Hi Shinton. I am an oldie (50+) and started this year at 93 kgs (now down to 86.8 as a result of diet and Zwift). I would definitiely recommend some group rides as they will certainly push you to try hard, just make sure you sign in as a Group D to start with. If you feel you can't stick the pace even as a D then get going on some of the ERG mode workouts where the turbo will automatically set an appropriate resistance for your ability (based on your FTP which you will of course have already ascertained 🙂 ). You will soon be looking for ways to improve you power, such as making sure your roller is spotless, you have a good slick tyre pumped up to 100 psi etc, etc..
Another 90+ kgs here.
You’ll probably find that you’ve got legs that are used to push 90kilos around and don’t lack power on flat courses this gives you a decent stab at keeping up with groups
One of them dreaded days here today.... Rest day ! I really don't like them and they rarely seem to help. But i'm at 160km up to now for March which is honestly enough for me in a week, so having the day off makes sense. Whether i can manage it, is very much open to debate 🙂
Another 50 km around the Richmond course. Rather enjoyed the three laps, and could probably have done another 90 minutes. Rode using a standard iPad rather than my mini, and can now see the inclination graph - that used to be bigger! I can also see the group rides menu on log in as well - missed them previously. Still can't read the names of the cyclists though. Don't really want to bring it in from the garage, but I could run it on the home cinema via Apple TV Airplay. Might get a bit warm though. We also had an iPad Pro mk1, but this doesn't fit into the Tacx tablet holder. I'm also rather wary of using this holder on my Kreitler rollers. Looks an easy way to log distance, but not quite the same.
I probably need a fan.
Will consider a group ride/race when the Kickr arrives, and I look forward to power comparisons.
So, as per previous posts I have a new tacx flow smart (2240) trainer, and since switching to this trainer im loads faster in swift , looks like my power is approx 20 watts higher than when I was using my old dumb cycleops mag trainer.
The flow is calibrated correctly according to the app, so which number is correct? The one from the flow or from the cycleops?
I'm inclined to believe the cycleops more as when I ride in zwift on the cycleops with mates that I also ride with in the real world, were all in the same order, ie the person in real world that is faster than me is also faster in zwift. However when using the flow I am the fastest person, which is deffo not right.
Is there a gotcha to calibrating the flow correctly? Like I say the tacx app reckons its calibrated correctly.
Maybe the cycleops is a little pessimistic, and the tacx is optimistic?
When riding on my own I guess its no problem, as any improvment in relative, but being loads faster than others who in the real world I am slower than is irritating (for them)
I assume the cycleops trainer was using a virtual power curve so i would say that this one is likely to be less accurate than your smart trainer.
Had a very interesting race this morning with MGCC crew. The race was advertised as road to ruins but its london course today so i figured the race was likely to falter. Spoke with the organiser who had no idea what was going to happen so we all lined up not knowing where we were going or for how long.
A fast start again and a couple of miles in it seemed were were heading for box hill so london loop but this time only 1 lap. Normally its 2 laps so decided i could burn more matches up box hill so i might try and get a breakaway. Sadly 2 Korean riders had other ideas and i had to hit 5w/kg and constant 370w all the way up just to hang on to them. I crested box hill in 7:04 with a hr of 180 and thighs full of lactate but i was 8 secs behind 1 of the Koreans. I knew i had to go hard up that steep kicker before the descent so i hit 500w up there and managed to just catch him as the downhill started. So me and 2 Koreans heading for the podium spots.
i soft pedalled down the hill to try and recover for the nasty ramp in the subway section. I always get dropped after that section as i have nothing left for the run in. I decided not to look at the screen and also to keep pedalling hard after we have crested it. Boom i hit the ramp doing 560w and managed to get a 1 sec lead and just kept turning a big gear. I was only doing 76rpm but in this gear i was doing 320w+ and so i had 0.7mile to hold on to my 1 sec lead from the 2 chasers. It was time to unleash the yorkshire grit and fight the pain to the end. I kept it in high gear and made sure my cadence never dropped and just went for it. I could see them hitting some big numbers but so was i and now i had a 3 sec lead. I was now shouting and begging for the line and there it was and i coasted over and won GOLD by 3.62 secs. Now that hurt a lot but the satisfaction was immense. Stats ended up as avg 295w with max hr of 182.
Yeah the cycleops was using the zwift calculated virtual power. All my riding mates are also using virtual power. I suppose it could be that the virtual power is pessismistic, but when we're all on the same kind of trainer were all comparable,but now i have gone for a smart trainer i cant really compare with them.
