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Well! That was fun!
After the start I was riding along with IMartin (I think) and realising that the blob behind was gonna catch eventually.
Once I'd been assimilated, it was a good fun thrash.
I'm crap at drafting and have no sense of tactical whatsit so kept pushing off the front of the group.
I knew from previous races that Jimdoubleyou has a powerful sprint and felt most aggrieved when him and Andeh pulled a fast one after one of the sprints (4th one?) 😂😂 Great effort! It was a good target to aim for to drag you back into the blob....
I knew once the sprints started my number was up.
They didn't bloody crumble though, did they!? 😉
Do I miss out on sprint points cause I didn’t finish? Pretty sure I was on top 5 on 12.54 😢
Hoping the neo 2t has a 2 year warranty!
Annoyingly the sprint display only shows best time for a given lap, so although you might have a fast lap at one point, it may have been beaten by someone on a previous/later lap. The only real way to tell is the Sprint/KoM results on ZwiftPower post race.
Last lap sprint times were really fast. 11.4 seconds got 5th
Did everyone get shit powerups? - I think 1 feather early on, then 1 aero and then many, many extra points (i wouldn't mind if it really was many but 10's a ****ing insult !). Should've kept the aero to the end, when I unleashed all my nearly 556 Whaaaats, but needed it to get in front for the massive climb
Never mind! I can’t see my times on Zwift power, wasn’t sure if that was because I didn’t finish the race or just me being rubbish. Can’t remember if it was 12.54, but I was 2nd to andeh at some point…maybe that wasn’t last lap…11.4 does sound fast. Maybe I’m just deluding myself! Hope I can sort a trainer for next week's instalment.
I think I mostly got the exp points. But I did get one feather and one aero so it could be worse. Didn’t get to use the aero as my trainer died though.
Thanks for organising Robbo, great to be back, despite the drama tonight.
Holy Crap oblongbob! Sounds like epic race prep! Is the trainer dead?!
Man alive andeh! The plum crumble stitch comment caused me to spit tea everywhere 😀
Power-ups weren't too bad for me. Couple of aero, one of which I accidentally used in completely the wrong place. Also got a draft boost which came in handy.
Some good results from the blob group! Well done all.
Once I got an aero I sat on it till the end. Didn't do much good though as @savoyad got the drop on me when we were both being cagey and I couldn't quite close the gap.
I'm happy with that. Felt much better tonight than I have on most recent events. Even happy enough to put in a number of attacks. The split down to 4 just knid of happened. Seemed a shame not to capitalise once the initial split occured and the gap nicely opened up to around 45s in a lap. That gave the room for a bit more fun later on. @kirky72 and I nearly got away at one point before the final split down to two.
@robbo1234biking believe it or not ZP has me as B currently!
It's so good to be back at this. I love riding with all those names in the sidebar.
I thought we needed a small group to push on at the front - @nixie and @phil56 have suffered in the past having to TT their way to overcoming handicaps - and we got one. I did nearly miss the boat and had to bridge across. I see now @paino is taking the blame for forcing that split taking @kirky72 and @nixie clear...
The four of us went well together (we were even 5 for 1km when @weeksy made a cameo appearance in the group) until near the end. The gap we opened did us all good for the overall standings.
At the end, we were down to 2 and neither of us really wanted to race home from the hill, but we could hardly trust each other so we pushed quite hard together and it came down to the sprint. I went painfully early, and @nixie was more patient and was catching me very fast as the line approached- so I managed to cross the line first, but in a panic about being caught! It took 15 and 30 sec all time power bests to stay ahead...
Thanks @robbo1234biking for organising.
Wow that was harder than I remember, and I'm much less fit than at the end of the last season... ZP put my FTP for that race at 262watts / 3.86wkg and dropped me back to Cat B.
More training and less pudding from now on...
Think it’s dead. Light all went out and no resistance. Tried everything I could to get it going to finish the race, but no joy. Will leave it for a bit in the hope it magically works again. Think warranty is 2 years, so email to merlin cycles sent. Also emailed madison as apparently ultegra cranks have a bit of a habit of breaking (though my mad power might be to blame 😂). Not sure what to do for next week. Dumb trainer and power meter I suspect…though my new bike won’t fit on that…hmmm
That sucks. Hope you get it sorted soon.
