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Ironman Acquires FulGaz Training App: Plans Ironman Training App

FulGazIM

Ironman has just announced the acquisition of FulGaz, the indoor training app for cycling. As part of the acquisition, Ironman will create a secondary app that caters specifically to Ironman athletes. This new app will include full rideable courses and course guides for ultimately all Ironman races, as well as virtual races within the app. Ironman sees this new unnamed app as focused on providing a “one-stop destination where everything you need to be prepared” for an event is located, including suggestions on whether to run a disc wheel, or what typical wind conditions are.

Meanwhile, for those existing FulGaz users, you won’t have to worry about your app going anywhere. Ironman says that the goal is to give FulGaz the technical resources behind the scenes to continue to grow the FulGaz app and user base – just at a faster trajectory than before. That has already started from a technical perspective, with FulGaz having just finished transitioning to a much broader server platform which they say provides “100x” more capacity than before, including being distributed across more regions via a new CDN (content distribution network) in front of it.

With that quick overview, let’s dive a bit deeper into what’s planned.

The Ironman Training App:

FulGazApp

The company says the goal for the Ironman training app is 100% focused on the Ironman athlete. And by that, they don’t mean iron-distance athletes, but specifically – athletes racing Ironman races. They envision this app being the one-stop-shop for everything an athlete needs when preparing for ultimately racing an Ironman event.

In talking to CEO Andrew Messick about the acquisition, he said:

“We are in business of providing our athletes with great racing experiences, and that’s always been the true north for our company…and as our company has evolved and grown, and become on our good days a more thoughtful and sophisticated company. And we’re increasing realizing an important part of that is having them be prepared as can possibly be when they walk up to the start line.”

To that end, they see the app including not just the real-course filmed videos that FulGaz is known for (except going forward with the Ironman course library), but also detailed course guides built into the app. Everything from exactly where the aid stations are located on the course, to outlining typical race day wind conditions (and as the race nears, forecasts), to how to train and race on a particular course. Messick noted that today people get that information from numerous places, but that they (Ironman) needed to consolidate that with more clarity in one spot.

In my discussion they continued to use the term (or variants of) “being as prepared as you can possibly be” for race day. I then asked whether or not that extended to creating a structured race training plan, such as having 18 or 20-week training plans leading up to an event. But that doesn’t sound like that’s the case. They were careful to not step on the toes of their Ironman University coaches and their coaching businesses, saying they’d prefer to direct people towards those resources.

Mike Clucas, founder of FulGaz – and also a high-performance coach himself, noted that over the years at FulGaz he’s built a lot of “arguably esoteric coaching features into FulGaz” that were designed for coaching high-performance athletes rather than the masses that mostly used FulGaz. But he said now he envisions a scenario where those features can be scaled out in conjunction with the Ironman University coaches, and having an audience that’s receptive to it.

While I agree there’s a market for that, I’m skeptical that’s what the broader consumer market actually wants. Certainly, as an athlete myself that’s been coached to multiple Ironman finishes, I fully support the coached method. But at the same time, that’s also ignoring the vast majority of the market that’s looking for triathlon and Ironman training plans to get them to the starting line, and at various skill levels. In looking at the sports tech market and companies within it, those that have tried to cater wholly (entirely) to coaches have largely been left behind over the past few years with the rise of more and more platforms that directly interact with the athlete.

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Shifting topics, it’s notable that most of this won’t be happening for quite some time – nearly a year. Ironman hasn’t even named this new secondary app yet, though is using the working name of ‘Ironman Connected App’. Once they ditch that name for something less corporate sounding (hopefully), the company says the app will go live in the Summer of 2022. At which point, both it and FulGaz will run as separate apps.

I asked whether or not that meant two subscriptions – one for FulGaz and one for the Ironman app, and Ironman says they don’t know yet – however, they’d likely have some sort of combo deal or single subscription. Similarly, they haven’t decided on pricing yet either, other than to note that they are “aware that it’s a price-sensitive market”. Which is a tricky thing. The average Ironman athlete is very much not price sensitive. The outlay required to compete in an Ironman easily demonstrates that. However, I suspect what that statement is really underlining is the acknowledgment that most Ironman athletes will likely also be subscribing to Zwift or another training platform. Thus they need to be pricing the FulGaz-driven component as more complimentary than the singular app an athlete uses.