Kind of shows how much discrepancy you can get across different zwift setups, makes comparing yourself to others difficult.
Awesome work Blader... You're a bit of a BEAST !
Well done Blader, that sounds like everything went more or less to plan, you were just prepared to hurt more than you thought you were!
Hopefully CVR racing tonight, but now we're at the sharp end the timezones are all shifted and the 10pm racers are all going at 7pm, that's firmly in my eating/putting kids to bed window.
Scaled thats one of the reasons why i didnt compete in the cvr league, the times were either too early or too late for my famiy life. I shall try and keep an eye on tonights race as there have been quite a few good ones, good luck.
i tried a sprint segment after the race to see if i could max out my trainer (limit is 800w). No idea what i got up to as for some reason it hasnt saved but i am 99% certain something was smoking at the back wheel, i do hope it was burning rubber and not electrical components. Will try it out on Thurs.
LOL seems to be a theme going on here, i could smell burning yesterday after a couple of sprint efforts at max cadence (148!) the trainer had crept forwards a few inches and I was dangerously close to my foot heater, so much s that i've singed the hair off my right leg 😀
Ha! My turbo had been creeping forwards also and as one leg crept forward it went into a lower bit of floor and I fell into the fireplace
Zwifting is hazardous!
(fireplace is not used so no burning though)
Tiger and scaled that is funny, who would have thought it would be so dangerous to be stationary. One of the guys on the mgcc race a couple of years ago was heard on discord riding in to a wall. It transpires everyone heard a loud bang and crash so they asked around and one of the guys on his rollers had come off and hit the wall in his basement. No harm done but it does come up now and again in conversation.
Pah. Smart trainer idea gone down in flames after the cat went to the vet and ran the bill up.
That is a bummer Kryton. Hope the moggy is OK now though?
My Zwifting may take a bit of a knock in the next days/weeks. I've decided to retire the Isaac now. So will be doing all my Zwifting/riding on the Parkwood. I've currently got a Hybrid tyre fitted.
I previously had this tyre and did some testing.
Isaac, Conti GP4000, SPD-SLs
5:00 @ 200W in ERG
Max HR 119
Ave HR 115
Parkwood, Hybrid tyre flats
5:00 @ 200w in ERG
Max HR 130
Ave HR 123
Parkwood, ContiG GP4000, Flats
5:00 @ 200w in ERG
Max HR 123
Ave HR 117
Re-test Isaac, Conti GP4000, SPD-SLs
5:00 @ 200W in ERG
Max HR 121
Ave HR 116
Isaac, Conti GP4000, Flats.
5:00 @ 200W in ERG
Max HR 120
Ave HR 116
I didn't test to see how many watts are lost using the Hybrid tyre and Parkwood, but the HR was 7bpm higher for the 5 min test on the tyre. So what i'm thinking is to pick up one of these
Tacx Home Trainer MTB Tyre T1397 Folding - 28 x 1.25
The main thing stealing my power (or upping my HR) on the Parkwood test didn't seem to be the pedals or the riding position but the tyre. The 700x23 i currently have as the turbo tyre doesn't fit the Mavic 29er rim as the rim is too wide but i'm thinking the 1.25 (32mm) will fit better on the rim i have. With luck, i'll then be on a pretty much level playing field for my usual speed/power. If not, then i'll just have to come to terms with being back firmly in C rather than B, which honestly makes very little difference to me.
Not sure if i'll test the hybrid tyre today as i may have to shoot into Reading to collect my car after servicing etc.
Well interestingly (to me...) i jumped on for a ride with the Hybrid rubber on. The route took in Leith Hill, which couldn't suit me less as a course
Comparing times, speeds and HR to a previous race attempt, it wasn't that bad actually
Today was 19min 35 and Jan time was 18min 15. Which may seem a chunk, however, looking at the HRs
Today was Av157, Max 166 and Jan was Av172, Max 176. So on the race in Jan i tried a LOT harder to get them 1mins 20sec. I'm sure someone cleverer than me can work out from the Watts what the difference would be.
Average 227w and Average 259w.
Wasn't planning on pushing hard today, although 157 isn't exactly bimbling, but then again, it's not flying.
All in all, i enjoyed it 🙂
London Hilly 2 Lap WBR 🙂
Tough, was on my own most of the race and finished very mid table, but got a chunky FTP increase according Zwift
Edit: Just looked at Zwiftpower and may have done okay in C Looks like some Chinese profiles may get filtered out on silly power and no HR
What does that put you to now ?
