Zwift, my journey, my weight and my fitness.

Tried Zwift with my HRM on for the first time today, shook the manflu off pretty quickly and feel much better for a proper effort after a bimbling commute home.

I'm still not sure about the numbers off this turbo (elite turbo muin b+) I've torqued the tension up to 2nm with a calibrated torque wrench as instructed so other than borrowing another PM i've no idea how to ensure it's accuracy.

I just clicked ride and got 2nd in one of the sprints and got to wear a polkadot jersey for a bit 😀

BRT have a team car on discord that’s rolled out for major races. By which I mean a couple of team members will be watching and giving instructions/encouragement .

But I’ve not been a part of it yet, I’m usually racing solo..

The difference though is if I go over 160 I am generally toast.

I'm basically the same. Your aerobic capacity must be better than mine though since you are a decent B grader and I am an average C.

small warning for the workout-curious, day 2 of my "plan" was quite a lot harder

45 seconds at 175% FTP, repeated 6x every 4-5 minutes, followed by 5 minutes or so rest and then 5 minutes of 95%. Clock was running veeery slowly towards the end

Tomorrow, some variable sprints that don't look too bad but with pretty short intervals. We'll see. Luckily working all day Sunday so won't get on at all, I think

jk, my "race FTP" has gone up by about 0.5 w/kg in 10 months. Depends on how fit you are to begin but my guess is you'll improve if you've not been on there for long

What's a "U" on Zwiftpower folks ? (asking for a friend)

jk, my "race FTP" has gone up by about 0.5 w/kg in 10 months. Depends on how fit you are to begin but my guess is you'll improve if you've not been on there for long

That is the plan. I haven't raced enough to get a decent gauge of where I'm at yet. I'll be reading your workout reports with interest.

Weeksy this will make you feel better, I absolutely killed myself on Thursday evening.

How many points? http://www.cycligentrankings.com/vcr/client/result/14530/39676/2017r11/all/elite/1/0/0/1/1

Lol! Unlucky Nath 😆 At least you know why though hey 😉

BRT have a team car on discord that’s rolled out for major races. By which I mean a couple of team members will be watching and giving instructions/encouragement .

just followed nath's link and did a bit of clicking

Sir Tim Cartwright raced last night, came 2nd

Lost 39 points - now that's a tough crowd to please 😯

Lol indeed, although when he wins he gets 150+ which helps too.

I'm waiting to see if my mate comes over for our ride out, it's raining a fair bit. If not, I'll be finding a race event for sure

sticky bottle would be a great occasional power-up, eemy - gain 20 yards on the bunch at the press of a button

Ha, it’d be good for those efforts where dropped off the back of a group.

100km ride this morning. Easy pace so managed to sort the dog out, get back on the turbo and catch up with the group quick enough.

Not sure how I’ll feel at 75km but I’ll ride what I can. On the lemsip for man plague as well.

Brave man with an arse of steel!

You guys were not joking when you said this will make you sweat... Its way harder than real life 😆 I got a cadence sensor on order which should turn up Monday/Tuesday and then I will do an FTP test for the first time ever.

I signed up yesterday and did a short 30 minute ride just to get the lay of the land. I was pleasantly surprised to find that I was able to maintain 200W (dumb Kinetic Street Machine zpower 2 W/kg) at sub sweetspot effort. The whole experience was a real laugh especially drafting other riders and at one point I found myself at the head of about a 20-strong pack all drafting me!.

I'll do an FTP test at some point and then try some of the shorter 'D' races to see how it goes. Definitely better than just sitting on the turbo in front of the TV watching a workout video though.

crosshair
Lol! Unlucky Nath At least you know why though hey

Ha yep, I finished exactly where I was predicted to finish. Can't get fairer than that 😆

eemy
Nath - that sounds like it is all getting a bit too serious. That said, it might be quite good fun if you could sometimes drop back to a virtual team car on Watopia for some 'medical attention' and a sticky bottle.

Nah it's just like what Nathan G does but just for BRT riders. It'd be nice to know that the guy who's pulling away from the group, is about to blow up so you don't waste energy chasing etc 😆

I've never actually been in a race with the "team car" though, nor have I ever been in a race where I've had a couple of BRT riders with me. The world champs on the 25th will be different though as that'll be a team race - so very different dynamic!

4th is C last night. 120 riders in all. Bit depressing early on as I couldn't hold onto the front groups as I don't recover fast enough from big initial effort and loads of Cs went past. Almost all of them got upgraded for being massively over the FTP. Eventually got a group to form and picked up some stragglers and dropped the remaining (who hadn't got away over the final climb) in the last 700m.
I'll have to try starting a bit slower and see how that goes but I like overshooting what I'm capable of...

The start is a fine balance of going all out and doing just enough...

I used to be in the all out category and would very often find myself at the very front turning onto the road, heart rate ridiculously high and legs hurting, to be then scooped up by everyone behind....

So now I do just enough to stay in the top 5/10 of my cat.

[b]Top tip for the newcomers:[/b] if the race allows powerups then when starting zwift ride to the start/finish line [b]before[/b] joining an event. You'll have a powerup in the bank ready for the start of the race, or for the first hill if it's say Watopia hilly which will save your legs a little bit!

