Well done Tiger. I decided to rest and spanner the bikes instead. Back to Z2 tomorrow and 5-2 diet day to see if we can keep the lard at bay.
Jeez. Moved to the WBR hilly instead due to lack of riders in the other. Came 26 of 31 in B, 59 of 161 overall average 3.3w/kg. Not really what I'd hoped but then I have done 4 2x20's and 1 x 1:10 TT over the week, so perhaps a little tired.
Started OK, felt a bit sick at about 40th place after 5 mins. Hung in with the A's for 20 mins then got dropped. Rode along at 250w for a few minutes then got caught and stayed with a group swapping around 50th for the rest of the race, working well together with a few small attacks on the hill shelling a few riders.
I don't know the circuit and suffered from that as about 4k from the end everyone kicked on what turned out to be the final hill. I missed it assuming it wast just people coming to the front again, couldn't get back, ended up 15 secs back. I started working solo with a group 15 secs behind me and tried to defend my then 50th place. I pulled out 4 seconds on them, then suffered TT'ing to the end to defend yet they came past me about 30s from the end.
Ah well, I got a good workout!
That's how it goes sometimes, you work like a crazy and the reward just isn't there. But be happy you worked damn hard.
The thing about Zwift racing unlike most real/MTB racing is that you are on the power for the whole hour, there's no let up and that takes a bit of adjustment if you're not used to it.
I'm not complaining though, as with all racing I hated it and now a bit later I loved it 🙂
That's very very true. Some races you get a minor easing, but your HR is only getting a few BPM back, out on trails on DH sections you can recover 15-20 easy.
Enjoying reading the reports of ftp increases, getting set for a good summer.
I decided to enter the 19:15 wbr 4 lapper of the volcano and see what i could chuck out after not being able to ride yesterday or today. Set out far too quick and held with the A's until the first proper kick up where a bunch of A's and 2 B's got out of sight. Not much else to report other than I thought I was going to get dropped each lap on the rise but somehow hung in each lap. I then missed the kick on the last lap and got gapped slightly but managed to grind it back to 6th in the group amd 8th overall in B. Really happy with an FTP increase from 261w to 271w as I hadnt raced for a month but have been trying to chuck in a vo2 session and an sst medium session once a week along with outdoor club rides. I don't think ive got any weight i can shift without looking unwell so need to keep grinding it out and try to hit the magic 300w. I am wondering though if i should sign up to trainer road to get a bit more structure and hopefully faster results.
4.25 W/kg. Exactly as expected. Went off like a novice on their first ten, and tried to hold on (to my dinner). That’s 293 Watts in real money, and pretty much where I was last summer. Need 305-310 Watts to be sub 22 minutes at Hillingdon 10. Think better pacing and an empty stomach will get me to 300. Beyond that looks like hard intervals.
No m25 Ride today due to snow might go for a virtual half tomorrow. KICKR really is a great machine. Now have some Assiomas to try as well on the rollers.
Waited all day to do a big workout this evening only to find back tyre flat. It is so cold and snow blown into the workshop that I CBA to go out and fix it! So I ate my dinner instead. Not a good end to a shite day TBF
Snow day from school for my 9 year old today, so jumped on an earlyish WBR 3 lap flat. Greater LOndon. Long one for at more than 40km... but what the heck.
Entered C group as that's where i sit now i'm training on the 29er. Off we went and group1 of the Cs were GONE ! Sheesh... insane speed. Me and 1 guy split from group 2 but it was short lived, even though he was putting out 3.5w/kg average the group of about 10 caught us... Trust the blob... always trust the Blob. They caught us just over the start line of warmup, so 5km .... The next 20km we didn't split a person either out the front or the back.
I did have a minor disaster/issue though, my seatpost was dropping. clunk clunk, mm by mm, suddenly i'm sitting like i'm on my lads bike.... As we came to the underpass i caught a Draft PU and jumped off, lifted it and managed to hang the bunch, perfect. It was short lived though as it still wasn't tight enough and was slipping down... slower this time... But still a bit.
