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Any event that has either AdZ and or Radio Tower is just a NO for me... I'm not dragging my big arse up either of them 🙂
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Yeah, i think i'll save that one for tomorrow (or the end) I'm suffering with some sort of chest/shoulder/back pain thing at the moment that's bloody murder if i take a deep breath. I managed to get stage 4 done last night (about the 6th event to do it that I was signed up to) but it wasn't pleasant.
Ah sod it. I'm going to do the 10am at a fairly sedate pace. Outside isn't looking appealing today, resting, meh, i'll do that one day 🙂
Just a calibration ride for me. Wanted to compare KICKR power with my Assioma UNO. The UNO is single sided pedal, and in Bluetooth mode only sends half the power to Zwift iOS. So KICKR on the shiny new iPhone 8+ (well I thought I’d try it) and UNO on the Garmin. Can just about read the power on the phone, and nothing else!
An up and down to the radio mast, and a look at the stats. Power on the ride was close, but not perfect. But distributions were within 3W for 233 NP. Pleased with the accuracy.
I also calibrated the UNO on the TT bike at Hillingdon, and it reproduced bikecalculator values nicely. It also recorded an NP of 301 W in a race. A real race in which I worked very hard indeed for no rewards.
Id recommend the Assioma UNO to anyone, provided you run Zwift using ANT+ on a laptop, and not Bluetooth. At £400, and given the ease of swapping, trivial in fact, I’m delighted.
"Ah sod it. I’m going to do the 10am at a fairly sedate pace"
Ha ha that's what I said...
Yeah, was i guess slightly sedate, but still hard. Up the climb to the mast i kept the HR below 160bpm which is pretty comfortable for me, but shockingly that saw me go from 247th up to 195th by the top. Down i rolled without pedalling and then on the flat i lost a couple of wheels as i wasn't prepared to push as much at the other guys.
Think i finished 189th in 1hr 44mins.
Long and hard that.
Excellent stuff Weeksy.
I am Carbo loading (with beer).
jk that sounds like a bit of an effort, to say the least. I'm saving stage 5 as a treat for tomorrow morning.
A few hours grace then before you all destroy my time !
Not sure about that weeksy.
Legs are feeling tired today, but according to Stravistix I should be optimal freshness.
Still trying to negotiate a start time.
1:35.01 to beat here Paul which I can't imagine will be much of a problem for you. Judging by other results it looks like I lost 3-4 min in the last 10k or so.
I had also lost 2.5kg when I got on the scales this morning.
<div>weeksy Subscriber</div>
saw me go from 247th up to 195th by the top
skinny get !
did the alpe again. felt like i was working A LOT harder, 4 bloody watts difference, taking the strava segment, ive gone from 1:11:19 to 1:09:31 BUT i changed the bike from the Zwift Aero with 808s to the Trek Emonda with 202's - zwift insider ran some tests, as did GPLama and obvs some setups are quicker,
full geek stuff below, might be useful for someone
ran a comparison on my Quarq v Neo again in the DCRainmaker tool - pic is 60 minute data (i couldn't work out how to chop out the segment)
Run 1 Strava data
[url= https://preview.ibb.co/eCs3Wn/Screen_Shot_2018_04_13_at_21_46_51.pn g" target="_blank">https://preview.ibb.co/eCs3Wn/Screen_Shot_2018_04_13_at_21_46_51.pn g"/> [/img][/url]
Run 2 Strava data
[url= https://preview.ibb.co/n9QtE7/Screen_Shot_2018_04_13_at_22_00_10.pn g" target="_blank">https://preview.ibb.co/n9QtE7/Screen_Shot_2018_04_13_at_22_00_10.pn g"/> [/img][/url]
Run 1 Neo v Quarq
[url= https://image.ibb.co/e4nOE7/Screen_Shot_2018_04_13_at_21_41_20.pn g" target="_blank">https://image.ibb.co/e4nOE7/Screen_Shot_2018_04_13_at_21_41_20.pn g"/> [/img][/url]
Run 2 Neo v Quarq
[url= https://image.ibb.co/jymGZ7/Screen_Shot_2018_04_13_at_21_42_12.pn g" target="_blank">https://image.ibb.co/jymGZ7/Screen_Shot_2018_04_13_at_21_42_12.pn g"/> [/img][/url]
1:20:13 for stage 5 and 16th place I think. That one almost finished me. Went off too fast. Group in front was 1min ahead, and group behind the same time gap. TTed from the Radio Tower to the finish.
