Mobile health cycling: How Eastern European amateur cycling enthusiasts frame their experiences with Zwift and Strava

Amateur cycling enthusiasts are increasingly engaged in digital media ecosystems that serve as mediating platforms for both indoor and outdoor cycling activities. The rationale for using particular solutions, technological affordances of the platforms and social media discourses all actively shape cycling narratives. This study critically examines practices associated with the Zwift and Strava platforms among a selected group of Eastern Europeans, based on an extended online questionnaire with open and closed questions (n = 80) and individual in-depth interviews (n = 10). Auxiliary data features analysis of social media and YouTube content closely related to the questionnaire's respondents. Building on the notions of mHealth technologies, the findings include an in-depth analysis of four main frames of reference emerging from the analyzed discourses on amateur cycling: social, hardcore, exploration, and training.