Same place on lap 2 of 3 i did the same, again, just managed it, but as i had to hit the power up the other side of the underpass the bunch kicked on at the top.. It was 4+ from everyone and i simply didn't have it... I lost the wheels, lost the bunch and i was toast.
Over the line i had 35s to the guy behind who was an A, but he was sticking out 3.3wkg, i was happy/lucky to be seeing 2.4 by this stage. I held him off for 1/2 a lap and tried to jump on his wheel when he passed but he was too quick. The seat had dropped a bit, but it was acceptable 🙂
Next guy behind wasn't dropping below 3.1w/kg but i was 1min ahead so just a case of hanging in there to stay ahead of him. I managed it.
Not sure what lessons other than the seatpost there are to take away from today really, not actually sure i need to be taking lessons away in honesty though. It was an enjoyable if exceptionally hard race.
🙂
Screen scoreboard stated 35th out of 70
https://www.zwiftpower.com/events.php?zid=49143
I did have a minor disaster/issue though
Yesterday at the top of the 1st climb I lost 30 seconds as my laptop popped up with "Battery Low, your device will shortly go into standby...". I had to jump off and flick the switch...
Really annoying day on Zwift yesterday. Lined up a 1 lap WBR race and then could not get my iPad to log in, and when it finally did I was too late for the race. Pootled around for 15 mins then found another 1 lapper an hour later and decided to do that instead. Did that, all worked fine, finished top 10, happy days. Then went to save it and the ride has disappeared. Seems they had a good few server issues yesterday so I am not alone, bloody annoying though.
OUch, another -15CVR points LOL. All my hard work is turning to crap now i'm running the PArkwood 🙂
All my hard work is turning to crap now i’m running the Parkwood
And losing weight.... you are looking lean I must say but it’s noticably whacked your power during 2018 it seems....
Yeah possibly fella, possibly. This has always been about getting the weight under control though, (Not just because of the weight but things like blood pressure and other health benefits) but the secondary pleasure of the racing/Zwifting would have been nice to maintain. It seems to me like i have the power still, but certainly but over a much smaller window of time at the moment.
Kicks in power are what's killing me the most though, every time i get near my limit and there's a surge, then i'm immediately blown away. The results in Jan/Feb were still good.... Arguably some of my best of all time. But since hitting the Parkwood full time, it's killed my results. Whether that's because my HR is too high as i'm trying to make the same power, or whether i can't make the same power on this bike, i don't really know. But it's clearly not where i was 3-4 weeks ago.
Looking at my profile though, it's only the last 3 weeks that i've had a drop in power, which co-incides with swapping to the PArkwood full time.
https://www.zwiftpower.com/profile.php?z=164586
I can live with the downturn in performance though, whether real or bike related, because i can still get a cracking race on Zwift when i want to.
Another cheeky little race 🙂
WBR London loop (2 laps), went as a C this time, finished decidedly mid pack, found myself too slow and unable to catch the pack in front and the back behind a bit slow.
Good little race to end but found myself out tac-ticked and beaten to the line in a sprint
https://www.zwiftpower.com/events.php?zid=49173
Looking at those results you may not get upgraded but everyone above you should. You're right on the limit though.
But it could also be that because i'm often sitting in Z2/3 that i've lost the 'edge' from doing more regular racing ? The ability to push myself that bit harder. I did notice times today i was sitting at a fairly low HR and my average and max both show them being down on where i'd ordinarily be when racing.(161av, 172 max). Although i was conscious that today was in excess of 1 hour race time.
Another cheeky little race
WBR London loop (2 laps), went as a C this time, finished decidedly mid pack, found myself too slow and unable to catch the pack in front and the back behind a bit slow.
Good little race to end but found myself out tac-ticked and beaten to the line in a sprint
That's still oodles of power there buddy... Impressive. My legs were tired before even starting today... Now they're just boll**ed
Looking at those results you may not get upgraded but everyone above you should. You’re right on the limit though.
