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Rode the Tour of Watopia, Stage 1 tonight, first time through the jungle section which in the direction we were going had a nice long downhill blast. In theory this ride was going to be at a more relaxed pace than the actual race last week. Never works out that way and with almost 500 riders there was always someone just up the road or breathing down your neck to keep you honest. I managed to smash my PB time for the EPIC climb, by enough to place me 80/86 on the STW leader board (i was shocked to see a couple of names I recognised behind me).
The climb gave me plenty of time to consider why my avatar won't draft, I think it's the size of his arse! Unless there is an actual van to follow, some part of it will always be sticking out into the wind. The contrast when some tiny looking Polish chap came flying past was ridiculous.
Great ride though and looking forward to the next stages!
Wanted to ride a 3x3 (3 hrs at 3 W/kg) and my first KICKR ride of three hours. Sadly the giant pretzel route is not open for me, so I rode the standard pretzel. Also since it's not a workout, I don't seem to be able to set ergo mode. Oh well pace myself...
First climb at 4-4.5 W/kg, then into a small group who I politely wait for at every kick. Onto the second climb, and down to 4 W/kg. I set KOM of 22:00 and am rewarded with a jersey - oooh! Recovery ride to the finish, except I forgot how long the ride was meant to be. Forgive me. IPAD Mini 4 in the poorly lit garage with my eyesight does not make for easy deciphering. Anyway managed the ride in sub 2 20 and an average power of 3.2 W/kg.
Now that may have unlocked a level or two - who knows? Where do I check?
Also looking at options for laptop and ANT to ride on the rollers. The bluetooth vivosmart heart rate monitor is one option. Want to ride Paris Roubaix on the rollers on Sunday.
I'm just going to leave this here, mostly because it properly cracked me up. I do kind of get where people are coming from, but basically if you believe anyone else's power figures on Zwift, you're more trusting than me...
Note: obviously mine are completely legit...
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If you log in at https://my.zwift.com/index.jsp it says what level you've reached in the top righthand corner. Or if you're in the game, it says at the top of the page where it tells you how long you've been riding, how many meters climbed, distance covered etc. I guess it may be hard to read on an iPad though. It also tells you how much pizza to eat.
The climb gave me plenty of time to consider why my avatar won’t draft, I think it’s the size of his arse!
Are you using the TT bike? If so, it doesn't draft. On other bikes your avatar should sit up when you're drafting. Dunno if larger riders have reduced drafting powers though.
First time up the AdZ this evening. I'm too heavy and unfit to do anything respectable but was fairly happy with 1hr 15 exactly particularly as I made sure I paced it conservatively (270w) early on as I didn't really know if it'd be an hour or an hour and a half. Gave it some good beans towards the end (320w with a 450 sprint until my chain came off 😯 ) Average about 2.5w/kg
Won't be doing it every day but I thought it was great - something to really get your teeth into.
How annoying, they've ruined CVR races by splitting the brackets up. The A brackets are insane but I could hang with them on the flat courses and maybe the first lap of the hills before getting unceremoniously dropped. Now the B's are racing on our own, 11 of us and it was a bit of a bobbins race.
Two of us went off the front about halfway through the race and managed to stay away, it was obvious the other lad wasn't interested in doing any work though. I kicked again with 10k to go and TT'd home. Bob on my FTP of 350 so it hurt. Just wasn't as fun being at the front. I was 4th in the B bracket last season but I think I'll bump myself up and get my arse kicked in the A's
I'm a Level 9. I hadn't realised all those points get you a category. I'm also an A for races, and may do some more, but I prefer grinding out long hours at tempo, saving my racing for well, real racing 😉
Bike is steel, of course, with deep section wheels. Kit matches. No helmet, and red hair and beard to match my own.
The main advantage of going up levels, if you care about it, is that you get access to faster bikes and wheels. There's a Zwift Insider article about it, but the Zipp 808 wheels, which are level 10 unlocks are the fastest wheels in the game, I think. And the Zwift Aero bike, which is level 13, is one of the top five fastest bikes. The others are all much further along - or in the case of the Tron bike, up.