282 on the Dorito 🙂
19W more to get to target 1 & 15kg to bin
A week ago.....
After yesterday which was my first proper go on it gave me an estimated FTP of 261w
my aims are over the next 3 months to get that to over 300w and to drop my weight to below 75kg
Nice work on the weight loss welshfarmer.
I'm just moving onto a HRM and found that for apple fans the watch will work with Mobile Link. I have it installed but not tried it out yet.
See you out there tomorrow lunch time, I've a 200w 50 min "time trail" (bottom Z3) to do. Should be fun.
Bit of a PSA
Diretos are £530 at Athlete Shop, thats £100 cheaper than last week
and using WOMENS-DAY-18 code today takes another 10% off
https://www.athleteshop.co.uk/elite-direto-smart-b-trainer-power-mtr-interactive
Making it £490 delivered!!
My Kickr 2016 arrived this morning. Set up but not yet calibrated in spin down. I run Teen 2's 10 speed Defy as a fixed trainer. First impressions - The handle is a GOD SEND! This is a heavy piece of kit (22 kg). No cadence sensor included (was refurbished), but I already have one. One small mark on the flywheel, otherwise unmarked.
As for road feel - well I am VERY impressed, compared with my Sartori and Kreitler rollers, this is road feel par excellence. Really impressed, and can see myself logging a lot of time on it. I may even connect the wiring later today and have plans for a 100 km later.
Reconditioned Snap is £300, 2016 Kickr is £699, older one is 599 - the handle is worth the extra, trust me.
Outdoors again today, had to go pick up my car. Only 20 miles of road stuff, but was happy that on 50% of segments i got PRs, the others i got 2nds. That's despite not trying that hard on most bits as i was just taking it a bit east mostly. Along with the fact that several of the segments were on a Roadie bike on 23s, today was on 2.35s and a 29er Parkwood 🙂
So happy with the fitness... I'm still not hitting the heights of getting an FTP of 302 on Zwift which somehow i managed last year, but i'm happy that it's all going well.
NEw turbo tyre arrives today 🙂 I was planning the usual Friday morning Pilgrims of Zwift ride, but i may do the 12:05 Greater London Flat 1 lapper just as a test.
May well be a sighting of the greater bloated* scaredypants at some point today, assuming my kids don't need ferrying around too much.
*(true what they say about fat weighing less than muscle though - I could actually drop the weight on my profile!)
Well, something is working in the real world... 9 top 10s and a KOM on a 51km route home down some very muddy trails yesterday afternoon. I wasn't even really trying 😉 rotator cuff is much better (bloody gardening), infact the other arm was more sore probably cos i'm still carrying myself strangely.
One thing that does seem to effect me outside though is my breathing in the cold, in the relative warmth of my garage I can absolutely bury myself and my repository system is definitely not the bottle neck. Outside in the cold (or at 2500M) and i'm like a fish out of water. I really don't want to go back on steroid inhalers but it does feeeeel like my asthma playing up </wiggins>
That's an interesting one Scaled. I noticed similar in a way on my ride yesterday. When on Zwift i can maintain 165bpm for the duration of an event, 45-60 mins... When on the road i really can't... I didn't have a HR monitor on but have a rough idea where i am in zones etc from feel and outside it's far less consistent.
I wonder if it's because of the static environment etc allowing structured breathing, or could it be something to do with the air coming in from the wind effect ? I don't know.
Just a thought but maybe, just maybe it's not the air, its the lack of motivation that makes you notice it.
I can absolutely bury myself if there is somebody to catch and that's all I concentrate on. If that motivation is lacking I find other things to notice. On Zwift there is always someone to catch on the road not so much?
Speaking of Wiggins I had a cheeky little weight handicap race last night (typically i'd just snook under 90kg so was the top of the next cat rather than the bottom of the 90>100kg cat)
Anyway put the feet of the turbo in jiffy bags to get a totally legal performance gain.
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feet of what in the what now ? WTF is that all about ?
feet of what in the what now ? WTF is that all about ?
Jiffy bags! Helps you go faster....... 🙂
Bit surprised by my first outdoor ride of 2018 on the road bike yesterday, after using it on the Direto with Zwift since Jan, albeit I had tone back ride intensity and frequency a lot during Feb. Without focusing on how I was doing up hills compared to PBs, the first three cat4s were pretty close to my best, with new PBs for some of the smaller version cat4 segments of White Way and Old Winchester Hill. 🙂
I did the zhr race this morning as a cat A (no B option) on my worse course which is classique. I was fully expecting to be dropped on the lead in lap or lap 1 in the usual place (the flat section immediately after horseguards hill) but i managed to hang on a little longer. In fact i got to the end of lap 4 of 6 before the elastic snapped which is a record for me hanging with the A group. Happy with that considering i did a 13 mile warm up before the race and the start of the race was 2 mins of over 400w!!! Safe to say i didnt put my face in to the wind very much but lots of little watt bombs were dropped to keep up.