Shoved up to a B
That’s still oodles of power there buddy
I've just discover that my position is always half decent if I sort by average power instead of finishing time, damn those lbs of lard!!! One day Rodney, one day....
which co-incides with swapping to the PArkwood full time.
Could it also be that a mountain bike just doesn't feel as fast?
Could it also be that a mountain bike just doesn’t feel as fast?
Feel in the context of actual power, the Turbo doesn't know what bike i'm on.
But i'm running obviously a massivley different riding position on the Parkwood than the Road bike, along with a 32mm tyre instead of a 23. So all these little bits may be playing a factor and giving what i think and hope is a false indication of my actual fitness/performances.
But there's little point in me training on the Isaac when i'm not planning on riding it outdoors again, so training on that is just daft IMO. The Parkwood is the bike that's planned on being the longer distance XC event bike, so i'm taking the logic that it makes more sense to use it.
I think there are still gremlins in zwift today. Just as i was about to “join event” from my warm up riders started disappearing and when it eventually put me in the pen i was the only rider. Logged out and logged back in with 8 secs left and then went hell for leather at the start. I then noticed that the rider nearby list only had 2 riders in it, nobody was replying to my messages either. I did 8 miles of unrelenting pace and decided something wasnt right so i abandoned.
I quickly got on to 3 lap classique but i was at 150hr and breathing hard in the pen so i knew this had the makings of a disaster. Anyway i managed to hang on to the front group on the lead in lap but started lap 1 blowing hard with 176hr (max is 183). I was hanging with this A group but every ramp was torture. To cut a long story short i managed to hang on until about 1.5miles out when i could take no more. Rolled over the line 6th in B and was actually only 30secs behind the A group winner so cant complain. I reckon i would have been in the bunch sprint finish if i had gone in to the race fresh.
6th in B is nothing to grumble about. Top job fella.
But it could also be that because i’m often sitting in Z2/3 that i’ve lost the ‘edge’ from doing more regular racing ? The ability to push myself that bit harder. I did notice times today i was sitting at a fairly low HR and my average and max both show them being down on where i’d ordinarily be when racing.(161av, 172 max). Although i was conscious that today was in excess of 1 hour race time.
Possibly Weeksy. I've been training for 4 months for Marathons, specifically the last 2 months on 8, 15, 20, 30 and 1hr long efforts. Yesterday I found the "punchy" parts of the race difficult to keep up with - the 30secs bridges and attacks, but once sitting in or driving on the front/up hills I was fine, I've become a Diesel designed to chug up hills / TT the flats rather than the crit/XCO on/off efforts.
I have a very hilly sportive in a couple of months with some vicious 25% gradients so i am switching to hill training now. I suspect my very average flat speed is about to get even worse if thats at all possible. I am quite intrigued to see how bad it gets.
Hmmmm, fitted a quarq yesterday,
Started the 1815 jungle 3 lap yesterday, hung with the front group for the first 6km then i just hit the wall and abandoned, couldnt even hold 200w, 186bpm average for 13 minutes! slipped from the front 20 to 80th within minutes - assumed something was setup wrong - reset everything, zero’d the quarq and did a steady hilly loop - recorded the neo on the garmin & the quarq on zwift, ran them through the DCR tool, neo reading 5-10w lower than the quarq - will try again tomorrow, hopefully just one of those days
So I have a thought in my mind and I wanted to get my FTP to 300w while at the same time losing weight.
I think I’m close to that FTP but I’ll do a proper 1 hour test on Wednesday.
At the moment I’m just randomly riding as and when with no structure.
I'm half thinking about Trainerroad and would probably try and run it through Zwift.
My questions are this
Is it worth adding structure?
Do I really need another £10 a month subscription?
Should I just try the Zwift training? (I’m no athlete so Zwift might be bob on)
Anybody tried any/all/some of the above?