I've grown loads of extra hair on Zwift, not going to ruin the look with a helmet 🙂
I did the wbr race this morning but only managed to get to the start gate with 8 secs to spare so by the time it started i was only doing 100w. I decided i was going to ignore the other racers and just do my own thing and see where i finished. I was doing some tempo work for the first 2 laps and was over 2 mins behind the lead group and i was in a very small group of B and C riders. Last lap and we were down to 3 of us but there were 2 B riders a minute ahead who had dropped off the front group so i decided to see if i could catch them before the finish. I upped the pace and lost 1 of our group so down to me and a C rider to chase them down. I managed to catch them at the top of the hill after the sprint section but it had taken a lot of gas to get them. Anyway i rolled passed them and cruised to the finish with a little kick at the end. Considering i didnt pay any attention to the race until the last lap i ended up 4th (B) and only 1 sec behind bronze. I quite enjoyed it and felt quite strong when i did some bursts.
It's all pretty marginal with the bikes, the 808s are good as is the trek that you get for doing the Everest challenge.
Well that was slightly amusing. I did 40km this morning at a gentle pace, only 135w average.
I was sitting watching the cycling on Eurosport and ended up frustrating myself about this morning and where i see my training... I then noticed there was a WBR 1 lap Volcano flat in 9 mins... Oooooh.
Jumped on it in C. Bit of a warm up and thought "if we go down, we go down fighting".. So that was it, race on.. Sadly the Bs seemed to get a massive jump as we started out of the back gate, so they were 12s ahead by the time we hit the course proper... You're not making that up on the Bs as a group of Cs.
For some reason i felt GREAT and was jumping on the front and upping the speed, trying to split the group.. It was like a classics race, attack, attack... But i wasn't getting either much of a gap, nor someone to help... So we were grouped all the way round the twisty 1-2% incline up to the village... At the village and down onto Volcano i kicked again... But no joy.
Just before the volcano hill, 1 guy kicked... up the hill 2 others went.... they had 8s on us where it flattens inside the volcano.... back on the front for me... 3.42/kg @310w and it's down to 6s.... coming to the crossover we're at 5s behind the group of 3.... up the tunnel i kicked and caught them at the top, but i'd dragged the others with me up the hill, so onto the flat and drop into the line, they went EARLY ! Like 800-900m from the line... Keeping my head in it, i sat at 350w holding whatever wheel... I tried for a kick, but i was 5.5w/kg for the sprint only... Damn it... I didn't make up many places in the sprint.
I was massively happy though that i did what it took and what i set out to do. Power, kicks, attack and don't rest if possible.
I dropped my FTP a couple of weeks back to 260 and it bumped me to 263 for todays race, which isn't exactly where i wanna be... but it's a start.
Happy 🙂
https://www.zwiftpower.com/events.php?zid=52282
Nice one weeksy, at least you now know that when you need a surge of power you have it in your legs to do so at will. It does feel nice in a race when you feel like your legs have had a can of popeyes spinach.
They felt remarkably good considering i did 50km outdoors Sunday and 50km indoors on Zwift yesterday, then 40km this morning.. I thought they'd be useless...
Only downside was my gearing is a smidgen out on the 29er in the garage, i'd swapped the crank so i've got a 36T on the front now (from a 34T) which was better, but the difference between the smallest cog on the rear and the 2nd smallest is just too big a gap, i want about 93rpm cadence and i either get 86 or 99rpm depending on which of them i use... If i use the 99 (2nd smallest) i'm struggling to spin it nicely to get the power as well... then i go for the smaller cog and it's a CLUNK as it drops in and my cadence plummets... Arrrgghhhh..
Almost 800 riders in the Tour of Watopia stage 2 tonight. I was determined to take it easier tonight, so started with a brew!
As usual lost a few places on the climbs, though fortunately today the steep bits were not very long, only up to the Ruins loop. I managed to get back a few places through moria, then it was a two up time trial with Andy Tod most of the way back.
Never went above 145bpm which really kept me in the comfort zone. Can't wait for Stage 3 now!
I did stage 2 tonight (6pm)l. Almost didn’t make it after the turbo didn’t power up. Ended up having to use zpower and the power curve of the next nearest model (non smart) was way harder than my T2240. Felt like I was doing 260+ watts against my usual 230ish. So having started late (6.10ish) and some way after the back marker I eventually pulled my way into the 600’s. Just looked at zwiftpower and coincidentally there’s a STW rider placed ahead of me. Finished stage 1 in around 200th in the 6pm slot.
They say it isn’t a race, but it makes it more fun if it is. That said, I noticed there were no current placings shown on the rider list while doing stage 2 this evening. The current placings were however shown the other day when I did stage 1. Did anyone else notice this? Not sure whether it’s a change made by zwift or something to do with not being able to display power due to choosing a non-smart turbo.
