks that feed into this one.

This is the first of many bridges I had to cross, some quite high.

 There are several bridges throughout this portion of the trail; some quite high up, with pretty views.

 I had to walk up this hill.  This photo was taken at the top, to show the pretty wildflowers and rock wall.  The rock wall was a great place to sit and rest.  It was super hot and humid out.

From the bridge

View from bridge

 The bridge views were very pretty.  It's hard to tell, but that is actually a wide and really tall trees, below.

 The sides of this bridge were about one inch taller than me, so about 5'5" tall.

 These trail signs are everywhere on the dedicated trail, but nowhere to be found on the streets, where they are really needed to mark the trail.  Notice the bear warning sign.  I was worried bears would smell my pepperoni and cheese supper, lol.  I had it wrapped securely in a thick cooler bag.

 Prouse Motors built this nice shelter/rest area for bike riders/walkers, just before Highway 17 West.  I stopped and enjoyed the shade.

 I made a pit stop for G2 and also bought some pork rinds, but didn't eat them.

 I took this photo of my bike near the new hospital as I couldn't believe I made it there, lol.

 The photo above shows the bike shop where I bought my bike.  They have a picnic/camping area for people to use.  I stopped to get a trail map, and met a couple who are cycling from the Sault to Southern Ontario!  OMG; what an amazing trip that would be, but scary.  The TransCanada highway would suck for bike riding.

 This is the intersection for Highway 17 East., leaving town.  I may do this section one day soon if I decide to do another bike camping trip after my first test trip to Pointe Des Chenes.  It will be a longer trip, 3 or 4 nights instead of 1, if I work up the courage to ride on the highway.

 A nice shady section of the trail.

 Topsail Island at Belleview Park.

 Sunset at Belleview Park.

 Darkness falls on the boardwalk, near the mall.  The trail is nicely lit up, and I have bike lights and reflectors so I was quite safe.

 This is the intersection near the underpass.

This last pic shows how dark it was when I got home. That's my house, with the bright light shining.

It was a great ride and I had lots of fun, despite the rough start with all of the hills.  I'm very surprised I was able to make it up so many of them.