Yes you should add structure. A longer term objective will help. You should also add rest, recovery and periodisation. A big goal, to train for, followed by a break.
Ramp up volume (hours) and intensity (average power for an hour), over the course of the next eight weeks. Plenty of examples about, including TrainerRoad. But the best training plan is the one that suits you.
since you enjoy the racing, I’d focus on intensity, whilst keeping volume roughly constant. But for ftp gains, google sweetspot, which basically means riding a lot at the border of zones 3 and 4 for up to an hour.
Trainerroad is better than Zwift. Lots more options and plans that have some real info around them.
I run Zwift as a distraction and TR at the same time on the screen. TR minimised to the top of the monitor which gives you enough info and the text info comes up on the main screan. Need 2 ANT+ dongles to do this though. Alternatively my android phone can run TR with no hassles while the computer runs Zwift.
Don't bother doing an hour to get your FTP do the FTP test on Zwift.
Or I can send you a TR free trial. Do their 8 or 20 minute test and then another day do the new ramp test which is a far more pleasant experience. The key would be a repeatable test where an hour isn't really a controllable repeatable effort.
I have spent the last few weeks concentrating on slow and steady, less races just what would have been traditional winter base.
Yesterday I did my first 100km on the trainer, 2.5 hours that flew by, started in a group ride then just carried on, thoroughly enjoyed it.
Tonight I thought I'd have a little recovery ride so chose a 3 flat loop RCC Europe Social ride, right from the start absolute chaos, no group leader so the front went off at 3.5 + for the first lap and didn't slow, group of 20 of us out the front giving it everything for an hour, lost a few but still a dozen together at the turn for the final sprint but I had nothing left, sat up and cruised to the line totally chuffed with my effort to hang on in there, very close to an uplift in FTP on what I was expecting would be a cruise round.
Rode the Pedal Power group ride after a warm up London lap. My first social Zwift Ride. Seemed more like a race. Sat near the front, dropped to the back to tow the fractured group, but the front seemed too keen to just gun it. Well obviously I couldn’t let them go, so up to the front, off for a Mall sprint or two, and dropped the hammer for the last quarter lap. Average of 3.0 W/kg. Seemed sociable enough, are they all like this?
LOL not usually... but often. Depends really, but you get people going off the front on about 90% of rides like this. How many is the only question, sometimes only a few.
Here's an interesting one indeed...
https://support.wahoofitness.com/hc/en-us/articles/115000738484-Tire-Size-Chart
I'm guessing due to changing wheel size i should change something in Zwift/Wahoo. I don't recall setting mine at the start 15 months ago, but i guess it defaulted to a certain figure. So i'm going to look tonight and see.
29" x 2.1" 2.288
700 x 23C 2.096
Whether that means i'll now go slower or faster LOL i don't know as maths isn't my thing....
As I gather my 7 year old MacBook Air won’t have the grunt, wondering if the AppleTV interface works well?
My 7-year-old MacBook Pro works fine with Zwift - admittedly it has 16GB of RAM and a SSHD, but then the MacBook Air has half of that at least. I'd give it a go before you splurge on an Apple TV, unless, of course, you just want an excuse to buy one.
Mrs BWD's MacBook Air seems to work fine also, though it's newer than yours, so that's probably of limited relevance.
.Hopefully then, re-configuring will get me a smidgen back 🙂 I'll have a crack at it tonight.
It's not the distance/etc i care about in many ways as we know, but if i can get myself a little bit more back into the groups i'm losing in a race just by re-configuring correctly, then that's a win win all round.
the distances above are the circumference in M, so i guess it's 19cm over the whole revolution ? That's 192mm the difference between them.
My understanding Weeksy is that wheel size doesn’t make a difference with the SNAP- only the KICKR. The Wahoo App actually gives you a wheel circumference setting with a wheel-off KICKR but that option isn’t there when you pair a SNAP.