Also, not sure what’s happening with zwiftpower: it’s showing that I didn’t do stage 1, however it is logged on zwift. Any ideas?
Also did Stage 2 last night (8pm). Getting over a cold which wiped me out on Tuesday.
Originally thinking I'll just bimble round. Connection issues on the laptop meant I had to quickly swap to the phone with 30 seconds to the start. A bit flustered I set off from the back of the field and sat at about 320-350w for a few mins to make up a few places and find a group I was happy with.
Started watching Netflix to pass the time as the screen on the phone is so small. The turbo was a little noisy, so I jumped off, retrieved my headphones from the office, and set off again. In almost last place again. Couldn't be having that, so set off on a bit of a mission. After the climb upto the ruins I was in 135th. Then spent the loop jumping groups, sometimes pulling others with me, sometimes TTing.
By the end of the loop I was in 103rd and 15 seconds behind one rider, and 10 seconds ahead of the next. Tried to pick up the pace a bit to catch the guy in front, but made no headway after a couple of minutes, so settled into a pace.
With 3km to go I was joined by two others (couldn't see their gap on the phone easily) and there was a bit of cat and mouse to the line. We did catch one other guy on the way in. Outsprinted in the last 100m by one of the catchers, but kept 103rd in the end.
Happy with 45m 14secs when including a brief stop (maybe 30 seconds), and having to play catchup twice.
Today i took onboard then criticism/comments and took a VERY gentle ride. Was 40km in 2hrs. I barely broke sweat which is exceptionally unusual for me. Just cruising round, looking at the scenery and enjoying the sunshine.
[url= https://farm1.staticflickr.com/814/39441449180_763ff0d774_k.jp g" target="_blank">https://farm1.staticflickr.com/814/39441449180_763ff0d774_k.jp g"/> [/img][/url][url= https://flic.kr/p/236iJHS ]2018-04-05_11-47-07[/url] by [url= https://www.flickr.com/photos/152318156@N08/ ]Steve Weeks[/url], on Flickr
[url= https://farm1.staticflickr.com/882/27377072078_fc85fb570f_k.jp g" target="_blank">https://farm1.staticflickr.com/882/27377072078_fc85fb570f_k.jp g"/> [/img][/url][url= https://flic.kr/p/HHdDJ7 ]2018-04-05_11-46-58[/url] by [url= https://www.flickr.com/photos/152318156@N08/ ]Steve Weeks[/url], on Flickr
[url= https://farm1.staticflickr.com/902/40354540525_d5b6bfed23_k.jp g" target="_blank">https://farm1.staticflickr.com/902/40354540525_d5b6bfed23_k.jp g"/> [/img][/url][url= https://flic.kr/p/24tZyY6 ]2018-04-05_11-46-48[/url] by [url= https://www.flickr.com/photos/152318156@N08/ ]Steve Weeks[/url], on Flickr
[url= https://farm1.staticflickr.com/902/41250962501_5811bb7f59_k.jp g" target="_blank">https://farm1.staticflickr.com/902/41250962501_5811bb7f59_k.jp g"/> [/img][/url][url= https://flic.kr/p/25RcXZp ]2018-04-05_11-46-38[/url] by [url= https://www.flickr.com/photos/152318156@N08/ ]Steve Weeks[/url], on Flickr
Todays ride also helped me to reassess my priorities and thoughts regarding cycling. Today is what i love about bikes, about riding. Sure, the XC stuff is great fun, sure the Zwift stuff is great training. But i'm never going to be more than an average slightly lardy 46 year old ploughing my way through the back of the bunch.
However, the joy, pleasure, solitude, the mental release from the world... Well, that's what cycling is... That's why i do it.. Just being out on the back lanes/trails, me and the bike, in harmony, just enjoying the world itself.
I have to say i totally agree with weeksy about cycling and to be honest i was mighty pee’d off earlier as today is glorious for cycling outdoors,one of only a few we have had this year. Here i am with kids as they are off on holidays, as usual the weather is perfect when i cant get out BUT nothing makes me smile more (not even cycling) than listening to the kids laughing uncontrollably with each other when just messing around. I quickly forgot about the cycling and got stuck in to building and destroying stuff with them. It gave me time to pick my next race so not completely forgot about cycling.
