Great, thanks
On the stream, what it is with the colour scheme?! Really comes across as a bit strange. is it for some form of colour blindness to help contrasts, or just personal preference?
Green screen is nice - just need to get it lined up with the camera properly! You could also expand the webcam window with the greenscreen, so as not to cut off the top of your head and arm. Would look slicker.
In terms of your racing, your numbers in last nights ZRL race are just insane. I canât ever contemplate being in Cat A.
It surprises me given the level you are at that you donât use the companion app, or have some other way of activating powerups that is less intrusive. It seemed noticeable two or three times that you missed hitting the powerup when intended given how far away and out in front of you it was, and especially with your out of the saddle style, that really seemed to cost you. For everything the power up gave you, you actually lost 2-3s of your normal power in trying to press it. A phone by your hands, or even a rigged mouse clicker connected to the computer and attached to your handlebar, would be so much quicker.
I was also surprised you hardly ever super tucked. You were noticeably the outlier there in the whole race. Even when you did, the descent was already over and you got at most 2s or so. There were times you were pedalling down an entire descent at 250ish watts, when every piece of analysis says super tucking is faster than doing that (especially in races when the aero benefit is beefed up), let alone the energy you would have also saved. I imagine thatâs why you seemed to have the highest w/kg of anyone in the whole race, as everyone else would have had 45s or so of 0w spread throughout the race. I do wonder if those brief 10s rests would have allowed you to push just a fraction harder on the climbs.
But as I say, who am I to question performance when youâre so far ahead of anything I could contemplate doing myself! Fun to watch proper riders racing hard!
Lots of great points there
I basically rode a crap race, especially second lap. At the start of the second lap, 4 riders went off the front, initially, my plan was to join this break away, but I dithered, waited for them to get an 8s gap, then decided to chase it down (seems like a really bad idea as I write this). I sat too long on the front, the list goes on.
In terms of Super Tuck, you are right, I didnât use it effectively. The issue with Supertuck is if you get it wrong, even by a fraction, you get dropped. Have a look at @Daz livestream from Innsbruck; on lap one after the leg snapper, he was late out of the tuck, and got dropped by the main pack, he was really lucky to get back on again, as the pack slowed right down before the sprint. Another good Livestream to watch is mine from BST mountain Goat race; on the descent from Innsbruck KOM the lead group dropped as many people on the descent as they did on the climb. I didnât really know the Harrogate course well enough, so, especially on lap 2, I pedalled the descents, and wasted more energy. It really pays to know the courses well.
My companion app froze, so had to use touch screen on my PC⌠its a bit old and not sensitive enough.
In the end, I donât think it made any difference to the result, If I rode a perfect race, I could have gained 10 or 11 extra points, but the gap to Frenchy Fusion in first place was around 20 points.
I am probably being hard on myself, but the margins are wafer thin. We are in a great position overall by racing smarter than the others, on pure rider statistics we are only the 5th best team.
I am getting much better at racing smarter, but sometimes, like in the race on Tuesday, I revert to my old ways. It has been a real revelation riding with Mox and Daz, I have power in abundance, probably one of the best diesel engines in WTRL, but I lack race craft and sprint abilities.
We are racing against 4 of the best teams in the world outside Prem, Frenchy Fusion (The strongest French team), ZTPL (The strongest Polish Team), Peta-Z (The strongest Spanish team), and Canyon Coalition (a full works team). We have an average age of 52, and are causing a bit of an upset by leading our division. I have to say, itâs an amazing experience and I am loving every painful second of it.
Next week is TTT, and we have the potential to do really well.
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Interesting what you say about supertuck and was something I noticed about watching some of the feeds from Tuesdays ZRL.
On Tuesdays ZRL, Iâm in B cat event, we were all using the downhill to recover.
Watching a stream of our A team the top riders were attacking and pushing the downhill with minimal/no recovery after the climbs which reflects how they ride outdoor races. Made for a brutal looking event and although some of my numbers are creeping up reflects the true gap to the quality at the sharp end!
Supertuck is fast if you get it right. It can give 3 or 4 seconds respite, however, its so easy to get wrong. On a course like Harrogate, or Titans Grove, you need to get the split second timing right. I know Titans Grove very well, so I am confident there, but not on Harrogate course.
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are these Tuesday night WTRL races a team affair same as the TTT?
As the class Luddite can I point out that your discussion about supertuck reminds me of a group of gaming nerds discussing how to get past the end of level boss in some 80s Nintendo game.
You have to get the Wand of Warlock and the potion of Azimuth then hit Circle, Square, Circle, Triangle as fast as you can until he turns into a frog and you can stamp on him!
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Yes team events. If you can get a group together Iâd highly recommend it!
Season runs over 8 weeks with 5 scratch races and 3 TTT. This is season 2 and some tweaks have been made to how points are scored in the scratch races which have made for really great events that are not your usual zwift ftp effort race with a ramp at the end. Much more tactics and chance for people to play to their strengths and itâs possible to score heavily despite never being at the âfrontâ of the race.
Friend got roped into setting up the eRacing section for our local cycle club so we started off wondering if weâd get enough people for 1 team. We ended up with 5 teams and plenty of reserves. Lockdown has certainly increased its popularity.
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Summiting and super tuck. One thing Iâve learned on Zwift is never to super tuck if youâre already the last man on the group and a few metres off. There are, as you say, a few summits where the group can speed up quick on the descent and if youâre not putting the watts down you can slip 1sec off the back and itâs game over. If youâre comfortably in the group then super tuck down and watch how your avatar reacts. You may be able to stay there, just pump some watts if you feel heâs dropping just off the back.
If youâre already at the back and struggling then you need to push hard over the climb as the group ahead will string out and speed away. Hurts like hell but tell yourself how you will feel in 1min time - better to be recovering on the front group, than cursing in no mans land.
I used to super tuck all the time in races where I could, but now I mix up tucking with spinning (1-2wkg) to try and flush the blood through the legs.
They played with the super tuck at one point and from tests they found that in training (non race) itâs actually faster to turn 2.0wkg than tuck. Not sure if they fixed that. But in races a tuck is faster.
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Super tuck to now be banned IRL!
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I read that and thought of this thread 
Itâll be banned on Zwift for eSports.
As the avatars and IRL people also have to wear socks 
