The group ride was good fun and pretty busy with 96 riders!

Weeksy thanks for starting the post it’s motivated me to try Zwift.

No need to thank me… it’s been plenty inspirational for me too 🙂

I’ve decided i’m going for the P race if anyone wants to play today, 3pm. I think it’s arguably a little long and steep for me to be getting a decent result, but the simple fact is, beating even 25% of C class is a decent result for me.

I suggest you shut down the Tacx Utility aand Zwift Mobile link on the phone and also switch Bluetooth off. Try to connect Zwift and check everything works on on the laptop. I *think* multiple device or apps trying to connect via BT causes these types of problems
If you can connect this way, you can then fire up Bluetooth on the phone and launch the mobile link…

Thanks – I tried this order of things and it seems a bit more reliable. However, it still shows up only under Power and Cadence and not under Controllable Trainer – is that normal?

Finally the stars aligned and my warranty returned turbo is working, I’m not working 20hr days and I’m not ill so I had my first ride about the island.

Impressed – can see how this could get quite addictive. The neo’s realistic ground feel over rough stuff, cobbles or planked bridges is surreal! Very surprised that I had the place virtually to myself though – I did the mountain route and I think I saw 3 other riders the whole way and they were going the other direction. Is it always that quiet if not on a group ride? Maybe at that time of day on a Saturday finds more European riders riding in the real world and the yanks asleep.

With virtually no riding since my hip op 6 months ago (and to be fair very little in the 2 years prior to that because of the need for a hip op) and my currently ‘comfortable chassis’ it will be a while before group rides are a thing for me unless I lie about my weight!

Today’s map is london…

So how did I find myself in Watopia? I know you can do clever things with code to go to a different course but I just pressed ride!

@convert check your prefs.xml file (C:\Users\NAME\Documents\Zwift)
Sounds like your file has been edited to use a particular map.

Edit with notepad and remove one of the following lines:
To ride Watopia, add: <WORLD>1</WORLD>
To ride Richmond, add: <WORLD>2</WORLD>
To ride London, add: <WORLD>3</WORLD>

Is the date right on your computer? if it is a day out it will give you the wrong map.

Just about to do the PAC ride for an easy spin.

I’m on a mac – I’ll do a google and see what the equivalent is.

Ta

Re: TRC Does Zwift??
Well that all went wrong. Entered the P race at 3pm, got on the line early and spent time with my lad, when I got back there were 20+ on the line but no names of anyone having entered, so I thought I’d better sign out and back in. So I did that and then zwift crashed. Signed in again thinking I’d be OK as it was 3.02 and C race was 3.05 start but it wouldn’t let me join! Gutted.

So I went for a ride on my own, testing how far I could go maintaining 290-305w which is 3.0-3.2w/kg. The answer is, about 21min. Hit the bottom of box hill and my desire wasn’t there. Thought I’d try again with a 2.0 roll to the bottom of box hill and attack it, but when I got there I couldn’t get the legs spinning properly, only putting out cadence of 95rpm and not the 100 I wanted. I called it a day after 2 mins of box.

Disappointed in myself really.

Much the same. Signed up for the P-Race but my connection dropped out and when I signed back in I couldn’t see how to join the race. Quite glad really – did 2 laps of the course and was done in. I enjoyed box hill. Sweaty work though.

@weeksy Yeah technical issues drive me insane, as they always make you miss the start of a race by seconds!

I’m hoping that the new iOS app alleviates all my issues, even if my router dies my iPad has 4g 🙂

I’m thinking next week is looking like this:
Mon – EVR Europe Race 7:30pm (Watopia Figure 8 18.4 miles)
Tues – BRS TT 7:05pm (2x Watopia Flat 12.8 miles)

No races tonight so a couple of laps of London looking for people to race. Set the trainer realism to 100% which I think I prefer, must have worked ok as set a new PR up box Hill by 25s.

