Virtual Zwift Rides

The 4:05pm race Im doing today will be fun. Big Loop is always a tactical one with the epic climb early on, the jungle route (to mtb or not…that is the Q), and the run in to the finish.
Its a points series, so the final ZP positions will be calculated based on your positions through the various banners

Fire and Ice TT route tonight, 241W ave which brought a 30 second pb up the Alpe, how very exciting

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New York completed.

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Ticked off out and back again, steady pace, 1:20.

Got a bit boring, was watching iPlayer.

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I think I’ve just had my first ‘proper’ zwift race!

Sat on a Cat C kiss race. 10 laps of some New York 10 lapped route. Pretty flat.

Only 27 people, but think I finished 5th. Got in the lead group and that worked well for a few laps, whittling down to 9 by about 3 laps in. I was on the front a fair bit on the flats, but had to try to react on the hills as the group swept through. Downside of a dumb trainer. Similarly I had to consciously remember to back off a bit when in the group draft, as on a dumb trainer i can be riding at the same intensity in the group as the leader. It when I back off the power, I stay where I am.

Saying that, I wanted a hard workout more than a race so I tried to keep my Watts up through most of the ride. Managed to cover a couple of attempted breaks and trued one or two myself.

At about lap 7 I Latched on to, what I assume was another cat group coming through. But turns out the whole group of 9 did as well. It for real hard to work out who was in my race. Lasted in the group for 2/3 lap I reckon when the split happened. Got to admit I didn’t see it coming, and within a few seconds they were gone. 2 riders managed to stick with it.

So was a race for 3rd between the 7 of us. A few spikes and what felt like a lift in pace for the 3 laps. One guy tried to go early on the last lap but I hauled him back. Then I tried to go and got caught. So settled for a min before the sprint.

Don’t really know anything about sprints, so had no idea where to go from. Thought I’d be better going early and hanging on rather than trying to get my trainer to react to everyone flying by. So off I went. Everyone reacted. 2 got past me, and with everything in my body screaming I hung for 3rd in our group, 5th overall. Calves were about to burst with cramp!

My shitty, cheap trainer is not stable enough to really throw power down!!! :joy:

NP 261
IF 0.95
Best 20 min power of 262

At my new weight of 71.5 that’s 3.65 w/kg for near on 45 mins

Sorry for the essay. But quite pumped with adrenaline now. And that was after a hard ish ride yesterday and 100km on Sunday (which for me is quite a lot right now).

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Love it! Great effort and judgement for your first race. I missed the sprint GO last week and came 2nd (from my group) by 0.14 seconds coming from way back.

I loved the dynamics of it all.

Well done for figuring out to come off the power in the group. You’ll start to learn the slight drift back and forth to when to put the power on. I’m on a direct drive dumb trainer so need to be a bit more careful too.

The buzz is ace. Better than a steady state session following a line.

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Just for clarity, I have been in races a few times (maybe like 3). But they just felt like a steady state session as I figured out how the dynamics really worked. But yes, I agree with all you said there @pcp!

Starting to actually put a few weeks of steady consistent effort in now and it’s starting to pay off.

Booooo

Zwiftpower has upped me to B cat. That’s the end of my race days then! :rofl:

ETA how do you change your name on Zwiftpower out of interest? I can’t seem to work it out.

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Settings tab I think

Well done guys, building strength in depth here. I had an awesome day yesterday. Funny because I said would be last day before a month off to do mainly running. Now Im reconsidering hahaha

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I feel your pain, had just got to the point where I saw the front pack and joined in too and then thanks to ZP, welcome to the lantern rouge

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Yeah, even though I’m not an explosive punchy rider, a wheel-on trainer makes it hard on short hills or sprints.

The one advantage of a dumb trainer though, is that you can often ‘jump’ people after cresting a hill, as their resistance is being controlled (reduced) or on flat hairpins going up hill for the same reason.

possibly helps you not to get stuck in a sticky draft too, they can be costly

yeah that makes sense now you say that. Slip back through the pack as the terrain goes up, put in a surge to get back near the front of the group, then I tended to pop off the front for a few seconds where i eased up and let the pack catch on. Good spot.

If anyone needs to tick off the Innsbruck short worlds course there’s a Tarmac race week with events on it, 10th & 11th August. Could get a nice draft round.

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Well done @gingerbongo!

Suspect that you’ll be pleasantly surprised at how quickly you are able to hold onto front group in a B.

As has been said elsewhere given a few weeks/months of consistent riding I think you’ve got some good gains to come.

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20 minutes later and Zwift still isn’t loading.
FFS :face_with_symbols_over_mouth::face_with_symbols_over_mouth::face_with_symbols_over_mouth:

Two races entered via Zwift Companion today and it didn’t switch worlds for the races. Slightly miffed, not sure what is going on.

Zwiftpower down? Is that a longstanding thing (been away, so havent looked at zwift in over a week)? Linked to the “takeover”?

Got error/down message when looking earlier but was only for a short period of time and seems fine now.

Agreed that I’m worried what the Zwift takeover means for it as agree it makes a good attempt to make the results a more level playing field.