Has anyone noticed that the Tour De Zwift results in the Companion app include all sorts of rubbish (eg people riding completely different routes, or half the route)?
I know it's not a race.....etc etc 😉
Blader, it certainly felt fast. The whole of A was a blob until the first hill. Then it got smashed to peices. I got 57th but the reality of that was the lead section of the group I was in pulled away towards the line and I hid between hill sets to try and recover. The strange thing is I though I was going really hard, especially up the hills but the numbers on ZP don't seem to agree. Think this is going to be my weekly race for a bit while I try to work on my lame 1 minute power.
Nixie - there is nothing lame about hanging on to that group, that was a very fast bunch. I have ridden against a few of those names and they can at any point in a race leave me for dead. It seems a few big hitters are on that series so not a bad bunch to try and hang on to.
I did the Tour de Zwift stage 3 this morning and had no dropout problems because probably there were just under 500 riders in the event. I still noticed a couple of riders take the wrong route just after the start though so obviously other people are still having problems even with fewer riders.
It does lead to a different approach for me. I know I'm not going to get close to winning but trying to stay with the lead group for longer than before feels like a win. It's quite scary though how easily those big names can disappear even on their own!
Quick zwift training question. If you do training programs up the hills does the height gain still count towards challenges (like the Tron bike)?
(like the Tron bike)?
I don't even know if i'm entered for getting the Tron or how near/far/whatever i am....Was it something you had to click once upon a time ?
According to Google it's 50,000m climbing, i'm on 81,000m. Wonder why i don't have it ?
Are you set to the everest challenge? You have to get to the peak then climb and additional 40k meters. If you don't have it suggests your not on that challenge.
I'm guessing not... but i can't see me going back and starting again lol.
You could just change it in game and then forget about it. In a year you'll probably have it. That's my plan (and using Alp du zwift when doing training.
I've never seen where they are, challenges that is...
I sometimes enter one when i get the little thing on main screen... like the 10,000 cals one i entered the other day... but i don't recall seeing a place to sign up to them,
The challenges are on the main menu ingame where you change settings and kit etc.
Big box on the RHS.
It took me a year to get mine and that involved some dedicated uphill warm ups before races. The challenges havent changed in 2 years which is a shame as i have completed the 3 they have.
I have just taken delivery of a kickr core which hopefully i will set up and use tomorrow so expecting to slide down the B cat now that i have accurate power reading. Did the morning grind race today and that has ruined my legs, 35 miles of lumpy torture around greatest london flat (its not flat). Not sure if i will have any legs for my kickr debut.
Midday TdeZ Stage 3 - never seen so many people cruising about at over 4w/kg, seems their diet has been the opposite of mine over Christmas as everyone is under 70kg (sceptic hat on)
anyway, 900 or so riding, flat 30km or so, got in a decent group of maybe 40 which seemed place between 60 & 100th, stayed in this until about 7km to go when i lost touch, don't know if the pace got a bit higher, lost the wheel and couldn't get back on, put a decent effort in up Keith 273w for 14 minutes, which isn't bad considering i felt a bit cooked from the previous 30km - whole ride just felt like a massive lead-in to the hill, strange stage
57/333 on ZP
Not sure if anyone else has this issue but… my 2018 MacBook Pro runs at 100% CPU (on all cores!) with Zwift on 1080P mode and powering an external monitor. That’s fine other than my 2nd charger is only 30W (not the 60W that it ships with) and basically it’s not butch enough to power the Mac when Zwift is running.
This led to be getting to 1hr30 mins into a 1hr45 workout when the emergency battery message came on. Thankfully I was able to pause and fetch the official one which will charge under that load.
I can only run the 2nd hand Dell I have for 3 mins without the PSU...
Alex, if you are using all the cores at 100% then the computer is working as it should. I would be annoyed if my computer was working at I.e. 60% of it’s potential.
1020 3R Classique Flat 4 Laps, jumped on with 37 seconds on the pen clock, tried to quickly changed to Madone/808s from Emonda/Lightweights missed the initial jump, messed about turning fan on, tried for the first km to get into the front group but couldn't, settled into the 2nd group, finished 5/11 in the group, 10/12 in B - but way down on power, only 2.9w/kg but HR way up, so struggling at the moment after a slack December
Did my first race in a while last night (damn this mild dry winter, affecting my zwift time).
