The Esports Revolution Redefining Cycling Training

Racing wins races. Not intervals.

This simple truth has been hiding in plain sight for almost a decade, yet traditional cycling training continues to emphasize functional threshold power (FTP) and structured intervals that bear little resemblance to actual racing. What if there was a better way? What if the best training for racing was actually racing itself?

We've discovered this reality through cycling esports. The ability to race world-class competition daily has fundamentally transformed how cyclists train, creating a paradigm shift that challenges everything we thought we knew about developing cycling fitness.

When we race on platforms like Zwift, we're not just playing a video game. We're participating in a training revolution that provides unprecedented access to competition at a frequency that is impossible in traditional cycling. This constant exposure to high-level racing is reshaping how athletes prepare, perform, and progress.

Beyond FTP

Traditional outdoor cycling has long anchored training by derivative metrics aligned with functional threshold power. Increasing your FTP has become almost universally accepted as the way to improve as a cyclist. But this approach has a fundamental flaw when it comes to actual racing success.

In cycling esports, the concept of FTP has very little relevance. Most races last less than one hour, which is less than the duration FTP is designed to simulate. Since esports races are shorter, maximizing instant power and shorter duration power between one and five minutes becomes far more important.

The style of riding differs too. Esports racers spend more time standing rather than sitting, using arms and upper body to generate maximum power. When we focus on power generation in esports, we aren't balancing power-compromising concerns like aerodynamics that outdoor cyclists must consider.

This shift toward overall athleticism and raw power generation represents a fundamental change in training philosophy. It's not about who can sustain the highest power for an hour. It's about who can produce the right power at the right moment to win the race.

 

Racing Replaces Intervals

The most revolutionary aspect of cycling esports is how it transforms the training process itself. We can race any time of day, every single day, against effectively the entire world. This opens up the competitive pool from just local or regional riders to world-class athletes daily.

This accessibility eliminates the need for traditional interval-based workouts designed to be a proxy for actual racing by simulating the intensity and associated energy requirements. Instead of that simulation, we just race. We strategically select races with course profiles aligned to our training goals. Want to increase five-minute power? Find a race with a five-minute climb. Need to work on sprint power? Choose a flatter course likely to end in a bunch sprint.

Racing that supplants interval training offers a crucial benefit: CONTEXT. When doing intervals alone, the connection between that effort and race performance remains theoretical. With esports, we build fitness pragmatically, within the context of trying to win races. We learn how to win and get fit simultaneously.

This approach develops race-winning strength rather than just general fitness. When you focus on winning as your primary motivation, you develop the specific physiology required to achieve that goal. Instead of spending time building strength that may not translate to racing success, you're directly developing the abilities needed to cross the line first.

 

The Psychological Edge

Racing with frequency creates a psychological transformation that traditional training can't match. The normalization of the competitive environment is perhaps the most underappreciated benefit of cycling esports.

Racing frequently against world-class competition gives you the impression that you belong there. You see where you rank and become comfortable in high-pressure situations. There's less anxiety when facing important races because you've been there countless times before.

The tiered structure of esports racing contributes to this mental development, with daily community-based racing serving as training for higher-stakes marquee events. By participating frequently, athletes learn to normalize the pressure environment of competition.

Plus, it's fun. The engaging nature of esports racing creates a welcome distraction from the physical effort. Sometimes we're so focused on winning the race that we don't even notice how hard we're working. The effort happens naturally because we're trying to win, not because we're staring at power numbers during a lonely interval session.

 

The Professional Blind Spot

Professional cycling teams are leaving performance gains on the table by not fully embracing esports racing. World Tour teams spend millions trying to extract every marginal gain from their athletes, yet they've completely missed the innovation created by cycling esports. 

The first World Tour team to fully integrate esports racing into their training methodology will gain a material advantage over their competition. Once that happens, others will follow, and a new paradigm in professional cycling preparation will be created, and it will bring with it the support of its peripheral commercial industry.

For elite athletes, esports offers something invaluable: the normalization of winning. Winning a race isn't luck or simply being the strongest rider. The strongest person in the race usually doesn't win because they mistakenly believe raw power alone is sufficient.

Learning how to win is a skill developed through practice. Many cyclists race with no intention of winning, instead focusing on supporting teammates or strategically influencing the race. But understanding how to win provides context regardless of your role. It's a mindset that transcends cycling esports and applies to any racing discipline. 

The transformation is already underway. Cycling esports has provided a new model for training that emphasizes racing over intervals, anaerobic power generation over threshold development, and race winning skills over general fitness. Those who embrace this approach will find themselves not just fitter, but more capable of turning that fitness into victories.

 

Our Best Selves

In any racing sport, we are at our best when we win races. Now we can race 4 or 5 times or more each week - for years. And we learn things about what we are capable of achieving every. single. time. The habit of winning becomes part of our DNA as athletes, and the expectation of winning becomes so deeply embedded in our psyche that any other outcome seems surprising.

With respect to the sport and all its beautiful complexities and the indirect nature of winning as a team...we're all racing bikes. Isn't winning what racing is all about? Come practice.

- Holden*

* I wrote this article with help from an AI editor. As the proud holder of a literature degree and careful writer, I've come to appreciate the conveyance of meaning that, sometimes, AI can so seamlessly deliver.