Zwift, my journey, my weight and my fitness.

Oh poop !

Exceeded limits... Upgrade !

Well done Weeksy. Unlucky with the DQ

I'm well happy to be bumped 🙂 new FTP and a bump, awesome !

My TT was cancelled due to high winds, and I just managed to get back in time for the Kiss A race. Stayed with the lead group for two laps, but the lack of warm up or fitness showed and I rode most of the remaining laps solo.

Weeksy, well done on joining the B's.

I just got me an upgrade (replacement)

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I'll be doing some races next week after an FTP on Saturday.

Too windy outside so i'm going to jump on a WBR 4 lap flat at 10.05am today. As much as CH isn't convinced the racing is the best plan for training, i enjoy it and in particular today for example, it would likely be the difference between me exercising or not.

WBR Races are a bit screwy as they're non-cat and they seem to randomly put you in the cats based upon your performance.

Will be leaving the B in my name though now anyway, all or nothing. ! I fully expect to be last or so in B.

How was the WBR race? Would have joined in but could not get sorted in time, so did the ZHR race and finished 3rd. Still feeling tired from earlier in the the week, my average HR was 50 lower than the two that beat me. Trying to TT outdoors again tomorrow, but dual carriageways in the wet are not my favourite way of spending Saturday afternoons.

6th out of 9 in B. (I'd have won C).

It was a bit of a lonely race in honesty. But i suspected as much. First 2 laps there was 2 then 3 of us, but i couldn't stay with them so was dropped, they ended up 52s ahead of me at the end. The last 2 laps were me hanging in to stay ahead of the other B's who were behind and working together and closing, but i managed it. For some reason the circuit was exceptionally quiet. In fact i'm not sure i saw ANY other riders... Is it changed recently so in a race you only see the guys you're racing ?

Performance wasn't quite up to earlier this week... but i'm happy enough.

One of the recent changes in Zwift is that in a race you only see riders in your race, but non racers can see you race and sit on your wheel but you will never know about it. Drafting non racers or other races is no longer possible.

Oh, i see.... I'm not sure i like that, especially as i was sitting there at times thinking "Hell, i could do with a draft right now"

But no, obviously i didn't get one at all.

Good change IMO

So i tried the ftp test today, probably not the best idea after a left over chinese takeaway breakfast. Never done one before and i was a little put off when i struggled to reach the required 380 watts. There was no resistance on the trainer so i was in top gear spinning at 125rpm which was just crazy. Did i do something wrong or is this normal? Anyway did the 20 minute session at the end and i reckon i paced it just right as i was spent by the end. Anyway it turns out my ftp is 310w, i have no idea what this equates to in the real world but is that about right for a dribbling middle aged man in his mid forties?

Weeksy- I think Zwift racing is a great workout. It's just not the way to train at getting faster at Zwift races 😉

....unless you race to blow up which you won't because of your rankings.

So Zwift-race away to your hearts content but don't wonder why improvements plateau 🙂

Well done Blader! 310 is great.

Thanks Crosshair, I reckon i could increase that by a few watts now that i know what to expect plus be better prepared for it but i reckon its pretty much a best effort from me. At least i now have some sort of base to go off. Is it possible from this test to calculate my zones or is that more a HR thing?

There was no resistance on the trainer so i was in top gear spinning at 125rpm which was just crazy. Did i do something wrong or is this normal?

310 is better than me (as a dribbling 52yr old) but weight also matters a lot when you evaluate results. I'm 78kg or so and ran 295 as my best (of 2 proper) test, so 310w for a 20 min test. I also found the zwift method unsettling as it made me ride really hard in the warm-up but it seems there's good reason for that and if you know it's coming then it's not so bad

(missed the important bit):
I expect you've got more than that, judging by your results compared to mine - unless you're quite a lot lighter

Scaredypants - trainer was set up in normal fashion in fact i have never changed the set up since day one. It did seem odd to have to spin it so fast, rather throw me off till i got used to it. The actual 20 min test had plenty of resistance so i assume the warm up was meant to be non restistant. I reckon i am about 80kg so not far off you.
I might try another test in a months time and see if anything is different.

Cracking battle of STW today in the P race, I gave my all but he had me in the last 1500m and stuffed me. I tried 6 small attacks during the race to thin the bunch out, only managed to drop 1 though. I then had to chase back on twice after a split, but at the end I had nothing!

Win and 4th for Stw
https://www.zwiftpower.com/race.php?id=9870

Long race, hence me racing C

Weeksy, I was trying to get a small break towards the end of lap 2, but no one seemed to want to go with it. It was a good race though. Thoroughly enjoyed it - makes it all the sweeter that I also seem to have won now that a few people have been bumped from the results.