I got totally crushed! 4 laps of London and I finished over 10 minutes down on the last placed D cat rider. No matter how hard I pushed I couldn't get my watts to go over 1.6w/kg on the flat. Looking back at it now I think there must of been an issue with the trainer or the connection or something as I can usually hold much higher than that for a hours climbing.
Felt like a total waste of a session, oh well, might try again tonight.
Meh, 09:20 for 2 laps of Greater London Flat for me. Went off well, was sitting in the lead group for the first section and lead-in, group of 24 of us.... Was riding within myself, but only just. Into lap 1, still going OK.... but lost the wheel about 1/2 way through the lap and couldn't hold it... 13.5km in...Not bad hanging with the superstars for that long.
Looked behind and tried to sit at 250w, but i'd killed myself a bit so was up and down the power... My turbo had a couple of hissy fits where power went up/down for no logical reason, maybe the cold in the garage. Group behind was closing and caught me about 2km after the line on lap 2 of 2... So i jumped on with them using up a bit of energy as they caught me like rockets... HR was peaking and the wall was coming.... Held with them for a while, but on a little 2% i died and lost them.
Solo'd to the line for a crappy performance, but ended up with a very weak bronze in C lol. very very weak.
@j4mesj4mes I'd disagree, in the CPUs are locked at 100% then the machine is overloaded. That may be that its not up to the job being asked or that there is an issue in the application. IIRC 80-90% is the optimal load.
I did my first structured training session last night (Group event Uphill Battle). Was much harder than I expected. I naively pushed the loading scale to 110% as the power levels asked for in the sets did not look that high. Scaled it straight back to 100% after the first five minute threshold set! Its not quite as much fun as racing though. I'm wondering if I can do intervals in a race scenario. Could be quite disruptive to whatever group I'm in at the time :D.
Ok first ride today on my new kickr core,its so quiet thats its kinda offputting. I tried a 3 lap classique race and i have to say i am a little confused with what i was seeing. The wattage was constantly fluctuating,not extreme values but i would say it was nigh on impossible to keep the wattage roughly constant for more than 3 secs. It obviously senses far quicker than my tacx did but even keeping the same cadence on a flat section the watts were fluctuating by as much as 40w. I tried a sprint at the end but i couldnt spin up my big gear, either too tired or just too difficult now. I think i need to get used to it first but i got dropped pretty quickly and on a flat section which is odd.
On another note i tried a sprint in the warm up and saw 883w and i wasnt anywhere near full gas and had 2 gears left, so may be i will hsve a sprint now for the race.
I did the 4th stage of the TdZ this morning - 3 laps of the volcano flat and then finish up the volcano KOM. I wasn't at my best and it was pretty uninspiring stuff. The next stage is Richmond which is possibly even worse. I think I'll use that stage to do some interval training which might make things a bit more interesting and useful.
I did stage 4 today at a gentle cruise. I like volcano flat myself. I was about 1,000,000th
I wanted to try out my kickr again today but it seems i have caught bubonic plague/cat aids which might explain why my ride yesterday felt like i was cycling through concrete. What realism setting do you guys use on the basis that your turbo can replicate an 18% gradient?
I turn my drivo pretty far down for hilly rides because, well, I wouldn't get up an 18% hill in the real world with the gears I've got on it.
I have it at 2/3 or so for flatter rides; have tried 100% but it's weird for me - because you can't really "see" the gradient on zwift, and because there's a bit of lag somewhere in there I get sort of caught out by changes sometimes
I did stage 4 today, not cruising, Strava says I was 4th fastest overall for the whole ride, certainly felt like it, my average speed was over 47kmh.
EVR race tomorrow, and then outdoors on Sunday.
Kickr Snap set to 100%. Used to have it at 50% but didn't feel realistic big ringing up a mountain. Took a bit of getting used too but prefer it at 100 now.
Did anyone doing Stage 4 see the live positions (i.e. 24/500) at the top of the right hand panel?
