Zwift, my journey, my weight and my fitness.

Are they I thought they were road position also.
Look like they were as the C winner got max points but I beat him on time on one lap.

Computer had issues at the start and sent me to the back of the field. First lap and a half was flying through the breaking up field but was left behind at least 2 legit Cs and they had 40 seconds at the top of the hill on the second lap.
Caught 2 and with 3 to go I thought we'd caught the leader but I got my names mixed up. Rolled over the top of the hill on the last lap with a 20m lead on my group so went for it and finished comfortably for the win. 2nd BOOO!
Got the max points I could from the position my computer dealt me.
Relatively easy race as couldn't push on to try and catch Bs with the only C.

Nixie came past us like we were standing still mid race.

https://www.zwiftpower.com/events.php?zid=950928

That's annoying. Hate it when your on the back foot for no reason. Congrats on the second place.

I was confused why the order in the results had changed (ranked third now). Makes the prime efforts worth it as I was a good distance from the winner on the last lap.

If you taking about when I think you are Tom the lead pack had gone quite high power for that over take. I nearly got caught napping!

Just before the hill IIRC.
I'd thought about tagging on when we got lapped but forgot and was taken by suprise as you whoosed past. Wouldn't have held on long mind.

And welcome back to C @Weeksy :0)

No TTT for me this week but I will train for next week

Yeah i'll play in the TTT tonight fellas. Not sure how amazing i'll be or not, but i'll come join in that's for sure.

Bad night last night.

Even in the warm up anything over 100 watts felt huge.

Hit the race managed about 1 km at 400watt before realising that even if I finish this is going to knock the shit out of me I'm clearly not well so packed it in.

Not sure what's up but going to rest for a bit and do some gentle miles.

Slept for 14 hours on Tuesday night as well and a further 12 last night .....even a teething baby didn't wake me up....

Yeah i’ll play in the TTT tonight fellas. Not sure how amazing i’ll be or not, but i’ll come join in that’s for sure.

Great news @weeksy.

TTT info for this evening:

Our start delay is 6 minutes, so in the pen by 18:33 and then we go at 18:39:00.

The start list looks like this at the moment:
phil56
weeksy
ljarch
savoyad
zilog6128

So there is still space for others to join us. Sign up in category D here https://www.zwift.com/events/view/953161

See you in the pen!

Been having trouble with the turbo overheating and cutting out at extended periods above 250w, so I bodged a fan onto it (going to 3D print a more elegant solution at some point) and went for a bomp up the Alpe. Seems to have solved it for now. I think realistically I just need a fancier turbo, but this'll do for now.

As a side note, after the ramp test giving me, what I assumed was, a high reading, I actually managed to increase it further up the Alpe. I think I just struggle to maintain watts on the flat.

I'm the exact opposite, i can maintain watts on the flat but my climbing is garbage.

Weird innit. Think it could be down to the way the turbo models the resistance? The Flow does always feel a bit like riding through treacle. What do you have Weeksy?

Kickr Snap. Mine is deffo me... lol.

I was having a problem with the Flow cutting out after extended periods around 300 and a fan def helped, though I just pointed a fan in it's general direction

Yeah, that would have been the more sensible option, but I only have the one big fan and that's for cooling me down 🙂

Gosh the TT’s tonight.  Going well 1/3rd of the way through the TTT and my computer crashed.  Rapidly trying to get back in, it didn’t work and I ended up on the start line of the solo wtrl z5.

I thought I may as well give it a go as it’s a training night anyway, so 46 mins later and I finished 5th in B.  I’m bloody exhausted after 3x10 4wkg efforts last night, a 20min sweet spot warm up tonight, 1/3rd of the TTT and all of the solo TT.  That in mind, I thought it was a decent effort.

I thought we had a good ride last night, and we finished 25th out of 130 teams in Latte so that's a great result.

I agree with Phil. We rode well together as a group, and that's a very respectable result - 25/130 in latte and 248/472 overall. Sorry for playing the dangeourbrain yoyo-ing role towards the end.

We were marginally slower than last time we rode that course back in April - but that day we did have a bigger stronger group and rode in frappe (and I got dropped, painfully, with a few km to go).

