As the winter nights draw in and cyclists dig out their indoor turbo trainers, the virtual reality training programme Zwift is helping to transform once monotonous indoor rides into a world of gaming, competition and social interaction.

The team behind Zwift talk to The Telegraph about reinventing indoor cycling and getting confused with Taylor Swift

Where did the idea for a virtual cycling programme come from?

Jon Mayfield (Co-founder): “I used to work in graphics engine programming for video game companies and I later worked for a think tank on big robots, global 3D visualisations and other amazing things for the (US) government. I was a busy dad and I wanted my cycle training to be fun and effective. So I started making simple 3D virtual power calculators and doing coding and cycling graphics in my spare time. I uploaded my work onto a web forum called Slow Twitch (in 2012) and then Eric got in touch (in 2013).”

Eric Min (Co-founder): “Before I met Jon I was building trading systems for virtual startups. I was a big cycling fan so the last thing I wanted to do was work in cycling. Passion start-ups rarely go well. But I knew a lot of people who spent hours training indoors and it was a pretty lonely experience. I had seen all the early concepts around 3D gaming and multi-player environments that had been around since the 1990s when the internet was barely available and technology was less advanced so the experience wasn’t great. But I was amazed nobody had revisited the concept for 25 years. Then I saw Jon’s project. I knew this guy was building something that could be the beginning of Zwift.”