I did the first instance of Stage 4 (at 9pm PST last night) and the live positions were missing, meaning it was impossible to judge how well you/your group were doing relative to everyone else (I guess like race radios being banned and no moto guy with a chalk board either).
It wasn't just me affected as there was a bit of chatter during the stage.
Also, at the end of the stage, there was no overall results screen just my time and there are no results in the companion app either...these differ from the previous stages I've done so don't know whether this was just a glitch for that specific instance of the stage or whether a deliberate change cos, you know, it's not a race.
(Partial results are available on ZwiftPower though but that will only include the sub-set of riders who are registered on ZP)
The live placings have been disabled for the rest of the Zwift tour. Due to the size of the event, users with slower computers were having problems/crashes trying to show race positions. This is also why despite the route being set, some have been sent the wrong way at the first junction of a stage.
Thanks for that b1gf00t...where did you find this info? It would have been nice to have an announcement from Zwift before the start!
My general target is in the top 30% as I know that's just about achievable on a good day but I blew up badly as I was probably trying to keep up with riders much faster than me...
I guess I'll have to do a Froomey now and just keep a close eye on power numbers instead...
Decided to have a go at the TFC Autumn Series race at 7pm tonight.
Very strange race; half of the A cats quickly formed a breakaway group which I was lucky to get into .. for awhile.
One the first climb about 6km into the lead-in I realized I wasnt going to stay with the front group for the full 4 laps at the pace they were going at, so decided to sit up and wait for the chasing A cats who were about 50 seconds behind.
Then a group of about 15 riders came past, but there was no sign of them on the leaderboard ... it only showed the A cats ahead and the A cats behind.
So I stayed with the group of riders for the full race.
I came last out of the A cats ... and got no idea what group I actually rode around with!!
Very bizarre.
There was someone from ZwiftHQ in the 13:00 race today and he put up some messages about what has been the effect of large numbers in the stages so far.
I have found it annoying that when starting in say 400th place, Zwift only draws in something like 100 riders ahead of me. Then as the event starts and I move towards the front Zwift draws more riders in front and the front of the bunch never seems to get any closer.
Today's was the first of the four where I actually got to the front, only took 5km. Never saw the front in the others despite finishing just outside the top 10.
I have given up doing the tours as they are just too busy,too many issues. What i dont understand is why thousands turn up for them but they dont seem to turn up for normal events.
I've never really got the appeal of the tours at all. Seems like dead riding to me.
Finished stage 4 this morning; lessens the experience without the ranking. Not sure if I would have pushed more had I known my place? Legs are feeling the cumulative fatigue. Is there a track to spinning a higher rpm? I feel my 65 rpm probably isn’t ideal for non mtb
You can track your position live on zwift power.
A new A+ category appeared today 4.6+ w/kg. ZP only at the moment. Hope it sticks.
Done a couple of races last couple of days. Happy with how they have gone for me but very light on entries. Think everyone is doing the tour at the moment.
Have started using the iPad with the tacx bracket. Much better than the pc despite the smaller screen as it positioned better and runs so much more smoothly on the iPad. Have also turned trainer difficulty down as well which seems to help with little ramps etc as I am able to keep spinning.
Bluetooth HRM coming tomorrow.
A new A+ category appeared today 4.6+ w/kg. ZP only at the moment. Hope it sticks.
Not currently relevant to my interests but I do think the lower end of A needed something to make life interesting
What i dont understand is why thousands turn up for them but they dont seem to turn up for normal events.
Because they are called 'tour' not 'race'. A bit like the way sportives attract loads of folk who would never think of racing. Maybe. And because Zwift promotes the hell out of them I guess.
Double duty today. Oof.
Cat C win
[url] https://www.zwiftpower.com/events.php?zid=130768 [/url]
Right on the limit of an upgrade!
I really should add that extra half a kilo to my Zwift porfile from Xmas...
Stuck with the front group first 2 laps round Volcano and got dropped with a small group 3rd time up to the finish. Last C rider hung on in for another lap and had 30 seconds on us when dropped. Caught him on the line for the last lap and had a dig to see if he would let go. Didn't happen and we eased up and got caught napping by another group with a couple of Cs. Went hard with a feather up to the line but lost the C sprint but he got pinged for no HR and over Cat limits.
