What possesses a man to quit their job, relinquish their possessions, file for divorce and publicly renounce their children? The answer to that question, in the case of Alan Davies, is Zwift.
Piecing together exactly what happened on that fateful Friday in March is like wedging together multiple seemingly unrelated objects to create an abstract masterpiece. On its own, each account feels ugly and disparate but together they form something quite beautiful. Over the course of researching and writing this article I am confident I have seen every angle of Alan Davies.
Let’s start with the facts. On the morning of Friday 3rd February, Alan Davies, a run of the mill insolvency practitioner from Sidcup, called his manager and informed her that he wouldn’t be coming into work that day, or indeed ever again. He walked down his georgian-style Biscan staircase, across his generously sized landing, into his bespoke John Lewis kitchen and mounted his stationary bicycle. From there, the rest is history. Davies proceeded to cycle for 14 hours and 33 minutes, over 6 months in dogs lives, covering over 243 nautical Zwift miles. Davies burned over 10,000 calories that day; the equivalent of an entire stable of thorough-bread horses.
And then?
He disappeared.
No trace, no letter, Davies’ premium in-house security system shows no record of him even leaving the house and yet, he was nowhere to be seen.
Rumours were rampant – each more far fetched than the next – but one started to take hold within the Zwift community and was soon appearing in the mainstream press. It suggested that Davies’ testosterone had been so heightened that day that his entire body had been recalibrated in such a way that he had effectively entered the Zwift vortex. In short, Alan Davies was lost in the game.
The Metropolitan Police have flat refused to pursue this line of enquiry and Davies remains a missing person. But i had to try and get to the bottom of whether there was anything to it.
I had been warned that the Zwift subculture could be a disorientating, claustrophobic place and it doesn’t disappoint. Speaking to his best friend and confidant, Terry Leopard is like speaking to the sort of envangelist you might encounter at a bus stop in Colchester. ‘What he did wasn’t just impressive’ explains Leopard, ‘it was groundbreaking. He spoke for a generation of disaffected millennials. He etched his name into Zwift folklore but he also sent a message to the government that we’re not just going to sit here and watch them destroy our futures’. Leopard refers to himself as a Zwift agitator; ‘an amateur virtual cycling enthusiast who uses the platform to agitate for meaningful social change’. ‘My pedals and my cleats are like my hammer and chisel. With every rotation I’m striking another blow into the wall of the cave. I’m etching my name into history. I’m creating a digital record’. Leopard is jolted out of one of his many rambling monologues by the sound of a notification on his iPad ‘oh that’ll be wetbeak online now’ he grins.
The Zwift community is incredibly tight knit and they raleigh around their wounded just as enthusiastically as they attack their defectors. Leopard refers to those who combine online cycling with occasional real life cycling as ‘swingers’ and while he claims to count many as close friends, he is resolute in his opinion that at some point they are going to have to choose a side. ‘There’s a revolution coming and I’m sorry but when the siren does eventually go off, I know what side lm going to be on. Ride on!’. This is one of numerous habitual Zwift references Leopard makes during our Zoom call and I start to wonder whether he has lost his grip on reality.
Zwift-induced derealisation is no laughing matter. Last year in the UK over 600 people were diagnosed with the condition and with his dry chapped lips and the glazed faraway look in his eye, Leopard displays many of the hallmarks.
Leopard is convinced Davies is in the Zwift vortex right now, living the sort of utopian virtual Zwift life that Zwift agitators like him dream of. ‘He’s probably found himself a nice Zwift girlfriend, living in a plush 4 bed house by the virtual Fox Hill climb in Surrey – a double garage, maybe a water feature in the back garden’. I’m shocked that a self-proclaimed revolutionary has such upper middle-class virtual Zwift aspirations.
Davies’ former manager, accomplished insolvency practitioner Sue Coo, takes a different stance. ‘Davies was a pompous charlatan – He was desperate to be noticed – he turned up to work in a beret once. Imagine that – you’re about to become destitute, you’ve lost everything and the man presiding over your assets is wearing a beret’. Coo believes that Davies has disguised himself as a cupboard or is hiding somewhere in the garden. ‘Davies would love nothing more than for people to think he was living some sort of virtual Zwift life, sitting astride an Alpine mountain flanking the Alpe du Zwift giving a middle finger to all the Cat-A racers he was so jealous of’.
Zwift CEO Charlie Cuck is characteristically bullish when questioned. ‘To suggest Davies has somehow entered the Zwift vortex is ridiculous. It’s simply not possible’. Cuck highlights Zwifts exemplary health and safety record. ‘It’s proven – the number of road traffic accidents on Zwift is vanishingly small and it’s decreasing every year as we get smarter about how we operate’.
As I pick my way through the lowlifes that Davies associated himself with during his physical life, I start to get further and further away from the truth. I set out in search of answers but all I have is more questions. Every corner I turn I face a new obstacle. I try and push forward but someone overtakes me. ‘Ride on!’They scream. ‘Ride on!’ I reply. But I don’t know where I am anymore.