More training and less pudding from now on…
Same for me. Less beer as well.
@oblongbob what a 'mare! I had an Ultegra crank fail on me earlier in the year. Yeah. They are pants. My LBS offered to send it back to Madison but their charge wasn't worth the risk if Madison just said it was fair wear and tear.
Why do we always look back and think what if? I am now convinced I could have tried harder to go with 'the big 4' but in reality I was breathing out my a#$€ at the time. Chased @richardkennerley down with his ill conceived sprint thinking he was going for a break at the flame rouge so that took the edge off my sprint. Still, did a decent sprint from the second group but felt a bit rusty in terms of tactics.
Thanks Robbo for sorting again.
Wasn’t sure I would make this one last night as I went from fine to feeling like I’d been run over within a few hours and went to bed at 8pm with a banging head, sore throat fearing the worst.
Felt better today as the day wore on so thought I’d give it a try and see how the warm up felt. The start didn’t feel quite as crazy hectic as normal and felt like we could have a large group for at least a couple of laps which didn’t fair well for the handicap gaps.
So once I was confident I could manage some efforts I tried to force the pace and prodded for a break on every ramp and the first sprint. Therefore burning a few too many matches a bit too early and leaving me a bit short of power needed for later. Once Savo and Nixie put the hammer down at the end of the 4th lap I doubted I had enough to bridge the gap and though even if I managed it then I would most likely be dropped by the pair plus paino after the turn and gentle climb. Thought I would just make life easier and work with paino for the remainder.
Well done everybody. Thanks Robbo for sorting again and it also looks like your hard works been paying off. I noticed during the TT last Thursday and the way you worked towards the front for a while early on tonight and closed me down a couple of times that your power (or ability to put it down) seems to have ramped up a fair bit from the previous series.
Unfortunately I know for sure I’m going to miss race 3 and 6 due to 10pm finishes, I’ll also be lucky if make all of the remaining 3.
@nixie you are just over 4.0 w/kg which makes you an A 🙂 I dont look at ZP data as it gets too complicated sp just do a w/kg calc and apply that as the cat. Put 1 kg on though and you would be in the Bs!
@gingerflash I have never gone straight to the world, always having to go via an intermediary world. That said your load time are pretty slow!
I had an OK race. Managed to stay with the fron group for as long as I could but lost touch on the small rise once. Dropped into a second group but there wasnt enough momentum to keep us away from the group behind, so settled in for a few laps. Each lap it went pretty deep on the little hilly section to maintai the connection with the group. I knew I didnt have a great sprint so I decided to try a long range attack but ran out of steam 300m from the end and you all came whizzing past!
Bologna next week!
😀 I prefer your maths robbo 👍.
Good to be back at it with you folks! It was just as i remember... manic, painful but ultimately good fun (type 2 obvs).
Really chuffed to finish 2nd after handicaps. We had a decent group throughout the race, from around 7th to 15th-ish (i think). Usual suspect, Robbo, southside johnny, scardypants etc, keeping each other honest!
Managed to must a small sprint at the end to finish 9th on the road.
Good stuff!
Thanks for sorting Robbo, I had a great time! Didn’t have a clue what I was doing as it was my first E race but I’m already excited for next weeks TT 😁. See you there guys!
Tuesday nights is it? If I can be late to the party that'd be great!
80kb and currently at 276 FTP.
My HRM is on the fritz at the moment so it makes every ride look like i'm cruising around having a brew though
OK so handicaps are live for tomorrow now.
It is a TT race so you will have an individual time. We go of at 10 second increments and drafting is turned of so it is you against the course (doesnt stop you catching people up for motivation though!).
Read up on the Zwift TT mode if you are unsure of what to expect.
https://zwiftinsider.com/time-trial-mode/
Choose the best bike for you and the course!
As I'm due to be at a meeting at 8pm tomorrow I won't make it to the race unfortunately (and I really mean that, I rather like bologna!) but good luck all.
I'm dog training, hoping to be back in time but it will be tight. Intending to log Zwift on before I go so it automatically takes me to the pen.