I had no comms at all for the middle 20km (just the error message lady shouting in my ear over and over about disconnection/reconnection from my phone). I'm going to find an alternative to my phone stuffed in my back pocket.

A few people have drifted in and out of the thread tempted to join the TTT. I really recommend it. It's fun and it's certainly helped make me a stronger rider, and better at zwifting as well.

Great result!

I'll be back on Thurs 🙂 ......to ruin everything

You're deffo riding better than before Sav. ! Well done.

For me, my legs were fried before the race after the Crit yesterday, along with 20km trip to the pub with my lad at 3pm for 2 pints, which arguably isn't the best preparation for the TTT. But it went better than i thought, i did the usual of starting off taking a couple of turns for the first 5-8km, then after that the legs were feeling it lots, but the HR was OK. Coming out of the Bypass i got dropped by 2s but by the time Phil came to rescue me i'd already got back on. Last lap i thought i'd get dropped again, but all good and stayed till the end !!!

Great. The entry for next week is in:

Thursday, 6.30 pm. 4 laps of the Innsbruckring, total 35.6km.

Enter category D here: https://www.zwift.com/events/view/966087

ljarch did a good job of pacing us up Northumberland Avenue together last night. I think the leg snapper will suit us (even those of us who'll complain that it won't!). And we'll get 4 attempts at it....

I had no comms at all for the middle 20km (just the error message lady shouting in my ear over and over about disconnection/reconnection from my phone). I’m going to find an alternative to my phone stuffed in my back pocket.

Agree you were a lot stronger Savoyad, you were on the front a fair bit!! Can I have some of what you're taking please?! 🚴‍♂️💉😃

Great ride though, thought we were strong, one clean pass and didn't get overtaken! Good result too! Next week entered. 👍

Thanks @savoyad - I've entered as well.

So those doing Ventoux today....how was it?

I'm in for 7am tomorrow

I've had three goes now, it's quite different to the Alpe where the flats and the hair pins give a bit of respite and it seems to reward steadier effort than being too spikey.

There's a bit of a climb almost from the banner but the KOM doesn't kick in straight away depending on if your only interested in the Strava segment rather than the overall time worth taking it a bit easy on that first bit.

And people really muck up the pacing I managed to make up about 150 places over the course of the KOM based on people over cooking it.

Did it at 8am this morning. It wasn’t as bad as I thought. The first half is a lot harder for gradient especially km 6ish through 12 where it feels like 12% the whole time. I completed it in 1hr 53mins at a 240w average I was planning to go slower but I ran out of gears on that steep section and was averaging 260w. The crowd drags you along as well. Got power PBs for about 1hr 40 mins onwards. Not bad considering i did the aloe yesterday! 13000ft of climbing this week!

oop north
Subscriber

So those doing Ventoux today….how was it?

I’m in for 7am tomorrow

Did the 6am ride this morning, it was tough! Lack of sleep and wine sweat didn’t help either. The first half was hard! Once your past 12km it’s a bit less steep (under 10% most of the time) last 5 km is almost pleasant until the last 150m.

Total time up and down was exactly 2 hours to the start pens, the climb took me 1hr36 and a handful of seconds. Finished just outside the top 1000 out of 3325ish. Was reasonably pleased with that, I’m too fat for climbing races.

It’s made me realise that my weight is more of an issue than my power numbers so I’m going to concentrate on shedding some lard rather than upping my ftp for the time being. Current ftp is 270, but I weigh 86kg so I’m at 3.1 W/kg, I started the climb in the top 600 and just spent the next hour and a half sliding backwards, it wasn’t much fun.

Well done chaps...you did good. Hope I can match your efforts tomorrow. Would love a sub 2 hrs if possible but will see how it goes.

In its favour, it's easy to pace as it feels fairly even gradient. It's long, it keeps going and the recovery is when it drops to 8% gradient.

Would have been around 2hrs if I'd not had to stop to go sell some stuff to the guy that turned up too early.

Funny watching people get pissy about running Mt Teide jokes this morning.