Had to go back on for the 5-2 again this week. Weight is static again so need to give it a bit of a kick up the bum. 6 weeks until we see how we get on XC Racing and really want to be the right side of 14st 7 for it, not sitting around 14st 7... ideally low single figures on the 14s... . I do need to get practicing outside too i must admit... but that's going to have to wait for something that resembles a dry trail... not that i expect to see it.
Sounds like hell Blader.. LOL.... 400w i may have 30s of that in me.... but not much more and very little afterwards 🙂
Must admit, i'm enjoying the 29er for turbo work now i've got the new tyre on there, it's quiet and happy, but more importantly i can enjoy the riding position SO much more than the road bike. I also seem to get decent power/efforts so don't feel i'm losing out. As suspected, the 34T front ring is borderline, if i do anything around 270w then i'm sitting in 9th gear on the cassette, so anything over 320w is going to potentially need a 36T front ring i think. But at the moment i'm not too worried as i've got just about enough gears.
Quick flat out racey type thing as I didn't get out on the bike this weekend, flat route only 18km so fairly punchy
https://www.zwiftpower.com/events.php?zid=48712
Good news is new FTP on Zwift of 295w (300w gets a bit closer although god know how I'll fair in a proper FTP test)
Bad news is I got DQ'd on WKG as I seem to have exceeded the 3.1wkg for Cat C which I think is only because it was a short flat race. Grrrrrrr oh well, its not real. 🙂
I've just done the exact same course, distance etc. But slower and less watts lol.
I sure tried though. I'm blaming the 29er lol. Despite the fact I prefer climbing on it.!
https://www.zwiftpower.com/events.php?zid=48704
Only 30 seconds! 🙂
Nice work you too, thats the kinda watts i put out on flat races and that hurts. Actually thinking about it 295w on the flat would possibly have me spitting out a lung.
i did 5 laps of watopia hilly reverse this morning and having done this course hundreds of times the normal way, i was quite surprised it took me nearly an entire lap to figure it out, i guess i was brain dead more than ever today. It was a brutal race where i dropped off a couple of groups but managed to hang on in there and get 6th in B group. Some very strange riders who were smashing out massive numbers and yet they were no where near the front of the race. One small group dropped me slowly but within half a lap they were over 1 min ahead and i wasnt going slow,very odd.
5 laps of hilly! Crazy boy.
I hit a bit of a milestone today. I rode over the mountain route and was told my ftp had increased to 222 watts. This puts me into the B category for races.
I am not sure increasing my ftp on a hilly ride is a true reflection of my abilities though and at 222 watts I am under no illusions as to where I will finish in a race 😏
Yay, I topped out Everest this evening and unlocked the Trek lightweight bike 🙂
I also took a Gold, though to be fair it was on a ZZRC sub 2.0 group ride. I just rode with a few lads at the front of the pack and as the main pack got further and further behind I thought sod it, I need the exercise so I just kept with the group I was in. There was another group over a minute ahead but we carried on together over the Epic KOM and around Road to Ruin until the suspension bridge sprint. I came off the bridge at such a rate pushing almost 600 W and just flew up the following hill to the 100 m board. By then I was already 23 sec ahead of my group so I just cruised back to the finish. Just checked ZPower and the group who were ahead all the way around were all DQed 🙂
A nice little workout
Nice going welshfarmer. I followed your advice and did the full FTP and came out at 184 so did my first group ride Saturday in the PACK sub 2 which I really enjoyed, although I find it harder to stay in touch on the downhill rather than the uphill. Lost touch on the way back to the station but put in a big effort on the first climb back in London and got back on. Did the ZBR Clyde/Athena group ride tonight but as soon as the event started I ended up on my own with nobody else in sight although there were 40 others in the event. I bimbled around and noticed I was 4 minutes behind then hooked up with a latecomer and we worked well together and picked a few stragglers off. Finished the event and got my FTP up to 195. It's starting to get a bit addictive 🙂
Two hours and three laps of volcano. Climbed at 4,5 W/kg for two sub eight minute segments, and two of the three fastest times. Will try a proper FTP test later this week, and I suspect 300 Watts will be the ballpark.