Anyone tempted by the 1640 "Road to sky" race later, up AdZ and coughing up lungs for a laugh? 😆
I'm currently really confused about what my FTP really is, Strava reckons I've improved to 287W, but this is based on riding Mount Zwift hard on a regular basis (which takes me just under 30mins now for the cat2). But when I tried to ride Volcano Flat hard for an hour last Friday, I was down at 236W for the hour and climbing the majority of AdZ was 220W (with peaks up near ~320W)... Which is way lower than 95%!
Crickles https://cricklesorg.wordpress.com/ reckons my FTP is ~278W, while I manually adjusted Zwift's estimate of 267W after Strava and Crickles had higher estimates about a month ago.
Might be all of a muddle because last week was my hardest training week for a while, "form" got quite negative on those fitness trend things, so my legs aren't going to in best shape. Plus without doing regular 1+ hour hard rides, all I'm doing is training my legs to ride hard for less than an hour.
Damn, weeksy - how do you do that ?
I'm imagining you sitting in some sort of Bond-villain nerve centre with loads of screens on the walls, getting alerts every time one of us goes riding 😉
I’m currently really confused about what my FTP really is,
not going to try and quote on this POS
how are you measuring your FTP? Strava estimate is junk
I use the Sufferfest 4DP test, but the obvious thing, if you're on Zwift, would be to use Zwift's own FTP test in their workout section. It's confusing because it's not just a straight 'how much power can you put out for 20 minutes' thing. A structured FTP test is going to hammer your anaerobic system first so it's not propping up your 20-minute performance, which ought to be oxygen burning, then subtracting 5%.
On top of that, there's a knack to doing FTP tests. You get better at pacing them. And at motivating yourself. And then there's tapering so you go into it with fresh legs.
In a sense, it doesn't really matter unless you're using it as the basis for structured training, so it's setting baselines and helping to measure improvements, but even then it's a blunt tool as your 20-minute power is only part of your fitness. It won't tell you how fast you recover from anaerobic intervals, what your five-minute power is, how hard you can sprint repeatedly etc.
I don't know how Zwift calculates its 'in game' FTP, but I suspect it just pulls out your 20-minute best and reduces it by 5%.
ouch, that hurt! Decided, since time was short tonight, I would have a go at a short race. I knew the pace would be high from the start and sustained, but since it was only 1 lap of the Hilly course in reverse I was happy I would be able to hold on for the duration. Did a quick climb up the KOM to warm up and only went to the pens with a minute to the start. Shot off the line at 350+W and before I knew it was in 1st place in front of the As and Bs as we went through the cave at the top of the first rise. At this point I guess they all took offence and overtook me and that was the last I saw of them :-). However I was in a bunch of 5 C's who had caught me up and we had a great game of cat and mouse, punctuated by a good sprint over the bridge which I took easily. Anway we were all more or less still bunched after the back climb but I kept on pushing over the top as 1 lad had pulled a few seconds on us. Anyway it appears I was the only one able to bridge over to him and we went under the arch at the top of the KOM side by side. Then it was down the hill neck and neck all the way, despite him deploying a drafting PU (do they actually do anything??). So with 800 m to go it was all to play for with both of us riding in about 3.5 w/kg. I just knew he was going to kick early and anticipated it a bit and just drafted him unitl 150 m to go then stood on the pedals until my legs felt they were going to burst. My avatar crossed the line half a bike ahead of his and I was given the win, with the same times. But boy was that tough. I was way off being last in the Group Bs and came close to being bumped up.
A goodie but a toughie 🙂
Great write up!
FTP workout on Zwift, and Wahoo KICKR in erg mode. Went off far to hard to hold 320 Watts, but eased back. I then validate against road and TT races.
As it was sunny i went out for a quick hour.... I thought, 22, 23km, should be OK....
https://www.strava.com/activities/1492913291
69km later and 3+ hours... .oops.
Tired, you're literally the last person I would have imagined Zwifting haha.
I did the dirty last night**: https://www.strava.com/activities/1493187444
**Took a lot of effort to do that at the gym ha.
P.s. This seems a bit of a "bargain"?? https://www.athleteshop.co.uk/elite-direto-smart-b-trainer-power-mtr-interactive?utm_source=idealo&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=idealoUK&utm_content=20190-5RWKOBQTNRCGS&kwd_id=20190-5RWKOBQTNRCGS
Did the wbr this morning with Bigfoot from here so i had an incentive to try and stay with the A group. It was a strange race as it wasnt fast on the flats but quite quick on all the ramps. Bigfoot put a big burst in on the first lap which i just about managed to hold on but we were a very small group so you had to stay in touch. I more than held my own on all the little climbs and with the slow pace on flats (250w ish) i was able to recover enough between the big efforts. All down to a sprint finish but i had no power up so get left behind a little. I ended up 4th overall and SILVER in B group but all 5 of us in the lead group finished within 1.88s of each other so close race. Bigfoot actually finished behind me but i suspect the race was too slow for him plus i dont think he was really trying judging by his hr, he normally rides away from me.
is anyone else not getting many power ups? The last 12 i have gone through i got 9 points and only 3 actual PU. In the Richmond race last week i went through 6 consecutive points power ups.
