ROUVY Reviews

I’ve been adapting to riding indoors and it’s a challenge. Many choices out there. The one part of road cycling i have been looking for is in this app. this app takes my setup and makes the experience the closest i’ve come to being on the road. Get this, climbs feel like climbs. But when you get to the top of the climb you feel some float in the pedals. Then the drop comes and you’re on a nice descent that feels like you’re actually descending. ROUVY is not perfect but the feel is . So let’s let these cool maps and rider community mature or grow. i’m more forgiving of less than perfect if it’s fun to ride and this app does that. Do you want to recalibrate your riding for an app? Did you spend your money to have to learn to do it “their way”? I invested in myself when i bought my trainer. As that should be everyone’s goal. (** Tacx Neo 2 T for power and my Quarq power unit for cadence.)
The apps should work for the riders not the other way. Give this a chance and i think you’ll get past the marketing and wow factor the competitors are banking on in a few short rides. Not that this app lacks in wow factor. 😏 Cycling is personal and i’m reviewing this from a cyclists stance.

As I have now spent almost 2 weeks with ROUVY , I have learned how to create virtual riding partners who ride just a little faster than me, using this app’s archive of other cyclist routes. I have been adding 30-50 riders so I always have someone nearby to challenge me.
I think ROUVY deserves to be viewed on a large screen. It runs best with Apple TV 64. Second choice would be a large screen iPad or computer. Another good choice would be an iPhone linked by HDMI adapter directly to a big screen. The filming and immersive feel would be wasted on just the small screen of a smartphone. And unless you have an ultra fast WiFi network, screen mirroring with ApplePlay or similar mirroring methods is too choppy to maintain the immersive feel.

My next project will be to rewire my biking room with a direct Ethernet connection to my AppleTV so I can stream the rides instead of the 5-10 minute WiFi downloads to the Apple TV. I will soon run out of storage on the device and will have to delete earlier rides. My WiFi varies from 30-50 Mbps while my Ethernet runs 10 times faster.

I’ve been riding this app AR about 4-6 days per week for most a year now, and I love it. Unlike another popular indoor training app, this app uses real-world video (and you can upload your own), so that you see the real world as you ride, without video game features. In hundreds of rides, I’ve only repeated a few and that was just because I enjoyed them; I still have hundreds more saved to try. I also get great motivation from the challenges, races, and career ladder, and have made new riding friends through using it. Most fundamentally, it’s also made me a much stronger rider, despite many years of prior experience. I like it so much that I sometimes choose to ride indoors even on nice days, just because I enjoy ROUVY so much. The AR version is still fairly new and is evolving; most notably they have now added ANT+ functionality, but I’ve always used it with Bluetooth and never had any issues. There’s still plenty of room for it to grow and improve, but if this app stayed as it is I would still be using it years from now.

I’ve been using this app now for nearly 2 years. I find the true life videos FAR SUPERIOR to the Virtual World that Zwift uses which I find simply too busy. I use this app Mostly during the winter and when the weather’s not conducive to riding outside. I like the new format as of Jan 2022 with the “coins” and all. Having other riders on the route is a big motivator for me, either chasing the “carrots” or staying ahead of another rider. Through this app then Strava I’ve “met” riders in other countries and can follow their activities. On Sundays 4 of us will meet up on a chosen route for a group ride. I don’t have Smart TV so I simply display the image on my iPad onto an older wide screen TV. Yeah, there’s a little bit of distortion at the far sides, but that’s a non issue for me.

I am by no means a structured cyclist, but I do consider myself an enthusiast and definitely do not want to lose my summer gains over the winter months. I pair this app to my Keiser M3i and it’s off to the races. I had some complaints about the original app in terms of bugs and crashing, to which the developers kindly responded with suggestions. Now that I’ve returned to ROUVY in the fall, the changes and updates are night and day. New maps, fluid movement, and a lot more app stability once the ride gets going. You can tell they put a lot of work and love into making ROUVY better for us. I have no reason to use anything else.

For the love of Contador, you gotta move the time trial leaderboard* off of the route profile! We need to be able to anticipate gear changes!....

And please please please add a toggle to remove live racers from showing in time trial mode (and for ourselves on other riders’ views [privacy]). We are not all here to race others! We are here to challenge ourselves, and having the Valverdes out there hanging on the back wheel until the end makes me want to just find another app. And really, the only time I want to see the Roglič’s of the world passing me on a motorcycle is through the lens of the Grand Tour chariots.

*the leaderboard is pretty silly considering the numbers, but sure.

