When longtime cyclist Stu Fleming shook up his training with Zwift Academy he found new motivation, boosted his power, and got back into racing shape.

“I think a lot of the time, you get into habits as a cyclist, and you do what you find has worked in the past,” he says. “The things that the Academy program had emphasized were ones that I don’t normally do.”

Fleming started cycling at school in Scotland when he was about 12 years old. He later moved to New Zealand and raced competitively in duathlon and triathlon. By the time he entered Zwift Academy, though, Fleming wasn’t racing outdoors anymore and hadn’t been doing serious training.

“I thought, ‘I’m not going to be top-level competitive again, but let’s just see what is in this area that’s new and interesting,’” he says. “That kind of structured challenge was really, really good for me.”

Zwift Academy is a community training program and talent search. As part of Zwift Academy Road 2021, participants are tasked with completing 6 structured workouts and 2 group rides. They’ll also get a measure of their progress with a baseline ride at the start of the academy and a finish line ride at the end. One man and one woman each year will earn a pro contract!

To learn more about Zwift Academy Road and to enroll, click here.

Fleming first joined in 2019, after New Zealander Ella Harris won the 2018 women’s Academy. He recognized her from racing in Dunedin, where he lived before moving to Wellington a few years ago. Someone else he knew, Kees Duyvesteyn, was doing Zwift Academy at the same time in the fall of 2019. Duyvesteyn ended up making the semifinals that year.

But Fleming, like most participants, wasn’t going for the contract. He just wanted to see how he could improve.

Photo credit: Rachel Harris (Mama Lazarou Photography)

Stronger and Faster

Fleming came into the program with some basic fitness, but not what he calls “race fitness.” The Academy in 2019 focused on the types of workouts he often avoided.

“I do a bit of interval training, but I never really targeted sprinting or anaerobic power,” he says. “So I started this thing, and suddenly, I’m doing reasonably good sprints with quite good power – and I’m really enjoying it.”

That wasn’t all. His Functional Threshold Power (FTP) rose from 167 watts to 280.

That’s a massive power improvement in just a few months! Zwift Academy training was helping him in longer efforts, too, not just sprints. Fleming credits it to mental strength, discipline, and the physical benefits of a training routine.

“I got back into the habit of going to a place to train – even though I wasn’t setting targets – with the specific purpose to improve,” says Fleming. “As a result, the physical development came from that.”

He kept training into the winter and spring, which brought him back up to the A category with numbers that weren’t far off his past race targets.

Fleming’s competitive focus now is on Zwift, where he’s having fun racing without leaving home.

“The great thing about racing indoors is it’s always right there,” he says. “You don’t have to travel to the race venue. You don’t have to worry about the weather. You don’t have to worry about equipment. You just jump on the bike. You can be on the start line two minutes before the race is going to go, and if you miss the start – if you’re late – well, your day’s not ruined. There’s another race 15 minutes later.”

Connections and Community

Fleming had lived in Dunedin for 20 years when he sold the business he owned and moved to Wellington. Before starting his next job there, he says, “I had a whole bunch of time on my hands and a bicycle, so I decided I would take off for three months.”

Fleming embarked on a 100-day cyclotouring journey, riding a total of more than 10,000 miles! It took him through Germany, France, the Netherlands, England, Wales, Scotland, Ireland, and even Canada. He met up with friends along the way and saw a couple of stages of the Tour de France.

He returned to roads that he didn’t enjoy riding as much, and the next winter, he decided to get an indoor trainer. He had heard of Zwift from friends and eventually decided to try it out.

Fleming found that he loves the convenience of indoor training, as well as all the options he has on Zwift.

“You can choose to be competitive, you can choose to race, you can choose to be social – you can do any of those things,” he says.

Soon, he started finding people on Zwift that he used to race with and reconnecting with them.

“That’s been a very, very important part of the whole experience,” he says. “If I hadn’t done this, if I hadn’t gone through the Academy, I wouldn’t have found these people again.”

New Zealand has been spared some of the worst impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, but there were still tough restrictions. People began working from home, some businesses closed for a while, and some – like Fleming – lost their jobs this year.

Fleming is now back to work as an Agile coach for a software development team. As he helps people manage change, he says he’s been noticing the different ways that people around the world have handled stress and isolation.

Online communities have been showing their value lately, Fleming says. People tend to bond when going through difficult experiences together. That can include something challenging but enjoyable, like Zwift Academy!

He praises the Academy ride leaders, like Tsutomo Iwabuchi, who he says leads in a way that keeps everyone together and motivated. And the Facebook groups (there’s one for men and one for women) encourage people to keep connecting outside of Zwift.

“The people that you meet and go through experiences with online, they’re real people, and if you can just keep focused on that, that’s incredibly useful in coping with these circumstances,” says Fleming. “I’ve seen those bonds get stronger this year. The community really has responded.”