Oop North, you're a better climber than me so sub 2 should be doable.

So is a high or low cadence the way to go? I'm still working on spinning faster

On my lowest gear on the 12% sections I was running at about 70rpm. When the gradient dropped it was up to the 90s. I would just do what feels natural on a climb like - it prob isn’t the time to try and change your cadence. I couldn’t go faster on the steeper sections or I would have been doing 300w and it wouldn’t be sustainable. Higher cadence will be less fatiguing as it puts the stress on the cv system not the leg muscles.

Cheers Robbo, good info

I rolled the slider down, my bottom gear is 36/27 and I’m not going to enjoy that for a couple of hours

I reckon a mix up of spinning and grinding is best to get full use out of all your muscles.

My average cadence ended up at 85 with a max of 115. Dropped down to low 60s/high 50s when I was stood up and giving my arse a rest.

Enjoyed that! Not as bad as I thought and prefer it to the Alpe.
1hr46 for the event and 101 minutes for the timed climb, so I smashed my 2 hrs target...well happy with that

Rode some of it with GPLama on the way up and nice group sprint on the way down, got it to 98km/hr

Would definitely do again.

Good effort and a good time! DC Rainmaker was on the ride yesterday as was Kevin Pieterson.

Is the Ventoux climb available at the moment, and if so when till? I fancy giving it a go.

The full climb is only on today, think 5 and 7 tonight, the stage the pros did so up to most of it is available all week. But if in going part of the way up I'm going all the way up, although if you do the pro stage can you stay on the climb and go all the way up?

Looks like you can continue up but it bypasses the ventoux climb start Bennet somehow so you won't get a time on zwift, although I presume you will on Strava.

When you say the full climb, I thought the zwift version finished after chateau reynard?

I'm not around today, unless I do it at 10pm tonight. How long will the entire thing take do you reckon?

You can join any of the la reine discovery rides that are on this week. join the meet-up, do the start and once of of the start pens quit the meet-up but stay in the world. Then just u-turn and you pretty much start climbing straight away. Or you can do the pro one and just stay in the world afterwards although this route won’t trigger the KOM segment.

tpbiker
Member

When you say the full climb, I thought the zwift version finished after chateau reynard?

I’m not around today, unless I do it at 10pm tonight. How long will the entire thing take do you reckon?

The pro race only went up to chalet reynard but the etape went right to the top, it was supremely depressing going through 1km to go banner with 5km to go 😂

I may do the 12:00 Champs E ride, or possibly the 12:20 Crit. Arguably i should do neither and save the legs for Cannock tomorrow, but that would be crazy talk.

Cannock is fairly easy tbh weeksy, If I wasn’t working I’d pop over, it’s just at the back of my house.

A lap of the dog is 40ish minutes if you press on, the only really big climb is a straight fire road drag, so if you take that steady there’s really nothing to tax the legs too much.

I really want to do the champs course, hopefully will get a chance this week

Course is OK, the 2-3% after the line was a killer in C with 4w/kg+ needed to hold the lead bunch. I managed the first 2 laps with the leaders but lost it on the climb on 3rd time up that long drag, so called it a day there to save a bit for tomorrow.

I’m normally pretty good at the C crits, but not sure about one with a bit of a climb in.

well this is going to screw things up for racing (probably)

Zwift have taken over Zwiftpower (seems they did ages ago) but the Zwiftpower blokes have now left

https://zwiftinsider.com/zwiftpower-transition/

I had a go at a champs ride this morning,
Bloody hell! I managed to stick with the lead group until the 2nd drag too, I was pushing 300+ watts as getting dropped off the back, got back on the first time back down the hill but was too far gone the second time.

Stayed with the second group until the last couple of laps and was yo-yoing up the drag every lap, couldn’t get back on the last lap so just decided to TT to the finish and not let the others that dropped from the second group catch me, managed to hold them off. Finished 31st/230ish.

On zwiftpower afterwards I was down as 14th, which was a surprise because I set a new ftp, not sure if it’s because of the story above or whether it’s how the event was run but it turned out most of the top ten were B’s and there was one A+ in there. No wonder I couldn’t keep up.

