Australian_Mens_Fitness_2016_08_

96 MEN’S FITNESS AUGUST 2016

lying 1,500 feet in the air with nothing between me and the
ground but a mythical winged horse. As we crest over a small rise

I glance down past Shadow’s lapping wing — for the record, I’ve
named my Pegasus “Shadow” — when suddenly the rocky hillside

below gives way to a sheer, grass-covered canyon. A jolt of pure
adrenaline lushes through me as I feel like I’m going to die. But

then I feel free. It’s just Shadow and me now, soaringof into the
bright blue sky. Peace out, Earth. Nice knowing you.

“Cool, right?” says a disembodied voice behind me.

For the past 10 minutes I’ve been huing away on a bike in a

drab oice at VirZoom, a tech company based in Cambridge,
Massachusetts. And the voice I hear behind me isn’t disembodied

at all — it’s coming from VirZoom exec Spencer Honeyman. He’s
actually standing just metres away, but I can’t see him because

I’m wearing an HTC Vive virtual-reality headset, which works in
conjunction with my present ride — the $400 VirZoom stationary

VR bike that oicially went on sale last month.
After slaloming through some trees where Shadow and I chase

after loating apples, I decide to let him rest his virtual wings and
end the game. Honeyman, the company’s director of business

development, then saddles up on a bike next to me and proceeds
to lead me through a dizzying number of virtual worlds.

I ride along with seven prototype games in total, including a
tank shooter, an Old West game in which you chase down and

lasso bandits and a helicopter game similar to the Pegasus; but
it’s a multiplayer race car game that inally makes me sweat. The

reason is simple: The faster you pedal, the faster your car goes —
and thanks to my competitive nature as

a former bike racer, I’m on a mission to
beat Honeyman.

By the time we’re done, 20 minutes
have lown by and I haven’t even noticed.

When I inally remove the damp headset,
I look down and ind my shirt entirely

soaked in sweat. I can’t tell what I feel like more: a kid who just played

Mario Kart or an adult who just had his arse kicked in some high-

octane spin class. Honeyman shoots me a knowing look.

“Right now we’re at a crazy-weird intersection between itness,

gaming and VR,” he says. “It’s something that’s actually fun and with

the added result that you get a really badass workout.”

Sex with a Porn Star or a Run Through Bavaria:

You Decide

Take a peek at the latest Consumer Electronics Show — essentially the

world’s biggest trade show for gadgets and cool new technology — or

scroll through any tech-centric website and the two letters you’ll most

likely run across are “VR”. If industry analysts are to be believed,

the world will soon be awash in goggled users navigating realities

previously thought unimaginable: lying through the air, ighting Orcs,

having sex with porn stars. In the virtual world, literally anything is

possible. Or so they say.

This year three tech giants, Facebook, Valve HTC and Sony, will

release, respectively, the Oculus Rift, the Vive and the Playstation

Morpheus. The Oculus and Vive headsets will plug into high-end

gaming PCs and the Morpheus into the PS4 and drop the user into a

360-degree, fully immersive virtual world. “Think of all of the things

we can do with movie special efects,” says Ken Perlin, professor

of computer science at New York University and one of the leading

experts on virtual reality. “Now VR puts you in the middle of it.”

But perhaps no industry is as bullish on the untapped possibilities

of this technology than in-home itness. Companies like Sydney’s The

Realm System, which is designing an accessory that will allow you to

feel resistance while swinging swords in a video game, and Icaros, a

German irm developing a machine to let you work out while lying

through virtual worlds, ofer up a glimpse of what the future of VR

could look like. The gaming company Virtuix Omni, which produces

Tron-esque pedestals that allow users to roam through virtual war

zones carrying a gun, has just released a treadmill. There’s also

Suferfest, which we proiled earlier this year; it transports you into

real-life races from the world’s greatest professional cycling rides.

Of course, ever since Jane Fonda irst squeezed into a leotard,

we’ve been using visual technology — from Jazzercise VHS tapes

to P90X DVDs to HIIT apps — to juice our workouts from the

comfort of our own homes. (We’ve used several VR precursors in

our gyms, too: If you’ve knocked out a few kilometres on just about

any treadmill made in the last couple of years, like the widespread

ones manufactured by Life Fitness, you’ve had the option of looking

at a screen with bouncing views of a New Zealand beach or Bavarian

forest, and the boutique gym IMAXShift ofers a spin class conducted

It’salittle

disorienting

at first,

Yournewspotter

The new VirZoom

stationary VR bike

offers several virtual

adventures, including

one in which you ride

a pegasus.

Grooming by Matthew Tuozzoli/AtelierManagementusingDiorHom

me;

Opening image: Dan Patitucci