Just downloaded on new iPad, have been using the older version for the last couple of years. The new version will not let me see any of the courses I’ve created, how do I pull-up a course that I created on the older version. The older version would show my workout on full screen this version shows a guy riding down the road and my workout stats are so small that it is hard to see when you are really pushing. I like the older version, I could care less about the scenery or riding with other people. I’m trying to complete a workout were I can see my numbers. Is there anyway to show my numbers full screen as in the old one and do I load my routes that I created from courses I’ve done in the past. If I wanted to ride on Swift I would have signed up for swift.

Equipment

Wahoo kickr
iPhone 6+
3rd gen Apple TV
Must mirror from iPhone to atv

Negative

First text message in, disrupts program and it lost my ride data. Had to start ride over after being half way thru

Verify this app email comes in and disrupts the program. Had to send verify email three times before it was acknowledged. After the secomd email, had to get off the bike to find and re-enter my email and password. Then again I had to start the ride from the beginning

You know when I’m on the program, so why allow or send interrupts to the Apple TV ?

Positive

Wonderful graphics

Realistic pedal drag going up and down the hills, way better than wahoo’s app and Zwift in my opinion

Power level goes to zero when you coast, wahoo or zwift didn’t do that for me.

I will try it again, but first impression are important, please fix these first ride annoyances

So far, it is the only App I’ve used, mostly because I am addicted. It is not perfect, but still great. My biggest gripe, is that SOME of the challenges have to be completed in “Race Mode.” I am slightly introverted, and really just enjoy riding the routes alone. Also, I am just a dude trying to get and stay in shape.

I Would Love Love Love it even more if, they could make it compatible with FitBit, so I can see my heart rate and upload my workout to the FitBit dashboard.

I like this app a lot for the video rides that are way more immersive than Zwift. I use Ant+ and a KICKR Core with not too many issues with the core functionality. The UX needs work is my biggest complaint. It would be nice to browse challenges and select routes from a list directly in ROUVY , instead of needing to search for them on the web. With a few more features like that, this would be the only app I used. After riding Watopia for the 10,000th time, I much prefer the variety of the this app AR experience.

After using ROUVY for 2 years I have decided to try something else. ROUVY works decently with my Saris H3 when riding solo, but has some quirks when riding with somebody else. Bottom line this app has not really upgrades it in 2 years. Also, it really takes 2 apps to run: 1 to chose the ride, 1 to do the virtual ride. However, my main reason for leaving is that in 2 years I have not seen many new rides added in part of the world I am interested in.

While I might be in the minority I am much much less interested in the AR features of ROUVY . I really hope this is not the direction this app is going, I love the simplicity of the old this app app, I would be very sad to see it stop being maintained in favor of this version. I don’t use this to see a fake looking biker character and race barriers. I want to see the scenery and my statistics, that’s it. If anything I would love to see more investment in video quality and smoothness, not fake looking AR junk that I hated in Zwift. Please invest in your real value this app! Keep increasing video quality and ride variety and you’ll have a customer for life.

I enjoy the more gamified apps as well, but I always come back to this app- it’s just what I typically feel like riding when the outdoors aren’t an option.
My favorite thing to do is find routes I’ve done before in real life - Malibu Canyon, Cinque Terre, Valley of Fire - and ride them again virtually. It’s also helping me plan future trips.
I’ve been using a Gen 3 Kickr and it feels great - no complaints there.

Love the response of the smart trainer with ROUVY. Expected more refinement. Much better graphics than Zwift. More realistic physics. But 3 Star for no training options or integration with Training Peaks. Disappointed. Was ready to drop Zwift.

I love the old this app app. Everything was in one place. Now when I enter a challenge, I have to go over to safari to look it up, find required routes, list those as favorites and then go back to this app ar to ride them and I still don’t know which route is for which challenge when I’m on AR. There were a lot more routes, I could look them up on world map and choose to see a new place in world. Lots of triathlon routes, not just iron man routes. I got AR because I was told the original this app was no longer available. I will finish my subscription and if things don’t improve I will switch to zwift.

I prefer to use this app for my off day rides because I really enjoy the realistic graphics and numbness choices. It’s like virtual site seeing in environments as rich as 4k. I revert back to zwift on traing days however because TrainingPeaks workouts sare only available on mobile. on zwift I can use my Mac mini and 50” tv for a immersive experience. When I can do my workouts on this app mac app I will use it almost exclusively.

I tried this app for about two weeks and was enjoying it. Then I got all ready to exercise one day and I got an error that I exceeded the maximum number of devices. I had only used my one Apple TV however. I tried to go to subscription like I saw on help and could not fix. Then went to my computer and tried again. There is nothing worse that trying to work out and something like this happens. I just cancelled my membership. Not worth the hassle. I will just use my Wahoo app from now on.