The wheel off Kickr has to replicate the inertia of the rear wheel in the algorithm whereas the wheel on one is basically like a rolling road- it doesn’t really matter how the roller is being spun up.
https://uk.wahoofitness.com/instructions/kickrsnap
If this is your first time pairing, take a moment to register your KICKR SNAP. This screen also allows you to customize your wheel size and other settings to match your bike for accurate readings.
If you watch at 1.08 in this vid- you’ll see the wheel circumference setting for the wheel off KICKR.
That option never appears for a SNAP even when paired as a new device.
I'll have a look tonight, currently at the office so can't see anything.
I've also emailed Wahoo to ask them.
My hunch is that whoever wrote the website just cut and paste that paragraph from the KICKR support text and added SNAP 🤣
Go have a try on yours and see if you can find anything. You got an Android device ?
Nope. But there’s definitely no wheel circumference setting anywhere in the app even when set as a new device.
As I say- my understanding is that it doesn’t matter for a SNAP as there’s no missing wheel to compensate for. Ie the wheel diameter is already influencing its variability by how fast it’s turning the roller.
It's been a while Zwifters!!
Those that know me will be aware I bought a house in December and have literally spent every waking hour DIY'ing in Dec/Jan/Feb. With no working kitchen it meant eating out (often at the local sainsbury's cafe) and then in Feb microwave meals as it was the only appliance I had access to in the new kitchen.
I left Zwift last year with a FTP of 337w @ 68kg or 4.96w/kg (I'm 6ft).
In Feb I was resided in the fact that the house work wasn't moving as quickly as I had anticipated, I was getting fat and becoming increasingly unhappy without exercise. Therefore I decided I NEEDED to get back on the bike/zwift.
Jumped straight in on the 15th Feb with an FTP test to see what the damage was. The result was an FTP of 284w @ 74kg = 3.8w/kg!! With reassurance from some STW'ers that it'll come back in a few weeks of just Z2'ing.
On 13th March, after just Z2'ing as much as I could, a plan was formed! All good cycling plans however start with a FTP test - this time a much more positive 300w @ 73kg / 4.11w/kg. Happy with that for a month of Z2'ing!
Next one is 3 weeks on Saturday were I'm hoping to see 315w @ 72kg, but we shall see.
This was basically a really long post to say I'm back, but not racing yet and did you miss me? 🙂
Welcome back Nathb,
We have missed the wattbombs but thankfully quite a few of our resident zwifters have been on bombing patrol of late. I think at one stage stw was raking in trophies like smarties. I saw you were back on zwift a few weeks ago so sent you a few ride ons for encouragement. I reckon you will be back up to speed in a month although it would have been nice if you had joined us fat biffers in cat B. Happy cycling.
Course we did Nath... Howver, You've been replaced.
We now have better races in the team... So we'll leave you on the Subs bench for now and maybe bring you on if you find some form 🙂
Hugs.
Well i'm not even sure where to begin with this report... Very strange and completely different to yesterday.
I never did find the setting for the wheel, so am assuming it's not there. I checked eveywhere, but as CH said, it's not there.
So i jumped on for a WBR 2 lap of Greater London flat. Same course i rode yesterday. But the field was different (and bigger) the tactics were different, my HR was different and so was my power !
Weighted average today, 260w. Yesterday was 229w. Sure, yesterday was a lap further, but in honesty apart from the last KM of damn hard work i was doing fairly OK. HR today was an average of 170 with a final max sprint of 180. But i was looking at 172-174 a fair bit and thinking "This is DAMN hard, but it's not impossible". I covered most attacks and sat near but rarely on the front, letting a few others do the work.
One guy came past us and went off at 6w/kg, so i left him to it... but other than that i was OK. Coming to the underpass 1 guy had kicked off the front 300m earlier called Selfors, but he was a B and i couldnt' do much about him. Out of the underpass i gave it a good go to hold the bunch i was in... but it then sits at 3% incline, which isn't much to some, but to us big lads, 3% is enough at 340w-360w to put me in the red... when we turned right and had a slight downhill i needed to grab some lungfulls and see if i was alive... next bit is flat/false flat and i was OK.... down to the turn towards the finish it just turned into insanity with 700m to go.... watts here, watts there, positioning etc... I waited as long as i could and tried to sit at about 380w and then kick with 300m to go, but there wasn't much kick in me sadly... Ended up from 5th - 12th in C group were 1s apart and had 3-4 B's in there too..
