Awesome work. I dream of doing well in B, let Alone A.

Thanks! I just go flat out from the gun (wind it up 5 seconds before), then just sit with the leaders as long as I possibly can. I’d sooner throw the race away and die a thousand deaths (not losing anything after all) than sit up and wait for a second group! 4 was a tough number though, once one’s up the road there’s not much group momentum to bring them back. We had a group of 6 about 30 seconds back, hard to work to keep them at bay.

I know what you mean about the 100kg rider, but it’s pretty difficult to fake the actual power figure, so assuming the 400w is accurate(ish) then it’s more likely they were 100kg than lighter. You’d be handicapping yourself to inflate your weight after all.

😆

just had a disatrous attempt at a workout in erg mode – my fault I’m sure.

Sooooo laggy but, on googling, it appears that I’m not supposed to change gear at all even when going from 100-odd W to 750

Think maybe I’ll just DIY next time. Can’t be that hard if I choose a flat route, right ?

duuuuuuuh

Would one of you regular zwifters be kind enough to explain power zones for me?
I’m a B group tail ender but often seem to end up with a lot of yellow in the colour coded column compared to those around me.
Does this just mean I’m trying harder given a limited ability? When I click on that column (yesterday’s evr Europe race,)it puts me at the top, but in the race I was way down.
Thanks, Paul.

Do you race regularly outside in the real world ?

My graphs are pretty much ranked in the same order using the graphs as they are chronologially as I’ve either improved or learned to try harder and my FTP’s gone up. I’m mid-pack B now and find that I use much more power in short bursts followed by stretches of hanging onto wheels and recovering. That makes me look like a lazy bastard compared to how I started (I’ve never raced outside though, so was very new to it).

If you’re like me, you’ll get faster and/but your graphs will “go green”

30 min warm up then joined the the sub2 ZHR. Which was more sub 3 at times. Pack went from 70 down to 10 with leader, i got bored faffing about and bailed after 50 min.

Thanks Scaredy, certainly don’t do any racing and being relatively new to zwift probably treat it like a normal turbo session rather than a tatical race, just trundle around as hard as I can for as long as I can.
Guess I need to concentrate on harder efforts and recoveries in between.

Today’s ride was ideal! 15km out with my boy. Talking rubbish, eating wine gums and playing at the park.
I was really pleased when he asked to come out as I wasn’t sure I could face the ride on my own. Ive got somewhat sucked into riding for training not for pleasure at times, I try to keep an eye on it, like last Tues I went out alone and just explored. But I’m finding myself too often riding every mile like a Strava segment. So it was great to remove that from my mind and just cruise along.

My lad had a bit of a breakthrough moment he seems to have every year where he realises working hard won’t kill him. Stuck down some great power and enjoyed his ride.

Got an Epic KOM yesterday. 16 whole people had been up there!

[/url]1492933145858 by Bryan, on Flickr[/img]

It’s always cool when you get a jersey 🙂

I think it resets at different times of the day, so if you get it right, you don’t have to actually go nuts to get one sometimes.

IIRC you get to wear the Jersey for an hour.

First Zwift race in over a month yesterday, 7 laps of the Volcano, lack of cycling showed and I got dropped on the 4th lap, did the last 3 at a sedate pace and think I came last in C.

I did notice that even though i’ve been training outdoors a fair bit, you kinda lose the Zwift intensity if you don’t do it.. As with anything i guess, you lose the edge, what you may gain in other departments you don’t necessarily keep all the bits you want for Zwifting.
I seem to have lost the ability to hit 160+ for a long Zwift…. I’m now sort of semi-cruising around 155bpm instead. Which kind of fits in with the outdoors activities i’ve been doing lately.

Due to a few circumstances i will be Zwifting a bit more this week, but the racing fields look a bit lacking 🙁

You get it until someone beats your time surely? But as Weeksy says the times reset every day (not sure when), so if you’re the first person to post a time then you get a jersey by default.

You get it until someone beats your time surely?

No, you only get the jersey for an hour max, presume your time is then erased from leaderboard? here

So they never clear the times entirely, you just don’t get the jersey after an hour? Seems confuddling

Cracking race, Zwift race, 3 laps volcano flat.

Hard hard from the start, had a bunch of 8, then on start of lap 2 is was 6, then 5. then 4 of us…. Into the volcano on lap 3, i’d lost the wheel up the incline before you turn right out to the volcano…. then caught back… but inside volcano i lost it again….and couldn’t get it back.
Last 2/3 lap was a solo effort… but DAMN i tried !

I’ll be interested to see how it compares to my other circuits of the same 3 lap there.

Great ride, nice one!

I tried a TT, didn’t really like it, really pleased with my consistency and figures, but much more dull than a race. Turned off the smart trainer so I could just maintain a steady power more easily and aimed for 320w, managed to average 331w, which I’m sure is a gross overstatement of my abilities, but meh, I’ll take it!

Results show me as winning, which i clearly didn’t, was 4th over the line, bit weird. Never thought I’d voluntarily turbo train on a dry April day!

Yeah I’ve found myself on Zwift this evening too, popped on to do a quick 45 min session and noticed there was a group ride “Back to work” so joined in with that.

Was good, nice and chilled until I got distracted reading a text and then had to make up 20s gap by doing 30 secs at 520w lol.