Looking forwards to Stage 6, Stage 7 not so much. It's a long time in the saddle in the garage.
Going to eat everything in the house now. Nom, Nom!
Good grief. All this time of uploading and downloading from Garmin and I never realised Todays Plan integrates with Zwift. Just did a pre-race workout, I can now see the next weeks training sessions in the Workouts area and my completed session uploaded and synced with the workout seamlessly. Nice.
Gentle trail ride today
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[url= https://www.flickr.com/photos/152318156@N08/27578057588/ ]2018-04-14_01-44-51[/url] by [url= https://www.flickr.com/photos/152318156@N08/ ]Steve Weeks[/url] - [url= https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.dariogf.flickr2BBcode_lite ]Flickr2BBcode LITE[/url]
Then pub.
I decided to treat my chest infection to 60km race which was 2 laps of road to ruins. I could tell within 15mins i was not functioning 100%, hr was way too high for the effort i was doing. I hung on for nearly a lap but then had to cruise the next lap. I finished 14th overall out of 71 so not too bad.
That's 5 down 2 to go for me on the TdW. It was an easy one for me, which meant keeping HR below 140. All going smoothly about 3/4 of the way down the field, passing a couple on the downs and losing a few spots on the ups, until the radio mast climb. Absolutely horrible, the low HR meant I was down to 4 kph and I lost over a minute to people I went over the top of the Epic KOM with. After that the volcano was a doddle, especially as nearing 2 hours in the saddle I kicked on a bit because my arse was aching a bit! Finally finished after 2:05, with 490W + for the last 250m.
Not really looking forward to stage 7, by my reckoning that is going to be close to 3 hours on the turbo!
Snap
I did 2:05 on the 20pm version, unfortunately had an Indian before which wasn’t the best plan.(although I suppose it’s carb loading 🙂
3 hours on the turbo now the warm weathers arrived dunno I’d like to complete the tour but real cakes an cofee are very alluring compared to virtual.
It wouldn't be the carbs I would need to worry about if I ate a curry before a blast on the turbo. I once went out for a run shortly after a rather fiery red Thai curry and won't be making that mistake again!
I think if I get six stages done I'll convince myself to do stage 7 somehow, though I like the idea of stopping for cake and a coffee halfway!
I did stage 5 yesterday and wasn't going to bury myself. Was in a nice group all the way up to the bottom of the climb, I think we were the second group on the road about 18th-25th or something.
I ended up just doing sweet spot the whole way up the climb with a few kicks round the switchbacks, it went on forever but I was picking people off fairly consistently. I'd made it up to 5th out of 350 odd by the time we got to the bottom of the radio tower. I had an aero pu that wasn't going to be much use anywhere else so dropped that on the little downhill and went flying past the bloke at 55kph and managed to somehow out about 20 seconds into him before settling in to grind it out.
I was 30 seconds in front by the start of the descent and over 90 back on the guy in front. Purgatory is worse than hell I think, I soloed it out to 5k out when I was caught blatantly napping on zone 2. I couldn't really be arsed so just wheel sucked the guy till the end then took 4th in the spirit. So seems to have bumped me to third though. 1:19 in the end that I'm pretty happy with. Also chuffed that I'm actually down to my zwift weight again :p
I'm going to need to pick a film for the pretzel I think.
Really enjoyed Stage 5, I managed to keep really consistent on the climbs and decided to maximise the downhills especially descending from the radio tower.
It was quite interesting how loads of people flew past me up the climb and reduced their effort so significantly on the downhill that any time they had made up was comprehensively lost on the way back down.
Nothing spectacular in terms of position in the event but more than happy with the 278 average watts over the 1 hour and 38 duration.
Stage 6 will be an early morning effort, after completing the AdZ climb on an earlier stage suddenly the radio tower climb doesn't seem so bad!
What's Stage6 route then guys ? I skipped the AdZ stage as i'd only ridden it a few days before, so i'm not getting the full list anyway... but depending on the route i may still do what's left.
Stage 6: Mountain 8 - April 19th or 20th
- Distance: 32 km (20.2 mi) Elevation gain: 682 m (2,236 ft)
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Up the radio tower again but then you're done for the day pretty much!