The nearest term changes we’ll see are starting in January 2022, after the existing Rouvy-Ironman content & event/racing partnership expires. At that point, FulGaz will start to host the Ironman courses (and they’ll disappear off Rouvy). Meanwhile, behind the scenes, Ironman and FulGaz are working to start filming of courses for next year, with the goal that every Ironman athlete has filmed courses in their training app. That includes not just the bike, but also the run courses, for which the new Ironman app will also include support for (something that FulGaz doesn’t have today).

Wrap-Up:

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This is an interesting acquisition. Ironman doesn’t exactly have the most sparkling digital track record when it comes to indoor training initiatives. Certainly, the early VR races demonstrated that, though, that was likely more driven by a rush to get things done, and perhaps a bit of overconfidence.  Inversely, FulGaz, while smaller – tends to be on the leading edge of how indoor training works. There are few apps, if any, that coordinate closely with hardware manufacturers to ensure the latest hardware is implemented not just early, but properly. We can look at examples like the Wahoo KICKR CLIMB, where FulGaz has implemented CLIMB support in a manner more immersive than many of the big platforms because they’re willing to take the time to implement features properly rather than just take shortcuts. The same is true of Wahoo’s Direct Connect technology, already implemented in FulGaz from announcement Day 1. Nearly a year later, Zwift has yet to implement it.

Still, I’m optimistic that after discussions with FulGaz and Ironman (both together and separately), that they kinda seem to get it here. In some ways, both companies kinda need each other. Ironman needs a platform that it can run indoor races on and host Ironman content without the complexities of depending on 3rd party platforms for every whim. And inversely, FulGaz can benefit from the financial power and reach that Ironman has – even though FulGaz doesn’t have any plans at all to cater to triathletes in their core app (no running is planned there).

If Ironman can build a good app that’s clean and intuitive, without becoming overturned by corporate stuff or belabored advertising – it could be really appealing to Ironman athletes at the right price. Having all the Ironman courses in one app at the right price for both run and ride, including the eventual inclusion of races, is super appealing and largely a gap in the market. Whether or not the two companies can pull that off remains to be seen. I’m guessing by about a year from now we’ll know the answer.

The good news, if you’re an Ironman athlete, is that this doesn’t sound like Ironman trying to get into the app game and getting distracted from triathlon. When asked whether or not they see this investment puling in non-Ironman athletes and trying to compete with the likes of Zwift or other platforms, CEO Andrew Messick said that they have “no desire to”, and that ultimately “our focus on the IM connected app is on Ironman athletes”.

With that, thanks for reading!

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40 Comments

  1. chris benten

    Fulgaz has come a long way in recent years. I pretty much stopped using when I went back to work but when one gets tired of the cartoonishness and bugs of Zwift, Fulgaz has become a good place to ride roads around the world. Particularly once they got the Windows version working well. Now that I have the Tron bike I am starting to get bored on Zwift and may try it again. But I really like BigRingVR I tried on a trial.

  2. Chris Devries

    I was hoping that Wahoo would buy Fulgaz and incorporate into Systm at some point. Especially with what Wahoo has been doing with those on location rides – but in Fulgaz’ case it is the real courses. And as you mention, the climb works so much better on Fulgaz than any other app I’ve tried (at least Zwift, Systm or Rouvy).

  3. Mark J.

    Thanks for this, Ray. You can ignore my comment in an earlier Ironman post asking about this very thing. I guess I need to practice some patience. :-P

  4. Mordy Eisenberg

    I just want Fulgaz to implement the ability to switch/add sensors mid ride (on Apple TV) like Zwift and Rouvy do. As it is right now, once you start a ride you can’t change your sensors.

    Example being a heart strap that goes out mid ride, can’t switch to another. Another is the changing of controllable source mid ride.

    Hope they can add this soon.

    • Wilson

      Can’t see there being much need for that function.

    • Mordy Eisenberg

      I for one use it a lot.

      I use my garmin to control the trainer for Xert workouts. When the workout ends mid ride, I can’t finish the ride with any resistance. In Rouvy or Zwift, you can just open the paired devices mid ride and add have the app take control of the trainer.