Maybe Zwift does have a place in my life still after all…

I like the ease of getting kitted and knocking it out and the consistency of power/effort. Today Mrs Weeksy was heading out so I didn’t have time for a decent outdoors ride, so I jumped on and killed myself, high hr, consistently high, the some minor surges, but minor rests, on the MTB you get far longer to rest, but on zwift racing its just endless effort.
I kind of got frustrated in my race as I eased off 15s too early as my arse needed a rest, but I lost 4s in a heartbeat, I thought I’d crested the hill but I misjudged it. The tow was then gone and so was I!
But I finished a sweaty pouring mess!

Tomorrow is QECP. If anyone is reading this and fancies showing me round for 55 min it would be great

I tried a TT, didn’t really like it, really pleased with my consistency and figures, but much more dull than a race

I quite like ’em – maybe because I’m shit at drafting and have a very flat looking power curve

I guess i just didn’t get any of the group benefits, it was very mildly more interesting than doing a ‘normal’ turbo session, but I raced myself, which isn’t as much fun! A guy did a crazy negative split too, could see him catching me the whole of the second lap, but knew I was going as hard as I could! Definitely prefer the drafting, once you get the hang of it.

Racing outdoors wasn’t appealing so tried my first race ever this morning, the ZHR masters. Rather enjoyed it. Start wasn’t as mental as I expected, maybe masters is more sedate 🙂 Got a bit out of position going into the hill on the last lap (hilly route) which lead to the winning gap, rode to the finish in a group of two with a real life club mate who did me for 2nd in the sprint. Might try that again sometime.

Did the WBR race this morning, more people in it than i expected. I couldnt be bothered to hammer out the start as i am on a new bike so unsure of the set up and i only joined with seconds to spare so no warm up. I just stayed with what ever group was nearby, it contained about 6 riders and was a good pace. It was all set up for a sprint finish so i waited till the last second and went for it, turns out it was a sprint from a long way out but managed to overtake them all in the last 50m and win by 0.2s, epic timing but i was a bit of a sweaty mess.
Seems like i got the bike set up bang on without really checking anything, i am sure a little tweak will be had further down the line.

Excellent

Okay I fancy a race.

Kiss Pacific at 2:10pm, wish me luck 🙂

47 entrants ! Damn that’s a decent field at the moment !

Joining weeksy??

not finishing work until 2.05 and need to drive home 🙁

Otherwise i’d have been in like a shot.

I’m looking at the 3pm but it only has 9 riders and not sure i can be bothered for a 9 rider race.

I also really ought to rest my legs.

Just switched it on to take a look – that’s a fairly aggressive race

… and there’s some rider on a workout smashing out 750w every now & then, to give people a wheel to chase ! 😆

5/40 on my first race in agesssss! https://zwiftpower.com/race.php?id=6385

Totally missed the 3 leaders pull away, otherwise I would have gone after them, definitely caught napping! Stuck in with the mini pack we had going on, doing more than my fair share at the front chasing “smith” for him later to be DQ’d 😆 , but getting better at drafting so that’s a bonus.

I did what I do in real life, be as lazy as possible for as long as possible. Had a lazy spring finish and didn’t see 4th place sneak past me very close to the line otherwise I would have put more effort in 😳

(No idea what’s going on with my HR there, I think the battery needs changing…)

Good fun!

Zwift volcano flat again here. 3 laps.

Got in group and we were flying along. Dumped on lap 3 on the hill out of the village…. me and 2 others… couldn’t hang on….

Stayed with them 2 and mullered them in a sprint.

Race time was over 2 mins quicker for me than on Tues !

Nice one weeksy!

Saw your group fly past me when I was cooling down 🙂

Christ no wonder I got pipped at the line!!! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casper_von_Folsach

Zwift race results are bloody rubbish. Monday I seemed to finish 1km less than the only rider who finished actually rode. So today I rode further after race, but again I’m not convinced its going to work.

Christ no wonder I got pipped at the line!!!

He was probably on a zone 2 day 😉

Nathb – he was an Olympian nearly 5 years ago so he is probably all washed up and aged now and you are representing STW, this is not good enough and thus you have been removed from pudding duties tonight!

Good work Weeksy, not done a Volcano race before so hoping there is one tomorrow for me to have a crack at.

Totally missed the 3 leaders pull away, otherwise I would have gone after them

I think they may have tagged on to the guy doing the intervals – he’d have pulled them away pretty damn quick if they did it right (he was 750W for looong spells)

@mrblobby – look how much more effort I put in too, definitely not got this drafting thing honed in yet…

@blader1611 – sorry, next time I see him I’ll put more effort in 😥

@scaredypants – that’d explain how quickly they pulled away from us then!!

I really do find it VERY hard to have rest days… I’ve ridden a fair bit this month, currently on 30 hours and 752Km. Which, depending on the next few days could end up being my highest mileage month of all time. Considering i’ve done a decent chunk of them mile outside this month too it’s quite a bit for me. I’ve had 2 days off in the last fortnight, so this will be day 3.
But i REALLY want to get on and ride, legs don’t feel too bad and i’m a bit bored and owed a lunch break from work… LOL…. It’s HARD !

Weeksy i know what you mean. It was my rest day today so i did the KISS race this morning! Yet again another perfectly timed sprint at the end to beat the group i was riding with. I am a very below average cyclist but i do seem to have a knack of timing my sprint well and by the way i am a terrible sprinter too.

Had another go at a workout tonight (Hi Weeksy!) – better, but still can’t work the “erg” thing properly (need to have a proper bugger about with settings, I think – as well as learning just to keep a steady pace and let the computer sort the resistance)