Edit: results table only has the five of us on it! Everyone else is filtered.
Nice one blader and that DIrecto is a proper bargain, tempted but with the new baby <1 month away I fear I may incur levels of wrath that i'm not prepared for...
Had a good one last night though, https://www.zwiftpower.com/events.php?zid=53881 - WBR 2 Lap Greater London Flat decent sized field and pretty much everyone stuck together in a group for the first 3/4 of a lap, i put a few little digs in off the front but nobody seemed particularly interested in joining me then I saw someone head off up the road while I wasn't paying attention. Huge effort to get on his wheel to then see that she was on a TT bike and zwiftpowering it at 6+ w/kg, nobody else had bridged so i dropped back into the pack that i'd put about 6 seconds into breaking away, nevermind!
There was another little break but we got hoovered up by the blob so me and my breakaway buddy brought a little pain to the groupo and put in a couple of 5+w/kg pulls on the front, fair play to the bloke with a 5.5 5 min power, he is nearly 20kg lighter than me though, the group was hurting but still together, it's so hard to break the draft on that course. It's obvious with 8km to go that it's going to go down to the sprint.
4km to go, I'd seen Adam Zimmerman go charging off the front in a load of CVR races then sit up straight away again so thought i'd have a bit of fun and kept dropping bombs, pleasant unexpected side effect was people started throwing down their PUs worried that they were going to miss a break, I had a draft in my pocket so just kept my powder dry, I did that another 3 times, on the last one, with just over a km to go someone drops an aero and goes flying past just as i was throttling back, I jumped, hit the draft and sat on while he worked his arse off! We put about 5s into everyone else and I could see that he was dying pretty hard and was never going to make it to the line so kicked on with 300 to go and took it by a second.
Tour of wattopia AdZ this morning was a bit of a rude awakening after that 😛
Scaled, great write up, that sounded like a very fun race. I wish i had the fitness/ability to start messing with the field. I tried it once and it was a slow painful death to mid table obscurity as my legs gave up the fight.
Did the Tour of Watopia Stage 3 event at 6am this morning up to the top of Alpe Du Zwift. It was horrible. 87 minutes of climbing ball ache.
First ride up AdZ and I could not push a decent cadence or wattage, hopefully other attempts will not be as bad once I get to know the climb a littel better and manage the run more efficiently.
Thankfully that Stage is the only one I have not done so I am hoping it will be plain sailing from here on apart from the Pretzel, that stage will also require a little effort.
ADZ at 6am sounds like torture so good effort on your part DM52.
What takes the wind out of your sails is having completed the previous stage and getting an ftp bump the very next session I am sure Zwift would be questioning it based on today's episode.
Still looking forward to Stage 4 to prove I am worthy of the ftp bump and I was just let down by my porky weight on the climb.
Hi all, New to swift but had a 6 races now winning 3 (hilly ones as I can climb ok) 2 of which resulted in me being bumped up from D to C and from C to B. Just came second in the B's to someone with 4.2 average so guess they will be bumped up.
I've enjoyed reading through many of the race reports on this thread and believe it has helped me to go into races knowing a little of what might happen such as full gas for the first minute or more! So thanks to all.
Quick question, it was mentioned above by scaled that he could see the rider he was chasing was ZP. How do you see this? I've burnt quite a few matches chasing riders who are later dq'd.
Quick question, it was mentioned above by scaled that he could see the rider he was chasing was ZP. How do you see this?
They don't have the little ziggy zaggy, lightning bolt type icon by their w/kg figure on the right of the screen or by their power output if you click on their name. Means they're using a dumb trainer with a guesstimated power output based on a notional curve for that trainer and a speed sensor.
Sometimes the output is close to believable, sometimes it's just ridiculous. See also: claimed Zwift weights, uncalibrated trainers etc... 🙂
Ah right, thanks 😊
Well I'm not sure what happened there. Did Stage 3. New bike on the trainer - did a 10min warm up and then calibrated as normal. Felt ok for the first part of the ride-maybe a bit sluggish but thought it was just my legs but as soon as I hit ADZ I was struggling big time.
