CYCLING6 MIN · UPDATED SEP 2026

You just got a Zwift Ride. Here’s the first month.

Two weeks of doing whatever the heck you want, then do a ramp test. The ramp test sets up your structured workouts and gives you a baseline to race from.

SHORT ANSWER

Ride easy and often for two weeks - follow a robopacer, try a hard route, get used to the fan and the saddle. Then take the ramp test. Then go polarized: two hard sessions a week, everything else genuinely easy. Try a race or two and then retest your FTP in 8 weeks.

THE SEQUENCE

WEEK 1–2Just rideno structure4–5 RIDES/WK
WEEK 3Ramp testget your FTP~25 MIN
WEEK 4+Polarize2 hard / weekRETEST IN 8 WK

Weeks 1–2: do not train

You have a new saddle position, a new fan situation, and no idea what 200 watts feels like, so structure right now mostly just means abandoning a plan in about ten days, which is a worse outcome than having no plan at all.

Follow a robopacer at a pace you could hold a conversation at. That is the whole session.

Try one route that intimidates you. You need to know what a climb feels like on this thing.

Sort the fan, the towel, and the bottle before you sort the training. Comfort is what makes week six happen.

Do not look at watts. You have no reference for them yet, so they can only make you race yourself.

Non-negotiable starter equipment

Airflow is killer. Outdoors you have constant airflow but indoors your sweat builds up and you overheat. This alone can kill your motivation.

A proper fan - an air mover, not a box fan550 CFMThe single biggest comfort item and the one people skip, and a box fan is nowhere near strong enough. I use a Vacmaster AM201R, which is a floor air mover rather than a household fan: 550 CFM, tilts at 0, 45 and 90 degrees so you can point it up at your face, and the remote straps to the bars so you can change speed mid-interval without getting off. You do not need the Wahoo Headwind yet.

A mat under the whole thing~$30The amount you sweat indoors is genuinely startling the first time. A mat saves the floor and also your relationship with your downstairs neighbor.

Something to hold the iPad~$25Anything that is not the handlebars or a stack of books. I used a cheap iPhone/iPad tripod, which works fine and is easy to move. My friend had his iPad balanced flat and dropped it when sprinting.

Patience with the saddlefreeIt will hurt for a couple of weeks and then it will stop. I bought a wide cushy seat and ended up switching back to the stock saddle in a week.

Yes the stock saddle will hurt if you're new to riding. Everyone's first two weeks indoors are uncomfortable enough that almost everyone reacts by buying a soft gel seat, which is the wrong move and I know because I did exactly that on my Schwinn. What you actually want is something firm and fairly narrow that your sit bones rest on, and after a few weeks you'll prefer it. Here's why, and how to measure your sit bones with a bit of cardboard.

Week 3: take the ramp test

Not the 20-minute test - the ramp raises resistance every minute until you literally can't turn over the cranks and then takes your best minute times 0.75, which needs no pacing skill at all compared to the full 20-minute test. Also it's a much easier pill to swallow since most of the ramp test is pretty chill up until the last few minutes.

+20WPER MINUTE

×0.75OF BEST MINUTE

8 WKUNTIL RETEST

SEATEDTHE WHOLE WAY

Stay seated. That is the one instruction I would actually underline, because the ramp takes your best minute and it is very tempting to stand up and hammer the last thirty seconds. You can absolutely inflate your FTP that way, and then you will spend the next eight weeks training off a number you cannot hold.

This bites hardest if you are punchy, which most people coming from running are. I got a great ramp number off a very anaerobic last minute and then blew up on my first sweet spot workout, which was confusing at the time and fairly obvious in hindsight, because the ramp measured what I could do for sixty seconds while sweet spot asks what you can hold for twenty minutes at a stretch, and those turn out to be pretty different questions.

This FTP estimate sets up your workouts. First, it's an estimate so feel free to bias up and down as needed. Second, you may need to build into it especially if you're a runner or new to cycling. Third, trust me the feeling of imploding on rep 3 of an interval session is not worth having a higher vanity FTP.

If you are light or new to hard efforts, use the Lite version. Whatever number comes out of it is not a verdict on you or on anything really, it is just the input to the next eight weeks of training. I know, a low number is still deflating. But the right number is the one that makes the next eight weeks of workouts actually work.

If you already have a few rides recorded, you can get a lower bound before you test at all: drop one into the FTP estimator and it will tell you what you have already proven you can hold. It will not tell you your ceiling, because an ordinary ride cannot - but a floor is a much better starting guess than the default, and it is the right number to type in while you wait for week three.

Week 4 onward: sprinkling in the hard days

Polarized means the hard days are hard and the easy days are properly easy.

A WEEK, SHAPED

2 HARD · 3 EASY · 2 OFF

easy

hard

easy

off

hard

long

off

Two hard sessions, and start with something boring like 4×5 minutes at threshold or a VO2max set of 3×3 rather than anything more exotic.

Everything else at a pace that feels almost embarrassing. If you can’t talk, you are wasting the day. Check what your steady zone 2 power would be via your FTP estimate and our calculator.

One of your two rest days should be actual rest, not a "recovery spin".

The easy days and the intervals don't strictly need Zwift, as it turns out, since the KICKR Core underneath a Zwift Ride will hold whatever watts any app asks it to over Bluetooth, and I wrote up riding it without the subscription for the days when the game isn't the point.

Do some Zwift racing

Just find a short one and hop right in. I was so nervous for this but it was a fantastic experience.

Just prepare to get your butt kicked. Hang on for dear life and then try a Hail Mary breakaway, or follow an attack and then get dropped.

You will probably do something tactically stupid in the first one, like attacking at the wrong time and getting reeled in right before the finish or just eating wind for 5 minutes instead of biting the bullet and closing a gap.

What not to do

You do a ramp test in week oneEspecially if you're new to cycling it'll take one or two weeks for your quads to catch up to whatever fitness you have from any other sports you might do. Doing a ramp test early will give an incorrect result and your training zones will be off.

Everything is moderate, nothing is hardI won't echo the "Zone 2 is optimal training, zone 2 zone 2 zone 2" stuff you read online but if you do everything moderate you won't have time to do some hard stuff. That hard stuff is what drags you upwards, but doing all hard will cause overtraining or injuries. Plus it just sucks.

You commit to power numbers before knowing your FTPAll the workouts in Zwift are coded as percentages of your FTP. If you want to start doing workouts without doing a ramp test first, just try to eyeball your FTP based on your unstructured riding - what could you hold for 60 mins of seriously painful effort (or maybe 20 if that's hard to visualize) and use that as a starting point. Definitely bias up and down during the workout to finish it.

You retest too oftenYes I know you're just 0.1w/kg away from the legendary 4w/kg but have patience. Stick to your plan and you'll get there! And ramp tests are a distribution, you'll have good days and you'll have bad days. Your FTP is for training not for showing off (or at least I tell myself).

NEXTTurn that into heart rate zonesOPEN TOOL →