The one major difference today was, i was riding in 1 gear higher (or is it lower.. smaller cog anyway). This is my final gear on the 29er, bottom cog, It's either an 11 or 12 on a 34T front. I felt on other days it was too tough a gear and my cadence would be too low, but in honesty it wasn't a bad gear, i was sitting about 91-93rpm which was 245-255w showing on screen.
https://www.zwiftpower.com/events.php?zid=49404
All in all.... Interesting race.. made even more so by 26 Zwift records, including a long section which was nearly 50s quicker today than it was yesterday ! scary thing was, yesterdays was 3rd best ever at the time.... It was 25s quicker than my best ever... Sure, a chunk of that was drafting and the bunch i was in today. But the overall power today has pleased me and makes me think that maybe not all is lost and i've just been being a big girls blouse lately 😀
Onwards !
Must be Tuesday night STW Zwift night!
Anyway another cheeky race born of guilt (too much bad food) was going great guns in C with a massive group running the best I've ever seen a big group run flat course 45kph all the way...
I had loads in my legs and was enjoying it, about 20km in half way a crying child with ear ache appears beside me....
Race abandoned to sort upset child..
Oh well there's always tomorrow
Nooooo. I kept checking on the live section on ZP and saw you at the pointy end of them. Then finished out the back!
You smashed my times that's for sure!
It was shaping up to be a great race, I was proper enjoying it.
did the lunchtime WBR 2 Laps London Hilly at 12:05 - i thought it was at 1215, so jumped on with about 2 minutes to spare after putting the little one for a lunch nap, luckily he slept through,
felt much better than after i abandoned the other night, Quarq was all correct, updated and zero'd, still not a fan of London, not sure why, tried to stay with the front group as long as i could dropped off before the first box hill climb, got stuck in no mans land, got passed by a few c's going up, just plugged on, reeled a few in on the down and flat, jumped on a lagging A's wheel for a few km, just focused on keeping a decent gap on the riders behind me, finished 4th in C, but upgraded to 3rd in the results, 3rd completed race, 3rd cup, clearly knocking on the door of a low B as i was bang on 3.1w/Kg
numbers? FTP increase from 251w ---> 267w Neo clearly reads lower than a Quarq, weight remains static at 85kg though, although I'm not trying to do anything about this, never have, so don't feel bad about that,
won the prize for HR again as well, average of 186bpm over 1:02:04 and a max of 197bpm, not sure if thats a good thing or very healthy for me, although i never felt uncomfortable
Great work DR. Step from C to B is hard imo, pointy end of C is almost last in B. But rewarding on the right day.
yup, my time would have given me 17/19 in B, thats not a bad thing at all in the grand scheme of things, especially at the end of the day, its only you own w/kg you care about
Back on it a bit. 116k ain't bad for a Tuesday 😀
Saw that, nutter 😀👍
HR is a personal thing. I can get mine just over 180 outdoors. Don't think I've got it over 175 on the turbo.
I've stuck to staying in B even though every race I'm still just in the C band. I'd win most of the C races I've entered since upgrading or 2nd generally to a heavier rider with more power. I think a lot of it is about the ability to maintain a decent wattage from the start and enough tenacity to hang onto a stronger group until the pace lets up a bit. Whereas the true C's are riding together at a slighty easier pace and losing too much time to get back later.
Keep meaning to do a long flat one which I should do better on than the recent hilly ones but there never seems to be one on at the right time.
Starts are crazy hard now, to be getting away with the Bs you need to be throwing in 500w for the first 2 mins... I can't actually do that ! I'm done before we're even 2km in if i hold that sort of effort. So i generally go 550-600 off the line and then setting at 350-400 for the next 90s.... That puts me usually in group 2 on the road, which is the decent Cs.