Zwift have taken over Zwiftpower (seems they did ages ago) but the Zwiftpower blokes have now left

Not too optimistic about zwift administering zp - they have conflicting demands between the racers, the people who want to race properly but don't have the kit, and the casuls who just want to play Call of Duty on wheels. Plus people who aren't interested in racing at all but might be affected by any change in the interface. Given each of these groups are all paying the same $15 a month it seems like a hard circle to square.

I'd be happy with two tier subscription. Those who want proper racing pay a bit more but the flip side is the equipment you can use is restricted. For those with non compliant equipment or who don't want to pay the extra then the current free for all system could still run. So events would be free for all or racer only (similar to having a racing license I guess). If you get caught cheating then your license could be suspended (you could still acres the free for alls).

Hopefully out tonight in the Deeside race. Hate Richmond but been a while and think I may be able to smash my time on that hill.

That hurt lots. Do not feel so hot right now.

But looks like you had a decent battle ?

Has the Companion app changed?

I didn’t have the map with all the buttons on it anymore. No way to control direction, use power ups or photos.

Also over the last few days I’ve had my first KOM and sprint, only to be beaten seconds later by a massive amount.

The sprint had most people in the mid to high 17 seconds, I did it in 17.0, as I crossed the line a rider cane flying past in 13.9. Quite a margin on a sprint.

The KOM , I got beaten by 2 mins. Again massively ahead of the “normal” times for that day.

Just a coincidence that there was a super fast rider? Weird

I did yes. A repost from what I wrote on they Facebook page.

So excuses out of the way first. This series is very tight with my youngest daughter's bed time so I get 5 minutes max to warm up, I'd eaten too much and worst the rocker plate so subtle off centre and leaning to the left which was very annoying. That's all trying to hide the simple fact that the front 5 were just too strong.

The lead in to Libby hill barely finished waking my legs up and the crazy numbers that popped up resulting in me burning pretty much every match trying to stay with the leaders. It didn't work, even with seasons best 1m and 5m efforts I had to admit defeat and settle in to grab what I could. Sim and I weren't pushing on much, I'd go as far as to say I was lazily sitting on their wheel waking up just for the climb. I tried to break away on the third lap but the earlier efforts meant sustained power was not happening.

Then a glimmer of hope, Blümel was struggling and the 30+s gap started to fall. We so nearly caught him on the last time up Libby hill (even if that effort was well down on lap ones time). We caught just after the top and it came down to some sort of sprint. Sim went first with an aero, I tried to follow with a feather but it looked lost. Then right on the line with Blümel filling the screen behind me I snuck past to claim the position (ZP reports basically no gap between the 3 of us). A very lucky third in the final standing. That was a really hard event, here's one rider hoping for something that suits my strengths more next week 😀.

https://www.zwiftpower.com/events.php?zid=964180

Jon Jones have you been impacted by the sprinting bug/cheat?  I was sat doing intervals the other days and there was a chap in front of me not going much faster visually, but he was in the sprint position showing 6wkg - for the whole of the 18km Yorkshire loop.

Play store shows last updated 29th June so no don't think it has changed.

Crit City 11:47am for a C fest today.... Not sure the legs have much to give if i'm honest... Along with a possible broken little toe from Cannock the other day after a root/rock caught my little toe, it's black, blue, red and other pretty colours.

But i'll give it a whirl, it's also on my preferred rotation being Bell Lap, so up the rollers, not up the climb..

Hope it goes well. How do you get on with crit city? I struggle with it, just ends up being too intense.

Love it in C... hate it in B... B is just flat out all the way, in C i can plot/plan and use a bit more in the way of tactics.... I'm going to try and save a bit and kick on over the line on the last lap for a break away today.. If i leave until the last 300m i never win (on the road anyway)

How are people finding Paris?

I've been enjoying the "Def not a race" up Le Reine this week, with some decent results on the road and ZP but feel that I should give Paris a spin even though very much not too my strengths.