Among other downloading issues, ROUVY died in the middle of two long rides for me. If you take the workouts seriously, then an app that dies screws up your planning and training. It’s a source of frustration. On top of that, customer service gets back to you at around a 40-50% rate and doesn’t really strive to help—it’s mostly robot questions that you answer for them and then hope they get back to you at that 40-50% rate. I’m going to switch to the competitor if I can’t get things resolved.

I just connected via Bluetooth to a new Schwinn IC4 spin bike. I realize that it is not fully compatible with this model but the info I have says the speed is supposed to at least sync up. When I look at the Bluetooth connection in the settings. It looks like it is reading the speed correctly from the bike, but that doesn’t translate at all to the video. I can’t get over 10mph in the video even when my bike says I’m going 25 mph. I really want to like ROUVY but this not very fun if I can only ride at 5 mph.

My complaint is that In landscape mode, the power cord needs to be on the right side when using ROUVY . ROUVY does not auto rotate as it should when I turn my iPad upside down. Seems as though this should be very easy to implement.

I rarely post app reviews but I was very disappointed when this moved from the beta version to the paid version. Now that I paid $120 for the annual premium subscription, the virtual routes do not keep up in real time. Don’t waste your money. I would like a refund!

I installed it on Apple TV, downloaded a 1.6GB video ride, and then clicked Start. It then failed on downloading an AR file. Tried over and over. Never got to use it.

I just got a Saris H3 trainer and Saris appears to partner/recommend ROUVY and the card included says to download ROUVY and sign up from ROUVY . So I followed the card and this app website instructions downloaded, installed and started ROUVY from ROUVY Store and immediately ran into trouble:

- On startup it takes me straight to the login screen - no way to sign up.
_ Back to website, consistently says to use ROUVY to sign up - no way to sign up.
- Help desk on the website leads you around in circles - the ‘Contact Help Desk’ button just takes you to a list of pre-answered questions - no apparent opportunity, that I could find, to actually contact the company.

OTOH ZWIFT is working great without issues even if it doesn’t have the realistic imagery!

Do you love having the opportunity to restart your workout halfway through? You will love it: dies easily 75% of rides! This is ROUVY for you!

Do you like the marker for your position being exactly the same color as everyone else, just a tiny amount bigger, so you never know where you are without staring at the screen har? download now!

Do you hate the concept of momentum, so how fast you are going is irrelevant to the feel of even the start of the next hill? Extra bonus: it slams on the tension in a way that is a test of wills between ROUVY and the tendons in your knees!

Rush to get it before they learn how to produce an app. You will be able to tell your kids what it was like before actual developers.

Just terrible.

Like, WAY more than the this app workouts app. I could barely muscle through 12% grade and had to quit the ride. Calibrated, same thing happened. Going back to the old app until they get this one sorted out.

this app used to be a good app, easy to use and just plug and play.
They tried to upgrade ROUVY but today is unstable, has conflicts with internet and pretend you call the internet provider or move the bike to wherever you have the house router.
Unfortunately they are inviting to move to other excellent apps in the market

Streaming is still very touch and go. The screen would stay still, even though I’m moving and the maps shows that I'm moving.

Still no support for Bluetooth speed and cadence sensor.

Partner app - for what reason do not know - for my trainer, but this app will not send the e-mail to verify (and resend useless) and no way to contact this app to figure out the problem. Tried to sign up under 3 different identities to see if there was some glitch in my information and there was no glitch, but all with same result.

Because of the display size/format on my iPhone, not all of the metrics appear on the screen. Most noticeably, I cannot see the %grade, making it difficult to anticipate hills. Will continue to use the old app until they can get the display right on this one and give it an actual try.

Rider metrics (bike weight, rider height, avatar, etc.) won’t save. Always seems to go to random metrics and outfits whenever you try to save the changes.

It goes straight to the log in page- not the sign up page after I purchased ROUVY . Cannot find anywhere to contact customer service! Frustrating!

Wanted to do the Ironman vr8 this weekend and ride ROUVY today. Ugh!

After opening app it asks you to sign up. But there is no place to register your user name and password so you can't sign in...I reached out to this app awhile ago and never heard back. So won't waste my time doing that.

Good app. Had no issues like some reviews here. First installed late July.

Only indoor app you can use with Ironman yet has crashed twice when halfway through an all out 25 mile/40km effort. No way to restart where crashed you have to start over. Do not recommend!!