500w for two minutes! What will I need in the A’s? Was expecting a nice roll out to warm up : D . Club ride last night where I got dropped (thanks Zwift). Then a 45 km ride home, most of which was in 53x12 due to cable and shifter failure. Trike today for recovery.
Might race something later but time to get back to road racing.
I think the starts are one of them times where power>weight is better for the lighter guys... at 500w it's going to be showing you at 6.5w/kg i guess... that seems to be PROPER numbers.... Right up there for an A start i'd guess... But when you get off the line you're not up to speed so it takes time for the heavier guys to get the momentum and the Zwift effect of drafting/aero. So you may be OK at 500w, whereas the big lads like me are putting in say 400w but at only 4.2w/kg so taking longer to get up to desired speed and the draft/weight advantages.
I'm not finding that effort required. Second group in the last few races which is drifting off the back of the front group needs about 400w off the line and holding 300 to 330w average for 2km.
Holding the front group needed 500w off the line and then down to similar average for a 45 minute race.
1 short lap at the pointy end have needed 600w off the line and barely drop below 300 for the 15minutes. Those settle down into 320-330w average over the first few km though. I get blown out in the last km in them generally when it ramps back up.
It’s not as hot as that Weeksy- it just feels like it. You averaged 320 for the first 2 mins yesterday and last race I did, 380 for two mins was enough to hold the lead group.
it just feels like it.
Ain't that the truth 😀
380w isn’t a lot If you’re shifting 90kg but if it’s only 75kg then it’s a big difference.
380w @ 75kg = 460w @ 90kg to go the same speed (I think 🤔)
therfore us fat lads would have unload the Wattbazooka pretty big to keep up.
How do I find out what Watts I was doing out of the start of yesterday’s race?
use your mouse on your Strava on 'analysis'
Hold and drag on the power bit.... I have you at 318w for the first 2.3km
368w for the first 1.2km.
Found it! Oooh love stats, yep looks about right, 620-650w for the first 15 seconds though to get on front of C group
So ir reckon that would need 1000w burst then 450-500w to hold a 'A' group! (maybe) :-0
[img] 
[/img]
On the flat, as most starts are, bigger and taller will need a bit more power but not that much more. Zwiftinsider website has data for how much more is needed. Of course if the start goes up the Watopia KOM you need to start putting out bigger watts to keep up if you're heavier.
The first two mins of a TFC race to hold the lead group and I’m not a light chap either 🤣
Hi Steve,
Thanks for contacting Wahoo customer support. I know a lot of people are talking about this, but it shouldn't be too much different for you if you have just changed from a road bike as the 29er has exactly the same rim circumference, you will only need to worry about extra tire size. For this I think it would be relevant to change it in Zwift as that is the program receiving the data from your Snap. I'll put a link in here for you to check out:
https://support.zwift.com/hc/en-us/articles/115000998626-Tire-Size-Comparison-Chart
I think the very last tire size (35-622) in the list will be the one you need to input into Zwift.
If you should have any further questions please don't hesitate to ask.
Reply in from Zwift support. Can't actually see where/if this is possible as i'm in the office, but i assume it's somewhere within the pairing/trainer options ?
Quick race to make up for yesterday (3rd overall 🙂 Yay! )*
And FTP to 307W!!!! Double Yay!!
https://www.zwiftpower.com/events.php?zid=49567
*very small field
(oh and I took little 'un to Docs and she has a fever, tonsillitis and an ear infection and has had a blood test so it's fair enough she was upset)
I think you need to upgrade to B. Your actual FTP is over 3.2 as standard.
;0)
Done! Changed to 'B" happy about that seen as I was 'D' 2 weeks ago
LOL you're still a beast... I can't race today..