2 of us came with you, but no sooner did we pull 3s then the pack closed it.

Was fun for sure, good bunch all working like lunatics.

Congratulations on the well deserved win!

Hooray!! After a bit of luck with a random 4.0w/kg guy passing me a couple of miles out, I jumped in his draft for a lead out, attacked the mall sprint and got my first ever jersey 🙂

It was at the end of an hour long workout too so a really good race sim too.

Tried my first FTP test, safe to say it's not as impressive as blader's.

Managed a 161 watts at 69Kg. So 2.3 w/kg give or take, the only way is up eh? 😆

It won't take long 😉

I think I was around 2.4 when I started on Zwift.

I want to write a nice meaty article/blog post called "Cat D to Cat 3" but I need to score 12 BC points before I can do that 😆

Why can't I turn off that silly motion blurring?!

It's so annoying, hurts my eyes...

I'm talking about this:
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I'm going to be venturing out on Zwift in the morning as the weather forecast looks dire! Anyone doing the WBR race at 10:05??

I quite like it 😆

Wondered about it, forecast looks good here, so may go outside.

AFAIK you can't turn off the motion blur on intervals, agree I'm not a fan.

I don't like the blurring, very clever that Zwift can do it but it goes on for too long, and too often on bad turbo days.

Probably doing the 8:20 race tomorrow, but if I don't wake up in time 10:05 is the next choice.

Is the blurring only on the workouts? I have only seen it once and that was on yesterdays ftp test, at first i thought it was my internet connection until i realised it was an effect.

Yeah just on workouts.

[b]Victory!!![/b]

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Well happy with that, only had 30 secs warmup and my legs didn't really wake up to full cadence (spent most the race grinding at low cadence).

Felt very much like a real race, just sitting on tick over with a few digs. Then the last couple of KM a bit quicker with a sprint finish:

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Good man! Top performance!

Good effort! I'm gonna do the 37 mile Ottawa race shortly, never done a long one.

I'm destroyed today for some reason. Just wiped out. I keep asking at 5am which isn't helping, but I think recent activity has just taken its toll.

Thanks guys!

Hmm I put more effort in than I thought: https://www.zwiftpower.com/race.php?id=9799

Fantastic cycling there nathb, i think thats the first stw win i have seen. You even had 0.29s to spare.

I opened the iOS app on my phone, joined with no sensors paired and clicked 'Ride With' on Nath then quickly clicked on his name so I could watch.
It was quite entertaining! Great result too Nath 🙂

What view does everyone use? I only like camera 3 (the first person view) as it enables me to best judge the draft. Most realistic too.

Thanks!

I use the 3rd person camera so I can see what others around me are doing haha. Well within the iPads field of vision!

I always use the default view, find most of the others make me feel sick!

Race was a bit of a disaster, turbo was randomly stuck at 80w, so I didn't move off the line, quickly switched to my P1s, but was 30 seconds down. Chased to about the middle of the pack, but the groups were tiny, so couldn't get any momentum. Race was too long, gaps were huge, i ended up doing the last 45 minutes totally on my own, which really isn't any fun! Just soft pedalled for most of it. Definitely be sticking to shorter races where you actually get a race!

The guy who won was an animal, took it by nearly 7 minutes

For those using the Tacx T2240 (the one from halfords everyone has recommended) how noisy is it? A friend is asking who lives in a flat and as it's back on offer in Halfords he is contemplating buying it but is unsure on the noise level

Noise levels are fine, probably one of the quieter turbos to be honest.

Njee20 - going solo in a race can often feel like an old school turbo session when you just faced the wall! If i end up in that situation you just have to think of a challenge within the race to motivate yourself to get over the line.

Yeah it was pretty dull!

Didn't help that when using the P1s there's no feedback from the turbo (obviously), so I kept losing crazy amounts of speed on the little ramps by forgetting to pedal a bit harder!

Huh?!

I use a 4iiii power meter with a vortex smart trainer and get feedback from the terrain...

If the turbo trainer isn't reacting to the terrain, assuming it's a smart one, then you need to set it up on Zwift as a controllable trainer?

Yeah, pair your PM as the power source and your trainer as 'controllable trainer' and it will work exactly the same. It evens works in workout mode with ERG mode now.

Yes, sorry, meant more because the trainer threw a wobbly, so I unpaired it. The original point of the excercise was to compare output of the turbo and the P1s. Which I'm still intrigued by.

Hate erg mode though, that can sod right off!

Anyone having Strava/Zwift issues today ?

Did a social ride earlier and it's not imported into Strava, can see it in Zwift, if i download and import i get an error for the FIT file being an unrecognised filetype ?