I'm sr tight on getting there, out for a fell run with son first, that hill could be extra tough
Well that didn't go as planned at all.
Thought I'd hop on quickly this evening and do a short race. Bloody ftp increase before I've even managed one of the series with a sensible handicap. 😭
316 now according to intervals.icu robbo
🤣🤣🤣
My goal for tomorrow is to just actually finish the race! I did really well on this course last time, hopefully that's a good omen.
My trainer is still winging its way to Garmin after dying 3k from the end of the last race, so I think I’ll need to skip this one 😢. Credit to Garmin inasmuch as it seems to be a no quibble swap under warranty, and they’ll post a new one out as soon as they get the broken one. Quite an expensive thing to post though, at 24kg or so - £40!
No new crank yet either (after that gave up at the start of last week’s race) so the old dumb trainer and power meter on my old bike is also out.
Hopefully the crank is heading to Madison at some point soon to be checked out, but they won’t let me send it direct to them and insist I do it via a bike shop. I got it from Merlin and they say they can’t help because they don’t deal with Madison. So…apparently I should take it to the LBS (that I didn’t but it from) and ask them to send it back. Seems a bit cheeky, but I hope they’ll be ok about it and I’ll happily buy some stuff and pay postage costs.
So, I’ll see you in the start pens if I figure something out, otherwise enjoy yourselves!
Quite an expensive thing to post though, at 24kg or so – £40!
Depending on how long since you bought it they should see you right for that...
I can already say tonight's race is going to be a struggle. Decided to enter and run a half marathon on Sunday (I'm not much of a runner although have had several sproadic attempts since the lockdowns began) and my legs have definitely not recovered. I think my ride up the climb is likely to be "lumbering".
I had a bit of an off on the mtb yesterday and am struggling to do anything involving my ribs, like putting on clothes, moving, breathing etc. so may struggle a bit with tonight's race if I can get onto the bike....
On the plus side apparently I looked impressive as I rolled down the hill with the bike in hot pursuit!
@Oblongbob I had the same thing with Canyon ref the Ultegra crankset. They said contact LBS who then wanted £20 to send off to Madison with no guarantee they'd accept liability/replace under warranty. I didn't bother in the end.
Sorry to see a few out this evening. Can't say I'm looking forward to 20 mins of pain. Despite burying yourself, you always feel you could have gone harder. TT's are a funny thing.
slowpuncheur
TT’s are a funny thing.
Apparently, Chris Boardman said that the first 13 mins of a TT are free.
So, really it's only a 7min or so ride today. Winner Winner....
Going to be an interesting one tonight, I did 'Orange Unicorn' last night and on the nursery/school run I could barely turn the pedals
Hmmmm just noticed that Zwift have schedule race 2 and race 3 tonight at 7:30! That is going to cause a lot of confusion when the join event buttons start appearing!
@nixie I saw that...but in the companion app it seems to have been fixed.
@savoyad, yes looks like it, was just about to message Rob and noticed the event links for 3a and 3b on zwift.com had the correct date. Hopefully its sorted!
Yeh it should be fixed and tonights event is showing up in Zwift Power
https://zwiftpower.com/events.php?zid=2292932
Hope it all works out OK!
Soooo, who has been splashing out in the drop shop today 😀
I’m sadly going to miss the start line this week. Have been suffering with a crappy cold for a few days now, laying max effort in to a TT would just about finish me off. Enjoy all!
Are you on shiny new wheels @nixie? They are out of my reach still, but I did upgrade my frame this morning - P5 to a Speedmax so maybe the most expensive drops-per-second transaction ever made.
Take care @funkybaj, better to see you on the start lines later in the series than you make it worse tonight. Good evening to miss as well...
@savoyad I am yes, those and the new frame makes it the most drops I've ever spent!
Well, as I've not spent any drops in about 20 levels, I think I can spare a few to sling at a new frame/wheels 😎
I might have enough drops for a pair of socks 🤔😂.
I think I'll struggle with this evening's course. I didn't overly enjoy it last time.
I have just ridden 2 miles in the real world at a higher pace than i normally would to catch the post box collection and it has demonstrated my lack of fitness to me 😭.
I'll take it easy tonight and aim for a restart to my cycling fitness.