The iOS version being released today was perfect timing as my wahoo blue sc sensor arrived yesterday. Downloaded the app to the iPad, fitted the wahoo and paired it with no problems. Just completed the FTP test. Looks like my w/kg is approx 2.7. First impressions of Zwift are good. The iOS app seemed to work well and even the FTP test motivated me enough to do more on the turbo than I otherwise would. Will probably try a short race tomorrow.

Bit damp here today, so did 127km on Zwift this morning. Before Zwift an hour seemed to go on forever, joining group rides, ZSUn and WBR, made it much easier. No riding tomorrow, my next race will be the KISS TT on Wednesday, then either ZTR or KISS on Thursday. Followed by an outdoor 10m TT on Saturday, if I can remember how to ride without the music and fans blowing on me.

127km!!! Fair play, I had had enough after 50km the other night.

I went out on the road ! 30 miles playing with some of the locals… was interesting to see how my speed/power translates from Zwift into the real world. The simple answer is…. Very very well. I’m pretty much at the fittest/fastest i’ve ever been. So happy with Zwift for that.

Nice ride weeksy, almost past my house there. Have some kudos 🙂

Thank you kind sir.

My segments were not great as I don’t know where they begin/end so I ended up stopping to wait at terribly inopportune moments it seems. One of my last segments into village was decent though. Overall I was just massively impressed to be able to ride a decent pace and not be dropped as I would previously have Bren.

Hi all, inspired by this very thread I fancy giving Zwift a go.

I have an iPad and am going to buy the Tacx T2240 from Halfords with BC discount.

What else do I need to buy? Or does the turbo just talk to the iPad via Bluetooth?

Any help would greatly appreciated.

@dogthomson – you don’t *need* anything else (T2240, with latest firmware which you can upload from the ipad, plays nicely with the ipad over bluetooth – controls the resistance etc) but a bluetooth HR monitor would be useful too.

I’ve just used that setup for my second Zwift race, having previously used my iMac, and it works really well. Just used my daugther’s music stand to hold the ipad!

This is the HR strap I’m using: Link to CRC

Just set up the T2240 for the first time, took a couple of hours annoyingly but got there in the end, did a couple of miles on Zwift and looking forward to giving it a proper go this week.

Just not sure if I should do a proper training plan or group rides and races. Will do an FTP tomorrow and take it from there.

Fascinating reading, keep up the hard work everyone 😉

I’ll be very interested to see in a few months how the real world performances are coming on for everyone after a winter of Zwifting, whether your weight is coming down, the power going up, the Strava segments outside come crashing through the floor etc.

It’s a brilliant thread though lads, i can’t help thinking we need some sort of a plan to get to know eachother a little more in Zwiftland too as it’s always nicer to find people you ‘know’ to ride with.

I seem to be in a Zwift limbo when doing some riding at the moment, putting out 2.7w/kg and having a good profile means i flat speed well and climb OK now, but people are generally around 2.0w/kg or up in the 3’s…. so i can often find myself struggling to find a group to play with.
I’m not sure what’s happening with racing at the moment, but there seems to be a lot less going on, i’m struggling regularly to find something interesting to enter.

Tonight has the EVR Europe race, but with only 13 riders in C cat, i’m not sure it’s a massive incentive to join it, so i can see myself doing a 3pm ride for 60-90 mins depending on how the legs hold out 🙂

Just a thought, everyone is a member of Strava?

How about setting up a Zwift group on there, just for posting what roughly what time you will be on or races you’ll be taking part in.

I’ve set up a club to trial this if anyone is interested? https://www.strava.com/clubs/244094

I’ve set up a club to trial this if anyone is interested? https://www.strava.com/clubs/244094

yeh, i win climbing this week…

London’s flat 😆

devon isn’t, and i did the box hill, fox hill combo the other night when there were no races on.

Joined the STW club just now (Alastair Graham). I’ve just started Zwifting this last week or so, after 6 months with zero biking in. After years of lazy winters I’m most chuffed that I might get to spring with at least a vague bit of fitness. First race last night (BRS), came 22/28 in the D category, it gave me a new ftp of 194 from this.

The amount of 30-50kg riders annoys me a little. Supposedly there was a 30kg rider in the same category as me, I’m 6’6″ and 100kg!