      I know many others who use another device to control training sessions while using an app like FG to have something to look at and accrue miles.

    • Mark J.

      On the subject of sensors, the previous Fulgaz app version would remember your sensors from the last ride. As long as it detected them again for each ride, you could just go with it and continue with the app. The new version lists the sensors, but you have to put a check beside each one and then hit the continue button. I haven’t found a way to get it to just go with the same sensors as long as they’re detected. Am I missing some setting?

      FWIW, I run the app on an Apple TV 4k.

    • Mordy Eisenberg

      That is odd, I have the same setup and mine remembers the settings from previous rides

  5. If this gives me the ability to start at any point on a course I’m sold. I basically have a Rouvy account only to train on courses but it’s not great having to ride a whole course to get to what I want to work on. But I’d definitely like to see this be successful!

  6. Brent Sword

    I will hope fulgaz gets some more resources because i see it needing to improve in 2 ways for me to give it high approval.

    I use the computer app and the interface is terrible. I download the rides and keep them on a separate drive because the streaming is poor for me. The interface for the downloaded rides is poor and the windows taskbar gets in the way.

    The streaming. They need to be able to skip frames or something. If the initial ride was slow you seem to be speed limited because it has to show every frame i think and my monitor can only do 60 or 75. This also affects the internet streaming because it makes the download rate go very high when downloading the original video at several times the initial frame rate.

  7. Alister Taylor

    Now, what is Challenge’s response – partnership with Rouvy?

  8. Jim Haysom

    Wonder where that leaves ROUVY as their official
    Virtual Training partner. That was a multi-year partnership announced 31st March 2020.

    I’ve used FulGaz a few times and also ROUVY to ride Ironman and 70.3 courses during lockdown last year. I can see the real benefit of having the community access all IRONMAN bike/run courses available to them, all distances, events past and present.

    • Kuifje777

      It is great to see the enthusiasm for this. When I looked at this, I did not see the particular appeal. I use TrainerRoad for my Ironman training BUT I avoid doing the really long rides inside and plan them on days that I can go outside.

      I just cannot see myself riding a full Ironman course inside which would take me 6+ hours. If I wanted to feel the intensity of a course, I would probably use a GPX file of the course to control my trainer but cool to see that others like this.

  9. Jeremy

    Interesting.
    Is this possible to describe, in more or less technical terms, what makes FG implementation of the Kick CLIMB (or Kickr Bike climb feature) better that other’s?

    • Chris DeVries

      Here is what DCRainmaker wrote in his in-depth App guide:

      “They’ve also done a fair bit of work behind the scenes with the Wahoo KICKR CLIMB to really nail that experience. They do that by using a more advanced version of Wahoo’s CLIMB API, to send the commands just a tiny bit ahead of the trainer, so that what you see on the app matches what you feel in your legs precisely. It might sound like a silly nuance, but if you ride FulGaz on a constantly hilly course, and then ride some other app on a similar course – you’ll immediately notice how much more realistic FulGaz feels. Might also explain why Wahoo often will use FulGaz on KICKR CLIMB demo stations at trade shows.”

      It also seems the gradient changes a lot more frequently in Fulgaz – so in other apps it can feel bit jerky with gradient jumps, but it’s super smooth in Fulgaz.

    • Thanks Chris!

      Indeed, it’s crazy perfectly smooth in FulGaz compared to how Zwift does it.

  10. Fabio

    As an IM athlete who was only training on Zwift i think that it a good news. Having a dedicated app with all the official courses seems a great thing and i hope they will use days before the races to film a ‘clean’ route (without vehicles and similar stuff).

    I admit i haven’t not tried Fulgaz yet…but i’ll give it a chance

    Ray do u think this will change something for athletes sponsored by zwift (frodeno, sanders, charles and so on) ?

  11. Chris

    Are there any discount codes for FulGaz to check the functionality, now.
    I want to create my own picture by using it.
    So far I was pretty happy with ROUVY and I am disappointed about the move.
    Another app, another installation, another monthly fee – not much fun for me.
    And I like the idea of Challenge aquiring ROUVY. Go for it.

