What a year! As we all begin to look forward to 2020 with resolutions and goals, we wanted to take a look back at 2019 — a formative year for our team and the Zwift community.

When we began Indoor Specialist in February, the week of the USA Zwift Nationals, we had one simple goal: have as much fun riding the bike inside while encouraging others to do the same. We went into the Nationals race and gave it everything we had, lifting team sprinter Holden Comeau onto the top step in our very first race together.

Winning that race changed everything. It instantly focused our vision for 2019 and brought our team together in a way that we never could have expected. It was truly an espresso shot of motivation and set the tone for our entire year.  

We aimed to earn the Zwift community’s respect through race broadcasting, recaps, premier race organization, and always racing as hard as we could. While broadcasting and recaps didn’t become our bread and butter, they taught us about the importance of fully showcasing this incredible community. Racing isn’t about the elite riders — some of the most intense battles happen in lower categories.

This was abundantly clear in our Team Celebration Series, where Team CRYO-GEN’s Category C squad took the team points victory ahead of DIRT Category B squad. The hunt for 1st place came down to the final race! It doesn’t get any better than that.

To say Zwift racing grew in 2019 would be a massive understatement. Last summer, Zwift fully embraced the community and brought amateur teams into the first ever Pro-Am series in the Zwift Classics: four individual races which had massive cash payouts and primes for KOM and sprint competitions. In these races, our crew racked up 11 top-15 finishes, with a rider on the podium in every race. Plus, Indoor Specialist team members landed on the podium in three KOM competitions and one Sprint competition.

While the Classics were electric, high stakes, and well-covered, we’re all about our day-in-day-out racing in the community-organized events. We take every single race seriously, riding as a unified force as often as we can. In 2019, the team racked up 384 race wins, 100 of which came from the USA National Champion and team sprinter, Holden Comeau.  

With our love for regular racing, one of our team’s keystone principles is transparency. Team co-founder Matt Gardiner began 2019 by working with Canyon ZCC’s Lionel Vujasin to form the community’s self-policing weight and dual-power analysis group: ZwifTransparency. This group has grown to nearly 1,000 members with weigh-ins and power analyses being posted daily.  

As we headed into Zwift season for fall and winter, we began two very important partnerships to us: SARIS Cycling & KODA Nutrition.  

SARIS Cycling has powered our team with the industry’s best: the SARIS H3 Smart Trainer. This trainer is absolutely silent, and with the heaviest flywheel we’ve seen, it has an unmatched road-feel, which lets any rider immediately forget they are riding inside. The team has been working closely with SARIS to ensure the power accuracy of the trainer is the best it possibly can be, making it the ultimate choice for the Indoor Specialist. 

KODA Nutrition has been keeping us fueled for hard battles with energy gels, bars, and electrolyte tablets. These fuel our racing and training on the bike and make sure we’re not depleting our energy stores for the next day’s race. We began a weekly race with the company’s tagline: EAT THE PAIN. This race has brought the tagline into the Zwift vernacular. Every week, hundreds of eager Zwifters line up to do just that: EAT THE PAIN.

With a renewed focus as we turn the page on 2019, we are more excited than ever about the possibilities for 2020. The year will absolutely see growth for our sport and we cannot wait to be a part of it!