P.S, not showing as a 3rd 😉
Nice going Tiger, another few weeks at that rate of improvement should see you in the A group 😃.
i decided to do something a little crazy this morning. I did the ECC slaughterhouse ride up the mountain this morning, as its a social ride i took it fairly steady. The reason for this was i was going to do the EVR immediately afterwards which was also 1 lap of the mountain, double mountain sounded like a good idea when i hatched the plan. I was going to experiment and do some weight doping by dropping 10kg for the EVR race but i forgot to change my weight (doh!). Anyway the ECC ride wasnt as steady as i would have liked and ended up avg 243w and 3.3w/kg so not exactly fresh going in to the evr race. I managed to get out of the blocks with the A group till the mountain and then it all broke up but i was riding up with a couple of B’s and an A and it was tough going. I was hanging on for a while and then leading them all up for long sections. I got dropped by about 5 secs on a bit of flat/descent but i managed to get that back up the climb to the radio tower. I started pulling away and by the top i put 6 seconds on them. I hurled it down the hill and hit any little ramps at full gas (over 500w) and actually caught an A rider whose wheel i towed all the way to the finish. Couple of riders in front of me got upgraded and left me with GOLD!. i have no idea how i managed that but what i am certain of is that i now need a day off the bike.
HAhahahaha and you and Tiger have called me mental in the past ! You're both lunatics...
I soooooo need a day off.... Don't make me race !
Was going to do the WBR 4-lap flat yesterday, but computer took so long to boot up that I missed the start, which was a pain. Just did 2 laps of the London loop, which made me realise how annoying it is there's no "pacer" as I decided I wanted to do the second lap quicker, but until you're at the finish you've got no ideas. Surprisingly enjoyable though, I always race, but riding was quite good fun. Particularly with a bit of a target.
Intrigued by all the noise about the new 'Alpe d'Zwift' (my name) I see Eric Min posted a 10 mile ride with 3000' of climbing in it, which isn't insignificant. I can't help but think it'll be a bit shit though - an enormously long slog up, meaning no one's there, and a stupid descent where you may as well just go and make a cup of tea. I find the descent of Fox Hill bad enough (although it did mean I could get off and get a towel yesterday), and the mountain's even worse.
Team STW isn’t looking too shabby this week 👍
Weeksy, you know you want to. What harm can a little race do? The voice of zwift is calling you, its saying to use your new found power to fill the stw trophy cabinet.
If you want a companion you're welcome to ride alongside me as I do my 3x20 tonight Njee, where you can scoff away and keep me honest.
I'm also considering entering a race and working to that power with a wonder to how it'd pan out doing 3 x TT's with 2x5 min rest periods in a race scenario. Dire I'd expect but it'd be fun if I joined/formed a group with everyone doing my 20min with me 😀
There are workout sessions with everyone doing just that - never really looked at them, but everyone rides at the speed of the slowest rider, so you do all stay together whilst doing your 20 minute efforts, regardless of whether that's 100w or 400w.
A race would just be a waste of time - it's a race, you'll be riding harder than the group, so you'll probably be at/off the front for 20 minutes and then you'll go straight through the bunch when you have a rest.
Yeah its finding a session at my target w/kg is the issues. For instance, tomorrow is 1h:10 interval at 3.2w/kg which is akin to Z2 in the boredom stakes albeit a tad harder,. For me its that kind of session it'd be good to ride around with others.
Acknowledge the race issue, the fun bit would be to see where I cam in the race...
My HRM completely failed to register last night, changed battery and still nothing. Anyone had any luck reviving a dead one?
I did a nice 62k warm up before last nights CVR race, the 2,5w/kg ride that i'd joined didn't quite go to plan, 6 laps of classique was infact sprint intervals, i did manage a sub 9.5s sprint though so not a total failure waste :D. I wasn't racing for anything or anyone so just had the odd dig when i had something to burn, it got to the second to last lap and my legs completely imploded on the little rise so I just sat up and soloed it to the end. Quite good fun and it's good to have some miles in the legs again. Operation 1k km/month still on track.