HR says I was working hard, legs felt like they were working hard, and the swimming pool I was creating says I was definitely working hard, but in places I was struggling to put out more than 150W. 12mins down on my PR up the climb.
Really hope I just need to do advanced calibration again.
MrPH something doesnt sound right there, 12 mins down on a PR is not even close. I think even i would notice that kind of differential in my effort so if are working hard it would suggest something isnt quite right with your trainer. May be look for an update or recalibrate or just try again tomorrow on the assumption it was just having a hissy fit today.
Just did the 8pm ToW stage 3, with 1003 other wager zwifters. Clearly the eagerness waned when we all saw ADZ come into view, with 200 dropping out pretty zwiftly (see what I did there). I wasn’t in the mood for ADZ but managed to grind out a 10 minutes quicker time than my first attempt, doing it in 64 minutes. However it was more satisfying to round the last turn before the winner crossed the line.
A few last gasp surges from others pushed me from 276 to 280 (or there-abouts), but having started in around 400th, I had a good, hard workout.
I did my first attempt at ADZ this evening, 75.39, my av HR was 150 so will push a bit harder next time. Not sure I'll be doing it much though, I prefer the epic climb, the gradient changes make it more interesting. Perhaps if I was lighter and fitter I'd think differently
Also in the 8pm ToW Stage 3 last night. Set off round the volcano at too high a pace really, due to setting off from the line later than most due to my HRM not being recognised. Gave up on the tech and started to play catchup.
Zwift wasn't telling me what position I was in, or the other riders around me in the ride, so a lot of guess work as to pace. Started the jungle loop with a reasonably fast group, who kept on surging. Probably a good warmup for the climb though.
Started the big hill with 350w in my head, which by turn 10 was 370-380w. Managed to hold pace steady all the way to turn 1 (with the odd surge around a few of the hairpins) with 500m to go I decided to raise the effort and was peaking over 550w for about 200m, before I had to drop back to a sensible pace (slow).
I like the fact there are always people to use as targets to catch on a climb like that. Definitely passed a lot more people on the second half of the climb. Ended up with a AdZ time of 49:13 which was a few minutes faster than my previous best.
Crossed the line, and Zwift decided to show me everyone around, so spent a good part of the descent giving ride-ons due to not being able to on the way up.
Tour of Fire and Ice time was 1:12:18 and ZP has me in 34th place. For a heavy bloke that makes me very happy.
I really should start my RideLondon training, but I have a lot of fun on these events.
Might have done the 8pm ToW and crept in under the first 500 🙁
Nice to hear that 200 dropped out thou.
Oddly enough my average HR was 152 so I think I was pacing it slightly too slow...its a grim thing thou.
I noticed when looking for an event that an STWer Copping was entered onto the 09:15 WBR 1 lap flat reverse in C... So i thought "Yeah, i'll have some of that"..
Sadly i don't think he turned up ! Too late, i was in the pen and ready.
Off we went, not crazy hard, a goood 370-380w saw me in 3rd in C with 1/2 in touch... Sadly, again, we'd been penned way behind the Bs and they were 9s ahead by the time we went over the line and up the first little incline... That's not going to happen. 9 of us in a group and i felt great, through the roller coaster and me and 4 others were getting on with it.... I was going 300w in many places and pushing on at times, little kicks here and there. Over the village sprint we'd got it down to 4 riders.... Rider 4 was soon dumped on the flat after some sustained work by me and a C and a B. Down through the underwater section and flat bit, i'm sitting with them 2 and happy enough, HR at 166 which is OK, onto the kick out of the tunnel and we dumped the B... He was gone... but the other C was strong and hit an aero... i had an aero but was saving it for the line... we were still 1.7km from the finish, so i thought i'd claw him back.... Sadly that's not what happened, he had 3s on me now and i was putting out 380w... push push.... but he was only 0.1w/kg lower than me.... I hit my aero at 900m and i got to within a second or so of him, but we were only 200m from the line, he was up around 6w/g and i wasn't going to close that.
So i rolled over the line for a 7th out of 26 and 2nd in C... Damn... Thought i had that one !
Oh man, i left my legs on AdZ yesterday! The slightest of headwinds on this mornings commute and i felt like i was going backwards.
Hoping to do TdW stage 4 tomorrow at 8am if anyone fancies it.