The bad news: The new SYSTM kept me fully inside on a trainer during a week of gorgeous fall weather. The good news: The new SYSTM kept me fully engaged inside on a trainer during a week of gorgeous fall weather. The newly revamped training platform is being unveiled today, and I got the chance to take it for a prelaunch spin. So when I heard the news that Wahoo Fitness bought The Sufferfest in 2019, took two years to expand on the science, added a fully comprehensive tool kit beyond cycling-with components like yoga and mental toughness sessions-and changed the name to the more palatable SYSTM, I became intrigued. It was also, however, highly regarded for the sport science it brought to a training platform. As its founder David McQuillen, a cyclist and former banker now based in Tasmania admits, the platform was “overly masculine.” Plus, I had the notion that The Sufferfest was geared toward ultra-competitive, sweaty cycling dudes battling it out on their trainers, which is sort of true.
Being Outside on my mountain bike is my preferred training platform.
Confession: I never used The Sufferfest, a popular cycling training app that encourages users to apply maximal effort as they pedal through streaming workouts in the make-believe world of “Sufferlandria” on their stationary bikes.