  12. Mike

    I tried a Fulgaz free trial on windows at the start of the pandemic. It was terrible. The app would crash multiple times before I even selected a course. If I could actually get the course running than there was still a 20% chance it would crash before I finished. This was with a tacx neo 2t trianer. I emailed Fulgaz tech support with the error logs and they blamed on the windows bluetooth drivers. However, Zwift has been rock zolid on my PC with the same setup, crashing only once in 2 years. I also thought some of the content on Fulgaz was terrible quality and was filmed in poor conditions.

    • ms

      That is strange. I started using Fulgaz on a Windows PC in 3/2020. No crashes at all and great video clarity.

      Was on Zwift and had multiple times where it simply disconnected from the PC. I had an internet connection, but no Zwift connection.

  13. Ronald Gurney

    Let’s hope that Ironman doesn’t spoil Fulgaz like Wahoo did with Speedplay. Wahoo dropped the highly successful Speedplay Frog pedal when it acquired Speedplay. Big mistake Wahoo. Wake up and bring it back.

  14. Scottfa

    Glad I didn’t invest in Fulgaz! Looks like Ironman bought the platform to showcase the Ironnan races. I see no incentive for them to add/upgrade the Fulgaz courses. I suspect these will die on the vine as the Ironman folks attend to their bread and butter users.

    • Ronald Gurney

      I hope that doesn’t happen and would be a mistake on their part. If they are smart they will add the Ironman aspects without detracting from the already established Fulgaz qualities. Fulgaz competes with Veloreality and Tacx TDA already and does a superb job in adding new rides, especially in 4K which are easily downloaded. I hope that continues.

    • GLT

      Perhaps, so legacy users may need to remind them of their initial intentions that Ray mentioned early in his article.

      I suspect they are more taking a page out of the Cook book and establishing another stream of income that may be less lucrative but more consistent month-to-month. Pandemic participation in mass events and the bike supply drought may limit even the high end participants in the sport.

    • Scottfa

      I just can’t think of any incentive for Ironman to invest in Fulgaz. They bought the technology, why not put all the money and resources until Ironman courses?

    • Tony

      The vast majority of the FulGaz rides are shot by subscribers. In some ways this is the USP over other platforms so hopefully this will continue.

    • ArT

      Easy punching km starting downhill. I am against.

  15. swimrage

    and just like their races, the app will be double the cost….. because its IM branded

  16. Peter A.

    I’ve used FulGaz for quite a while. It’s quite stable on the iPad. I, too, download rides ahead of time instead of attempting to stream. FulGaz is a nice complement to Zwift, which I use for races, group rides and workouts. But when I want a recovery ride, a big climb other than Alpe, a more IRL experience, or the travel bug hits me and I want to ride in, say, South Africa, I switch back to FulGaz. I probably ride them both about the same. And FulGaz’s family plan lets my wife ride on her own account at no extra cost. It’s definitely worth it for me.

  17. ms

    I switched from Zwift to Fulgaz. Fulgaz was $109/yr paid yearly vs Zwift’s $180. It works well on a fairly powerful Windows 10 PC , particularly since I download the rides.

    I find that the wide variety of rides keeps me happy. With Fulgaz once you ride a particular course you can race against any of your previous performances. That provides motivation to go hard.

    Everyone has different preferences, but i’ve become a fan of Fulgaz.

  18. Adam

    I can only say that it seems a lot better in recent months.

    it is a bit content specfic but overall reliability of the WIndows client has improved substantially. In my experience it’s notably better though with bluetooth rather than ANT+ sensors…i think this may have more to do with the slightly underworked firmware on the Inside Ride resistance rollers i use.

    • Peter A.

      I forgot to add two more things I’ve really enjoyed with Fulgaz. First are the live interactive Zoom calls with Phil Liggett, Jens Voigt, a couple of pro racers from Australia, plus other mere mortals like me from all over the world who use FulGaz. Those have been really fun and nothing I could have ever gotten anywhere else. And second, when you connect a 2nd display to the iPad it’s more than just a mirror – the iPad gives you a GPS route tracking screen while the 2nd display (a TV connected by HDMI in my case) shows the route video along with the overlaid bike computer with ride stats plus the ride elevation profile.