Purchase yourself a smart trainer like the Wahoo kickr V5. This has been a life changer for me. Stuck in lockdown Australia, with Zwift I can ride when ever I want, and for as long as I want too. I now ride about 50km a day, and am the fittest I've ever been.
You get a great mix of cardio, gamification by playing an actual video game, and social networking as you can chat and make connections to others in the game. All from the comfort of your own home.
Zwift is great. I've been on it about three months and it really feels like the most productive training I've ever done. It's hard to get a decent ride in where I live but zwift is always available. They've managed to gamify real-world performance and it's surprisingly fun. There's a lot of different things to do in the game.
But be warned - it's a bit pricey to get up and running. All in, I'm sure I've spent at least $2k (USD) on various equipment and accessories and it's also $20/month for the service. To me it's worth it for sure, but running (for example) is very nearly free. Just make sure you think indoor cycling is something you'd be willing to stick with.
Started Zwift back in February and it's one of the best things I've ever done for myself. I love the fact that it can be whatever you want : a structured workout program, a way to casually ride around a map or a way to compete against other riders. The initial investment can be quite high, but a normal road bike and less advanced home trainer are good enough for someone just starting out.
Do you think that setup is preferable to riding bikes the traditional way? Perhaps this is just my ignorance but it seems counterintuitive to spend over $1k on a setup where your bike doesn't actually go anywhere
There are cheaper setups if you just want to test the waters. YouTube is a good resource to see how to get started for less cost than a top end direct-drive smart trainer like the wahoo kickr.
Riding bikes the traditional way is great too, but also depends very much on weather, season, and road conditions in your area. I like that the trainer removes all those obstacles.
This is a huge changing of the guard play. You have to give credit towards Spotify for this move, and what could signify a pivotal point in changing history.
The fact there is a paying subscription model behind Spotify, I can see a future where all podcasts move towards this platform.
I am still working on my business which was started during the GFC back in 2008.
My business isn't important, but what is important is what you do over the next coming months.
During the GFC, I was a contract programmer and was let go in November. In Australia I figured nobody was going to hire in December, January is basically a write off, and could possibly find work in February.
Now I had 3 months up my sleeve. I could either lay down the foundations to my side project, or slack off, play video games, and watch videos all day.
So I worked hard on my side project which was making no money, and eventually it grew legs a year later when I was in a position to work on it full time, and have been ever since.
Now, what are you going to do with your current spare time?
Nothing you do will make money instantly, but you could be planting those seeds, and maybe your tree might grow into something big.
I drive long distances in my model 3. 1000 mile road trips throughout the Midwest. I have already seen some changes. There are several traditional gas stations that are also installing chargers and superchargers. These tend to have a restaurant attached. Works incredibly well for my needs. These new charging speeds can pretty much fill my battery to 80% in 20-25 minutes. Perfect for a bite to eat and a bathroom break.
I suspect more and more gas stations will switch over when it more vehicles get on the road that need electrons over gas.
Besides Tesla’s network there are quite a few places that have chargers. More and more businesses and hotels are installing them.
What will happen is that all EV manufacturers will move to a common charging standard and that will make more chargers available for EV drivers. CCS (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Combined_Charging_System) is the obvious candidate for that.
ccs is likely to be the eventual standard. Of course stupid infighting between auto companies means the us and euro ccs standards are different (but similar). China has their own standard, of course.
The tesla standard is arguable superior to all others and is offered unencumbered by patents if the other company agrees not to use it. I've had one for 7 years without running into this problem, but it's not impossible. Tesla keeps building more and more stations, but they are selling so many model 3s.
The tesla patent free offer is a trojan horse though. To use tesla's charging port you have to agree to not sue them over patents not just regarding charging but everything. You also don't get access to the supercharger network at any price. No sane manufacturer is going to agree to terms that one sided.
Once things settle down a bit I'm pretty confident each region will regulate a charging standard and eliminate the confusion, but it's still too early since vehicle to grid has hardly been touched outside of Japan and actively cooled cables are not part of any spec.
And even in that situation, the queue wasn't much longer than the number of stalls of the supercharger, so the waiting time should be like 30 minutes. That certainly sucks , but at some gas stations you can have quite some wait time too, if they are overrun by demand.
I still cannot see how https://www.inoreader.com/ doesn't get more love. I easily moved to it from Google Reader, and spend my day in the web browser version, and night with the App on my phone.