They’ll get DQ’d mate usually. I mean, my 8 year old weighs more than that.

http://www.zwiftpower.com/v2/race.php?id=1928

Can’t see anyone unusually light apart from 1 guy at the bottom.

Joined

Yeah, I only noticed the 30kg as it was in the same cat. There’s a 41kg chap in A (6.4 stone). They might be legit, I’m not sure. He’d look pretty bizarre though with Bruce Lee torso and giant legs.

Seems to be a shame in a way though, it’s the one metric they have no control over, it’d be easy to give myself an extra free 20% w/kg without anyone even questioning.

Minor moan though, it was fantastic fun. Although having my turbo upstairs is dangerous! Jelly legs every time! 🙂

@Toasty
Congrats on your first race!

Just had a look at the Cat D’s, there was only 1 under 50kg in the 27th position (he’s under 10 years old though).

Zwift cats are based on W/KG -which is a fair way of doing it on there I think.

Seems to be a shame in a way though, it’s the one metric they have no control over, it’d be easy to give myself an extra free 20% w/kg without anyone even questioning.

They don’t really have any control over power either, it’s just what your turbo or PM is reporting (I could easily tweak the slope on my PM to give me more watts, or the wheel size on my turbo to give me more virtual watts.) There’s a huge variance in the speed/power curves of some turbos too between the same models. And I guess most people don’t weigh themselves just before getting on the turbo too and tweak their weight accordingly.

It’s just a training tool though and not real world so doesn’t really matter I suppose 🙂

I haven’t raced yet, but what are people’s experiences of varying the “reality” setting for racing?

I ask because I MUCH prefer the 100% reality setting – that and instant (rather than 3 second) power monitoring has meant much less of the weird sensation when I’m soft-pedalling up the first 50m of a steep climb or heaving on the pedals a while after going over the top, because the resistance hasn’t change enough, or quickly enough, to reflect the gradient. It’s also made riding on someone’s wheel more like reality as well, just easing up the pressure for a couple of seconds is enough to sit in rather than automatically overtake.

So I’m wondering if lowering the reality makes racing easier, effectively “cheating” – I’ve found in IRL crit racing that I’m very rarely pedalling a nice constant cadence and even power, I’m constantly sprinting and easing off and hanging on and pushing a bit and sitting up slightly and cornering and soft-pedalling and hammering to close the gap, etc. – if you’ve got reality set very low and you’re just pushing a steady decent W/kg and your little guy is hanging on to the bunch in all the right places, that’s not a very accurate representation of a race, IMO.

On another note, my T2240 is now making an unpleasant grindy noise at very low revs and much more noise at high power, I think it might have knackered bearings… 🙁

So I’m wondering if lowering the reality makes racing easier

Quite likely. Lots of changes of resistance, gear changes, cadence changes and the required accelerations, will be more fatiguing… but will be more representative of real riding so better training 🙂

Does it show in the results what level of reality you’re riding at?

Another happy Zwifter here, inspired by this thread to get a 2240 and give it a go. I’ve not given racing a go yet but I’m pretty sure I’ll be towards the back of cat D to begin with 😯 Only one way to go from there though!

We (apart from Nath) all started at the back of D…

I’m now not too far from the back/middle of C….

I’m quite pleased with being lowish D, there were people around to compete with at that level. The chap behind and in front both added me on Strava afterwards and had a natter 🙂 My previous FTP was 164, after the race it set it to 194, the incentive definitely pulled me up the hills a lot quicker!

Looking forward to gradually going upwards with any luck.

Every year when the clocks changed out of BST I’d give up road cycling, so much traffic around here, it just seemed far too risky to bother. This has really picked me up! My lack of cycling tied in with having a newborn in the house 6 months ago, which made finding spare time a bit more tricky too, this is perfect!

We (apart from Nath) all started at the back of D…

B then A for me, not the fastest A but a good challenge every time to finish mid A category. Seldom beaten by anyone older than me.

Still trying to work out why I get dropped on the hills on Zwift but not IRL, only 65kg but always do best on the flatter courses.