Felt "awesome" and with nobody about decided to jump into the Tour 15 minutes later with the climbing bike and loads of draft the idea was to beat my PR up the Volcano. Steady off the start and then as you can imagine it was too tempting to close gaps as they opened in the group. Ended up 40 seconds slower up the Volcano for a LOT less power.
9 minutes down on the first finisher is not too bad and I was done for at the end which was the idea.
@blader - my new TacX flux does that with power- especially in ERG mode when I’m doing a workout. I’m getting better at balancing it (seems one leg is more powerful than the other and I’m a flat pedal MTB rider so spinning ain’t my thing!). I tried switching from 3 second average to instant and it was even worse. My Bro has a Neo and he reckons it’s similar.
The bigger issue I have is the workouts often want you to drop from 110rpm to 60rpm. Takes the trainer ages to catch up and it’s all a bit hurry up and wait to get the cadence right. I assume that’s because I don’t have a proper cadence sensor and I’m letting the flux work it out and that’s a big variation to process.
Rode the mega-pretzel last night. All 108 km. wanted to do it in ERG mode at 234 Watts#, but couldn’t work out how to set it on my KICKR. Anyway first two hours I nailed 234 Watts average based on 30sec average on Garmin. Then I bonked a bit for the last hour and 210. All over in 3:20. Sadly still no trip up the Alpe. Lessons: need more than n 750 ml of water, something to eat would be good, a fan would be nice too!
#234 Watts (3.4 W/kg) for three hours is 2.5 MJoules. It’s also my planned 100 mile TT power.
Nice work. I keep eying the pretzel routes then thinking better of it.
Nice win Bigfoot, a win is a win regardless of how many finishers.
Thats a big effort Tired, 3 hours at 234w is quite an ask at the best of times.
Ok second ride on the kickr core and i still just cant get my head round the figures i am seeing. Straight out the gate and i realise that in order to stay with the front group i had to be in second to top gear, i only had 1 gear left so i was essentially running out of gears. I stuck with the A group but i knew i was hanging on even though we were only doing 260w. I went pop at 1.5 laps in and then just went backwards so fast i may as well have uturned. I finished the race close to last and only avg 208w on a flat course and i was exhausted. So has moving to a direct drive trainer rather than smart wheel on basically “found me out”? Is it possible that my tacx although fully updated and calibrated every ride was essentially about 33% inaccurate? Even warming up was weird, i went on the flat route and the downhill/sprint to the finish banner i was in middle of the cassette and front big ring turning at 88rpm and i crossed the line doing less than 100w. The readings i see throughout the race just seem strange, constantly changing even though my cadence was steady and so was the gradient. I dont get the sense that anything is broken,just seems odd to what i am used to and may be that is the problem. Should i just forget everything that i did before and get used to the new readings? I am also getting over a bout of cat aids so i will factor that in to my fitness level. Going to ride every day this week to try and get used to it and have a play with the settings. I am racing with my mate tomorrow on zwift and i have never lost to him but i get the feeling that could change as he averages 250w.
Welcome to C ;0)
Have you got access to a power meter to try at the same time?
After posting in the thread way back, and now having an almost 18 month old Son.. I bypassed buying a trainer and had been using my folding indoor bike to do intervals for about the last six months. However.. I've now successfuly modded it to have an ant+ speed & cadence sensor (the cocospoo whatever it is 20 quid one from amazon) and have a powertap/powercal ant+ chest HRM / (estimating) power meter So I have speed/cadence/hrm/power all talking to my Garmin edge 820 fine. Wont be able to to do ERG obviously, but I can vary resistance and/or gun it to make my heart rate go up.
I'm still time poor but have at least 2 mornings a week where I don't do the nursery run to get a quick 20 mins in, plus can sometimes do the same on the weekends I don't do a real ride.
Now have a ant+ dongle and a tablet mount that should fit a windows tablet I have kicking about.. Whats the best use of these windows of time in Zwift? (I can prob get away with not subcribing for a while as I'll be under the threshold)
I knew you were faking it Blader!