I'll have to try starting a bit slower and see how that goes but I like overshooting what I'm capable of...

nath - that's my warm-up, sprinting to get over that line before I'm taken to the pen
... only to get 10 extra points 😥

So now I do just enough to stay in the top 5/10 of my cat.

Easy to say if your an A as you just need to be in the top 10 :0)

Tricky when Cat C's are putting out 3.5w/kg or more and shouldn't be in the category. Learn to ignore people who I can't keep up with.

I'll tone it down a bit and shoot for midfield and try and hang onto the slower B's as I'll probably have to upgrade soon.

Brave man with an arse of steel!

I’m feeling relieved to be off the bike that’s for sure.

In the end an easy paced group ride was the right choice as I had to get off twice to sort the dog out and then ITT back up.

Pleased to have done it, but overall it felt pretty easy and I’m wondering what a race of that distance would be like?

scaredypants
nath - that's my warm-up, sprinting to get over that line before I'm taken to the pen
... only to get 10 extra points

Re do it until you get the PU you want 😆

tomlevell
Easy to say if your an A as you just need to be in the top 10 :0)

Most the races I've been in recently have staggered starts due to the volumes of riders, so if someone is sandbagging in B/C/D use them to your advantage by drafting them to get away from genuine cat riders.

So now I do just enough to stay in the top 5/10 of my cat.

Easy to say if your an A as you just need to be in the top 10 :0)
Tricky when Cat C's are putting out 3.5w/kg or more and shouldn't be in the category. Learn to ignore people who I can't keep up with

Re do it until you get the PU you want

The start is crucial if you have aspirations of doing well coz if you miss the lead out then you just generally go backwards. I find it awkward as i can generally be in the lead group but that also means its full of A riders and eventually the elastic is going to snap so i either do a painful ITT or have to slow right down to wait for another group. I tend to go for a long sustained 400-450w from the start rather than a 6/700w full on sprint and i generally end up in lead group without burning all my matches, this is crucial for Hilly as the first climb is so soon that there is little recovery time.

Interesting blader, much the same as me. I only do 350-400 at 5 seconds to go now - "always" gets me off with the first few and then tailor effort to what the rest do.
I've never been in a race where a definitive break happens within 400 yards. ACtually, maybe I have and just haven't seen it go 😀

When I used to mash out 5-600 I'd have the lead and a gap and then used to find it hard to measure the backing off but not getting swamped

Yep that's exactly what I meant @scaredy

Never looked at what power that translates into, turns out I'm averaging 475-500w (6.7-7w/kg) for the first 30s before things settle down...that's just to stay within the top 10!! 😐

Nathb and scaredy thats the way i do it, just feather the power so you are towards the front but not at the front. Quite often i can be quite a way back but essentially still in the group but as they settle down i just maintain close to 400w for no more than about 10 secs and this generally gets me right towards the front.

I suppose one risk is that you could get one or wo riders who go off waaay harder than they can handle, then fade really early and create a gap/split in the front bunch - that'd be a bugger to pull back unless there were several strong riders in the 2nd group

50km of mud today! Just constant mud, puddles, more mud, slippery!

Was excellent though, really enjoyed it.

29er was working perfectly with decent grip and high BB helping in the ruts.

Lots of calories, lots of fun. Needed more cake !

Bike is going to need 25 cleans !

Nice one weeksy, sounds like quite a nice mud fest ride but does require extra concentration for those front wheel slide moments. We havent had much rain here in leeds but my bike still came back caked in lumps of mud, it went from very lightweight xc racer to feeling like a steel hardtail and for this time of year the trails are pretty dry!

Couldn’t see much to do so did the cycleclops tour thinking it would be a nice group ride round the new jungle circuit. It wasn’t. Flat out race from the start and the climb up to the jungle is brutal.

Got dropped from the lead group and burnt way to much trying to get back on on the long descent. Got to within 3s but couldn’t quite do it. They were 30s clear by the bottom of the jungle circuit. Started working with a group of 2/3 and gradually mopped up stragglers into quite a big group for a good sprint finish. Looks like it’s on zpower as well although the results look a little odd. My time puts me 28/141 in C but would have been 4th in B..

That is weird. How did all the C's smash all the B's?

Most weren’t C’s? Only 4 in the top 30 under 3.1 W/kg.

I wasn’t expecting it to be so fast and until the climb it wasn’t, then it went a bit bonkers.

Even got a new FTP figure from zwift, mostly from my solo TT effort to try and ride myself back into the lead group

was a big field jam bo, maybe they split the B and C groups and the B race was just slower ?

(did you see any Bs in your race?)

Weird, that Bob McGlue who won the B is fast - dropped me like a red-hot turd when I was in his bunch once

Could see them on course and map and draft etc but not in sidebar.

Bob Mcglue beat me in a sprint. He's a Cat 3 roadie on British Cycling 🙂

https://www.britishcycling.org.uk/points?person_id=404032&year=2017&d=4

Beat Nath at Hillingdon too 😆

Looking at the B times, they are all really spread out and a much smaller field.

Guess the C’s got a bit carried away.

I didn't feel so bad about Bob Mcglue kicking my arse in multiple races now

He's a Cat 3 roadie