Ben Hill would like nothing more than to wake up in the early hours of the morning and meet his fellow cyclists for a bunch ride around Canberra.
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The Canberra cyclist should be preparing for the Grafton leg of the National Road Series, but instead he turns on his laptop, angles a fan, and enters a virtual world of racing.
The coronavirus pandemic has shutdown sports activity across the globe, with Cycling Australia's National Road Series suspended until at least September.
Cyclists can no longer train in groups due to social distancing regulations, so many professionals are turning to virtual platforms like Zwift to train together and keep in shape.
Hill's team was meant to do a tour of Korea and Japan this year, as well as the National Road Series and state races.
The 30-year-old Canberra says he misses the social interaction with his teammates as well as real-life racing, but says the platform helps fill the void left by the sport's sudden halt.
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"It's hard to motivate yourself when you don't know when the next race will be," Hill said.
"Even when there's no racing on, I still get up four mornings a week to train with people in a bunch ride and work really hard. But we're not even able to do that, so I really miss those interactions and I feel like the racing in the virtual world fills that for me
"It's a good way to do your efforts and get more out of yourself because you're racing someone else on the screen."
Cycling Australia has launched a virtual competition for National Road Series teams during the coronavirus-forced shutdown, with Hill taking part in the first round on Saturday.
The 30-year-old Canberran came ninth in Crit City's Dolphin Circuit track, finishing 1.100 seconds behind winner Graeme Frislie.
"It's different from a normal race, that's for sure. But it's accurate in terms of the same guys who win on the road are winning in the virtual world as well," Hill said.
"It's just a compressed race. Usually it's two-to-three hours, but this goes for about an hour.
"It's really hard and there's a similar result at the end, but it has a different feel about it."
Peak concurrent riders of Zwift increased to 35,000 users by mid-April, compared to 16,000 pre-coronavirus lockdown.
There was an average of 1 million miles riden per day on the platform last year, but in March that increased to 3.4 million miles logged each day.
Zwift has launched a series of events dubbed 'Tour for All' to mobilise its global community and raise money for Doctors Without Borders.
They have donated $125,000 to the organisation and will match that amount once 250,000 people have participated in at least one Tour for All event.
The five-stage charity event will run from May 4 to 30, with Hill to take part in all rides.
"It depends where it fits in with other racing and my regular training routines. So normally I'll get through most of them and then catch up at the end," Hill said.
"You can unlock special jerseys, shoes and upgrade your avatar at the end with a fancy new kit, so I'll make sure I've done all five events to get them."