Blader - have you done the advanced calibration rather than standard spindown? I had problems initially with my setup until I did this so might be worth a try. It's not obvious in the App, but tap 5 times on the spin down text to bring it up (really).
EDIT: For context last time I felt I had to do one was after a firmware upgrade. I was going up libby hill at max heart rate barely able to turn the gears and it was reporting about 200W. On the flat the figures seemed normal.
I'm afraid of running calibration incase it's been over reading.
Weeksy - thats exactly what it feels like, total fraud.
Thanks for the heads up Mr PH, i will give it a try tomorrow.
Now i am not saying i am a powerhouse and i expect my tacx flow will be poor in accuracy but warming up i am regulary seeing between 80-100w yet i am in middle of the cassette (5th gear) and in big ring at front doing 90rpm. That was my group tempo gear that i would use for hovering around 200w+ normally. I got beat by 2 cat C riders today by 3 mins! I was challenging top B last week, that is a hell of a fall from grace.
Where does the kickr core measure the power, i assume its not with the flywheel as the second i stop pedalling it goes to 0w even though the flywheel is still spinning quite fast?
If you’ve been ill or are fighting off an infection, your power will be down an easy 10% or more. I see it in my road rides every time (also 100 km and 3:10-3:25). When not going well I’ll be lapping at 3:40. There may also be a difference in calibration, but illness is often a factor.
And my ride was 235/245/205 watts. Will feed next time. Considering a headwind fan too.
Did the Matt Hayman Paris Roubaix workout last night. Did the first 30 mins or so at full bias but had to turn it down to about 90% to be able to carry on. It is based on your FTP though and after Xmas I would say I am about 10% down so that is prob about right. Also did a couple of races over the weekend so my legs are a bit fatigued. Still a good work out though and pretty tough.
Tired - i feel much better now but i have factored in that my fitness may be compromised. I just cant justify that illness would cause an 80w average drop over a race that was only 55mins long. I still cant understand why i often see my wattage in just double figures when warming up, i am not going that slowly and not in a low gear. I will play with the settings today and see what happens.
Sounds odd to me
I got UGD last night - did not realise I was a B now. Bugger.
Not that fit at present but made the mistake of seeing how long I could hang with a better group - subsequently posted a higher 20min W/kg figure before fading.
Not going to get to race for podiums for a bit I suspect.
Weird one today, signed up for the Tour stage whatever, jumped on with 2 mins so go, the saw I was at the bottom cog, then worked out I still had the 32T front ring on. Oops. Too late now.
But it worked really well, I just span it along using 9th and 10th gears. 105 max rpm and 85 average according to Strava. Looking at my usual rides on zwift I run lower cadence, sometimes as low as 78/79rpm.
I wonder if that's playing a factor when riding, I seemed to have the ability to hit and hold 330-350w when I needed it.
I may try the 36T to give me 1 more if desperate but try and spin it a bit more.
Can 7-8 rpm really matter?
Tour Stage 5 for me this evening too on my newly-replaced, blissfully quiet Flux. That last climb was a hard work on the final lap, but overall managed to be almost spot on my FTP power average for the event.
Weeksy, I think it can as the muscles are doing less each rotation.
SO, recovery rides, Z2 rides, whatever you want to call them.
Now, assuming my max HR is 182-183. Assuming my power FTP according to Zwift is 285w....
Then what do i need a recovery to be ? Either in HR or in FTP.
I'm well aware of the mantra of doing rest days too hard, so want to take it easier... i'm thinking 90mins.
Weeksy, Do it as a %age of FTP. Recovery/Zone 2 is 56-75% of FTP according to the Coggan table. So in your case, keep it between 160 and 214 watts. A few very short bursts to get the legs moving and heart rate up helps, I find.
160 is better than i thought.... i'll work with that... I honestly think 214 would be a little high for recovery, especially as 285 is IMO optimistic 🙂
There's an active recovery workout for Zwift here.
If you think your FTP is a bit high you can just knock the bias down a few percent at the start of the workout.
Got kicked out of Zwift with 90 seconds before the Kiss race last night and there's no way my creaky computer will restart it in that time so ended up doing a TT 10 minutes later.
