I had really sore legs last night after another Zwift race (3R LaGuardia 8 lap crit style). I got a short massage from my very understanding wife, but they were still very tight this morning … like on the edge of injury tight.
I didn’t think I was good for The PRL Full, but I selected the route and did a couple of laps as a warm up and test. I rode at recovery levels. What I found was that my earlier time estimates are not realistic. This is definitely a 6-7 hour course for me. Going to be brutal as it really is dull, but lots of good historic cycling on Eurosport to watch.
May try it tomorrow or may leave it to next weekend. We shall see!
When using the ‘Surface’ I have to connect the PM & HRM before I turn on any Garmin, otherwise it ‘steals’ the signal. Presumably the Garmin then uses whatever is free (ANT or BLE) when it’s turned on.
Tried my first group ride to have company getting back up to 50 miles, Cat C, mildly surprised to see us line up at a 1.2 mile crit circuit, forget group ride, full on race, didn’t really get a group at any point, whenever we did it was broken up by people trying to latch on to passing lappers, pretty much a TT, stuck it out but not impressed
The Pack rides, monday and thursday evening are 2 - 2.2 . I did their sub 2 today which was fun also for a little bit easier. They are really good at sticking to pace. I’ve done ZZRC also which are generally ok but you do get a few more flyers. The ZHR 7pm saturday is 2.5 and was good also.
I was expecting a front and rear beacon but it was just a free for all, ended up doing 2.5 in the 2-2.6 category and finished 50-odd of 60-odd finishers, hell of a lot of non-finishers too
Never normally plug my laptop in for Zwifting as it’s charging all day being docked for work, and never normally ride longer than 90 mins.
Anyway, did a longer race on Sat evening so had the power cable to hand just in case, and sure enough descending down from the Epic KOM got a low battery warning so luckily was able to hop off and plug it in.
My word - suddenly the frame rate shot up and all of a sudden the graphics went up about 2 levels. Was now getting lovely reflections on the sea and all sorts of detail I’ve never had before.
Obv it must’ve been running in a battery saver mode every time I’d used it until then?
Also in said race, bagged a win in the B cat on Zwift Power - happy days! Was the 3 Sisters route and a last minute decision to ride so literally no warm up which probably helped - made no effort to hold the front pack of A’s and B’s and found a group of B’s after the first small climb to roll with so assumed I was mid-pack in B’s. Stayed with them most of the way up the Epic KOM but they were still doing over 4W/kg at the top and I didn’t think that was sustainable so let the gap go over the rollers before the radio tower climb.
Caught a couple near the top from that group then smashed a sprint before aero tucking - got up near 100Km/h and passed a few more on the descent.
After stopping to plug in, got caught on at the bottom by 2 of those B’s I caught and passed on the descent and they were doing 3.5 W/Kg so tucked in with them feeling quite tired, was expecting them both to leave me again on the climb. Anyway turns out they had nothing left so was able to get a nice 30s gap on the Volcano climb after emptying the tank up there. Still assumed I was battling for minor placings as I was sure I’d not passed all of that original B group in the red mist of the radio tower climb and descent.
Suprised to see I was 1st in Zwift power, and had actually ended up 4th on the road. Of the 3 ahead, one got filtered for too much power, another one had UPG whatever that means - upgrade? and the the other one didn’t seem to be on ZP.
Quite a high DNF rate, think there were 30-odd B’s at the start and only 15 or so finished.
First race using the Kickr and as I was in a rush, I did the whole thing on 100% trainer difficulty, which meant a lot of shifting but actually found that added to the realism and was something else to think about, which in a longer race was fine, but might be a bit trickier in say Crit City where you need to be on it all the time.
UPG means that rider just got bumped up a category. That may mean he didn’t win the B, but I bet he is happy to have made the A grade on zwiftpower.
Congrats on your race. I tend to do best when I go with the crazy front group for a bit, then once it settles into its unsustainable (for me) normal power I drop back to recover and rejoin the second group, which then tends to be the one I run with for the whole race. That effectively guarantees I make the second group, and can pick off a lot of the first group as they blow up. Not a strategy that is resulting in wins yet, but I am getting stronger and I am getting better at now blowing up.
Ah yes - looking at his results on ZP he seems to often do races below his cat rating, seems to be on the cusp of A/B so for individual start times you can see why, but when it’s a mass all-cat start at same time affair, seems a bit dick-ish. Especially for someone on level 50.
Yeah, I don’t really understand it. I can see why people enter what they feel like if just on zwift, as you get the ego boost of “winning” on the in-game results. But if you’re going to sign up to zwiftpower, then I don’t see why you would go to that effort and then not enter races based on the cat you are assigned. As you say, it makes even less sense in the context of a mass start race when you’re starting with the A’s anyway.
I’ve been trying to use the companion app lately but it’s not going well. I can connect and see myself on the tracker and see all my metrics displayed. But the direction, ride on and U-turn buttons just don’t work. The power graph button works. There’s also an orange rectangle with a white square in it on the l/h side, I don’t know that that does.
I’m on android (Samsung) ph with a MacBook running Zwift. I have BT on the phone for music and BT on the MacBook, although it’s not doing anything, as I connect to the game via Ant+.
I don’t understand how the app can connect but only about 50% of it seems to be working?
I have similar. The toast button does nothing, the wave works occasionally. I am alo on Samsung phone. Rest works fine but the buttons are hit and miss. No idea what the hammer is supposed to do, it does nothing also.