Same event as Nixie. Held onto his group comfortably. Well until Libby then I said byebye.
Top C was pushing hard and held onto him just over the top. Legs were generally feeling terrible. Again he pushed hard up 32nd street. Kept with him and kept a decent power up the final climb on lap 1. After the corner he slipped back a few seconds so I went a bit harder and he was gone. PRs all over the place is probably why I was feeling terrible :0)
The next 2 laps were a war of attrition on who get slower the least. I had 2 Bs and he eventually hooked up with 3 Bs. Steady increase in time and held with my 2 to Libby then lost them over the top. Big enough lead to hold them all off.
Gained 4 points back in the league after the last 2 weeks where I've lost ground.

Well I did my first crit city in C last night, I hung on to the front group for first couple of laps, then was doing ok with the second group when I had to answer the bloody door at which point I was doomed to be last place (well 25th out of 27)

I averaged 2.63w/kg I can do more but I found the 'lumpy bit' hard to pace

i'd have left the front door and told them to bugger off

Nice rides last night @tomlevell and @nixie. The leagues for Cats A and C are quite tight in that Deeside league now, it's fun to keep an eye on.

I did the etape ride up ventop/ventoux at the weekend. It was nice enough and a pretty good representation of a big climb. But now I can't see any reason to ever ride it again - the big event feel, the tour animations and the novelty made it for me. Without them , the alpe / the ride to chalet reynard just seem a more sensible size for big-zwifting (whether free riding or in a race).

TTT news for tonight...

Riders: sign up here, category D https://www.zwift.com/events/view/966087

Our start delay is +2 minutes = so in the pen by 18:33, stop pedalling, then we're off at exactly 18:35.

The start list so far is just me, phil and zilog. I know @Tiger6791 said he'd be there. Any others? @weeksy? @ljarch? Newcomers are also very welcome.

I'll update with a final (expanded!) startlist later today.

I don't think I'll make the TTT tonight. Ive been really struggling with fatigue last few weeks and I very much doubt I'd get round. I'm not sure what's going on, I was put it down to the fact my kids are refusing to sleep at the moment, but the numbers have really taken a nose dive. Its a shame because a few weeks back I was producing the best number I ever have and was feeling really strong.

Ive only managed 30 mins turbo since last weeks TT and I found last week a real struggle, so I'll only be in even worse shape this week I expect!

Really sorry to be a let down I'll try and get my act together and get back on form for next week.

Sorry Sav, needed to earn some ranking points so did a Crit a bit earlier.

No TTT for me, currently grovelling up Ventoux with my kickr climb set at 100% realism - a bad choice it turns out.

Really sorry chaps but I can’t make TTT tonight. 🙁

Boo!!!! are we still doing the TTT with only 3?!

Aaaaaand that's that done - I can safely say I'll never ride that again and it would take a decent amount of £ to make me change my mind.

Just seen this. It won't be the same with just 3 riders. So I'm out.

I'll put in an entry for next week as usual, and post the entry link tomorrow.

@savoyad no worries, hopefully get a few more next week!!

@weeksy 😄 unfortunately it was my s/o and it was my fault they couldn't get in !

TTT entry is in for next week. Thursday 6.30pm, 2 laps of Richmond Reverse, 32km.

All welcome - sign up to category D here: https://www.zwift.com/events/view/978171

I can't ride next week. I will post this info again after the weekend. If I am not online, the start delay will be published here https://wtrl.racing/ttt/TTT-Event.php Weds evening.

The Deesside race league is best 6 events and goes on until end of September so 8 or 9 more events to go if anyone wants to join in.

Anyone in for the 15:45 Crit today? I'll be hunting a decent C finish.

Why are the Saturday race and especially TT options so poor on a Saturday, especially when it's a rare one I have off and once again it's pissing down with rain with warning of thunderstroms?

Loads of longer morning events on at the weekend.

Well this is surprising, got my first category win since getting the more accurate turbo in Crit City Dolphin of all places. Not particular in-keeping with my grinding up hill escapades.

Was based on points for fastest time each lap on the Prime (aka fairly short hill) plus some overall points for finishing position. Wasn't a huge field either but a win is a win!

Now working out if it there's other points based raced where punchy hill sprints are part of the set-up...