I'll not be bothering with one of those again for a while. 26minutes of riding at threshold to finish in pretty much the exact position you'd expect to for your FTP. The only highlight was a battled over the last 3 hills at Richmond to keep someone at bay to the line.
I quite like a TT, for pretty much the same reason that you don't - if I want a good idea of my "FTP" it's got a bit more incentive than just pedaling in a test
I don't do 'em often, mind
(Same is also true of TTs on the road. Maybe I am a pervert)
I quite like short TTs outside.
Yeah not mad keen on a 20min FTP test but "enjoy" the ramp test version.
My Zwift FTP got bumped to 264 but still below my tested one.
And rats I've been upgraded to B on my ZPower profile which to be honest was inevitble. Gone from favourite in most C races to an also ran in B's :0)
12,000 online when i did the Alpe stage yesterday afternoon,
Yeah, I did it at 09:00 and there were over 2500 in the event. The funniest thing was the start where loads of avatars were way off the road. I must admit I got pretty bored just grinding up the Alpe and won't be doing that again any time soon.
done it 11 times now, including twice one day, quite like it, hope they do another GT big climb
Well did 6wk training plan for a holiday in spain. Some good riding (did cumbre del sol climb amongst others) and too much food. Back home did the short Ftp test, never done one before and paced it wrong aimed for 180 watts but went too easy to start with. Ended up at 148watts, i'm 6'6" and 98kg.
So doing the 12wk ftp booster, got some sportives planned. I can plod all day and grind up hills but get droppdd easilly. So we'll what happens over the next few weeks.
I did stage 6 yesterday and today. Still trying to get my head around the difficulty setting in Zwift, which everyone says makes no difference to difficulty, only cadence.
On Sat I had it at 100% and found I was grinding up ADZ in my lowest get struggling to average 60rpm-it was a real workout. Today I set it to 0% and it felt like cheating-I was 20watts up for the same average HR and spinning at about 75-80rpm.
So what's the issue? If watts are watts am I just inefficient at low cadence?
So what’s the issue? If watts are watts am I just inefficient at low cadence?
Yeh - if your lowest gear leaves your cadence too low on a steep climb you're definitely going to lose out (hence all the 50-tooth cassettes on the market)
You'll probably gain little benefit from grinding up that for an hour+ too. I've no wish to do that on the turbo so typically have it at 50% and if I remember knock it down to 20%ish for racing.
Did Stage 6 twice. Both kids wanted to do it. After a glitch first time out eldest got to the bottom and wrapped in so I did intervals up the rest of it. Sunday the youungest got past bend 10 so after a cup of tea I rode tempo to the top giving Ride Ons to every single rider. Hope it helped and shooting past them at twice the WKG didn't depress them. Then did 700+watt sprints out of every corner on the way down and knocked 30 seconds or so off my PR.
Rest week finally as my TR SPBase has got a bit ragged in the last 2 weeks and then Xmas before that messing it up.
I was doing a workout on Saturday. As I crossed the bridge (coming off the climb), the Tour group was coming up. Weird watching 50 or so bikes ‘pop’ into the landscape every couple of seconds. There must have been thousands of them! Fairly impressive technology managing that.
Had another go up the Alpe last night on stage 6, it really doesn't get any easier. I had a good race with another rider who say with me for a while then tried to change pace to drop me a few times. That was the motivation I needed, upped my efforts at corner 4 and managed a 12sec gap over him at the top. It felt like a proper pro battle and made the climb really enjoyable in a sick way. New PR of 55:10 too. Still no increase in FTP though.
I've joined Zwift and enjoyed it more than I thought, last night was a 1hr pottle to see how it all works round London. Is there a STW group or the like I can join so I can add to the more social aspect???
Have you joined ZwiftPower? There is a stw team on there. Also Strava group 'zwifters of singletrack' or similar name.
not yet, I'm still working this all out. Will have a look thanks
ZwiftPower is essential if you want to race. You do need to set your zwift account (via zwift website) to allow ZwiftPower to collect data.
You can also find a fair number of stw users by doing a zwift user Search for stw.
Also did the Stage 6 Alpe climb over the weekend. Can't say I particularly enjoyed it, but there was at least a sense of satisfaction at the top. Roll on stage 7!