FulGaz 4+

I started out on Zwift, but found myself a little tired of just being an avatar in a CGI world. I still ride on Zwift sometimes, but more often on FulGaz. I like the fact that I can say “I think I want to ride in Italy today” or sometimes I just want to set a mileage limit, so I look for rides of 20-25 miles. I like that I now know more about what the world looks like by riding there. I know a little about what the Canary Islands or Mallorca look like, and feel like. Four stars, not five, for the following two reasons. 1.) automatic uploads to Garmin would be so nice. Having to download a fit file, copy it to my phone, then upload it just feels unnecessary. 2.) I do not use the structured workouts due to the fact that they have to be ridden in steady mode, which is inaccurate for keeping track of mileage and elevation gain which I track in Garmin Connect. I do like the fact that if you buy a year-long subscription you get “Family Sharing” for free. I let my son-in-law ride on my account, which has been fun.

I have been using FulGaz for about 3 years. I do not lie when I say it has changed my life. I can tour the world from the comfort of my own basement when conditions in the real world are not conducive to cycling. Also, living in a densely populated and mostly flat metropolitan area, I can safely cycle a whole variety of ride profiles that I don’t have easy access to in the real world. The quality of the videos is such that I sometimes forget I’m indoors. My ability to maintain a consistent cycling regimen is night and day better than it would be without FulGaz. The developers have made significant improvements in the interface, especially the ability to search and filter for a desired profile, which is very helpful given the ever-expanding catalog of rides. And they have been immediately responsive and helpful each time I have contacted them for technical help and advice. When I first got my smart trainer, I alternated between FulGaz and Zwift, but after about six months, I abandoned Zwift because I preferred FulGaz’s videos to Zwift’s cartoon world, and I found Zwift’s gamification annoying. FulGaz is the best simulation I know of the things I love about cycling: the ability to explore the world on two wheels and challenge myself physically as much as I want. I wish the developers continued success, and I look forward to the ongoing development of the app.

I was loving this app! The beautiful scenery in the video made riding inside a lot more bearable! It’s also nice that you can see all your data on the screen while not taking away from the view! I thought, man this is great! I finally found an app that look forward to using. Then... the dreaded update, dum, dum, dum.
The first thing that was a little annoying was the thumbnails to choose your ride are smaller and hard to read. I’ve been doing the climbing program so it was easy to get back to. I don’t even want to imagine what it would be like to try and browse through the options. On to the ride itself. Video quality still great, scenery still beautiful. Now all your data is shown on a little virtual bike computer, cool idea. The placement is right in front like it is on your bike but it totally obstructs your view and for me ruined the experience. I used to be able to see my cadence as well as the target cadence, watts, calories, total time as well as segment time remaining and more, it was great! Now everything is too small to see and the more I looked at the screen the more annoyed I got. I ended up throwing my towel over the screen so I didn’t have to look at it anymore. I’m giving this app 5 stars because it was great and I’m confident someone is going to realize it needs to be changed back to the way it was.