Weeksy, there are two extra days at the end...
Make-up bonus days: April 28th & 29th
- All Stages available to ride to make up for any missed events
You know some nutter is going to ride the lot in one/two days...
Thanks. 28/29th no use to me as it's the first XC race of the season for me on the 29th, i certainly don't want to be doing AdZ on the 28th as a warm up lol.
Quick DQ in London Flat 2:15
Thought id be slow after being off bike for 2 weeks so entered as a C
Hung onto lead A group until last 1.5km at which point I pretty much ran out of steam.
just after 2 weeks I can feel the fitness has gone a bit
LOL @ C
I'm in C for hilly starting, well now
Well that went about as well as can be expected.
https://www.zwiftpower.com/events.php?zid=55322
1 lap London hilly. Which i've never ridden in that sequence. Started off OK and settled into a decent group. But after a kick up i got dropped along with another fella, who jumped back onto the group with a 6+w/kg effort, i wasn't going to go that deep on it, so hung off and TT'd a bit. I knew Box hill was coming. Along the river, the group behind we catching me on my TT, so i knew i'd have them with me, last part of the river they caught me and i jumped on their wheels and took a little draft.
Down the tunnel and over to Box Hill... I was sitting in 45th, as we hit it i was putting out 3.1-3.3w/kg which on this sort of event was about all i could expect. HR sitting at 173-175 i know i'm on the edge of my limit there before blowing, if i went harder, i wasn't going to make it to the end, so held back about there... I'd lost the wheels in front, apart from 2 guys in the group who were languishing about 10s behind me, funnily enough i was about the same behind the 2 in front of me.
Over the banner at the false top, i was 9s both ways and up the last kick i stuck in 4w/kg and went down Box, I spent a chunk of time at 0w in the aero getting my strength and breath back, looking and checking behind to see the 2 fellas closing but only slightly, every now and again i'd hit the pedals and pick up a km/h or 2. Down to the escalator i had a feather, so hit that at the bottom and stuck in 450-500w over the crest of it and then settled in for the last 2km. Looking back on the list i had 6s to the guys behind, they were both hitting 3.2w/kg average so i had to find 290-300w for the last 2km, which i managed to do. With 700m to go one of them was hitting 6w/kg ! eeeek ! So i stuck in a bit of a shove and out of the saddle my man gets, 45m behind me, 40... 35... Damn, 200m to go and he was 20m behind but we were both putting out about the same power roughly, which meant i was happy with it and held my position with 15m to spare.
It seems to have got me 6th in C, which i can't be unhappy with considering it had a decent hill on the route, not m forte as we know. 260w average i'm happy with. Day off tomorrow as i'm getting closer to XC race now, so the miles are not as important now as the efforts are, so i'll be racing a few now on alternate days until XC day.
Another -4 on CVR LOL... What can you do ... I've given up caring about them, but they're not being good to me now. Since using the Parkwood full time on the Turbo i've lost points on every single race ! Eeeeek.
Anyone having login/App issues ? Trying to see what events are on tonight/later and can't get into the App.
Got into Zwift.com with username and password but that keeps booting me now.
I'm missed that also. a 1:10 Z2 with just music and no visuals at 5:30am, unpleasant.
CVR today, hopefully less of a cluster**** than last week where zwift managed to cock up the start pens.
In prep for pretty much the only Zwift race I do all week i bagged a load of top 10s on the way into work this morning *smugface*
You know some nutter is going to ride the lot in one/two days…
tempting... Only 280 km so about 8.5 hours on the turbo...
I'm thinking the 5:10pm Greater London Flat 2 laps is about the plan for today here... Whilst i'll still probably lose CVR points, i should lose LESS than some of the other layouts 🙂
Need to work on getting off the line and holding the first 2 mins high to get myself into a decent position.
Need to work on getting off the line and holding the first 2 mins high to get myself into a decent position.
Lets be fair, you couldn't get much more XC trainingy than that
Lets be fair, you couldn’t get much more XC trainingy than that
Not really been a massive issue when i've raced XC to be fair. Due to gridding etc i generally end up about 30+ back if not more, so by the time you get off the line, the lead bunch are out the gate and way out into the singletrack, so that aspect is almost already over. I do need to work on sorting that out though and trying to both get higher in the pen along with a bit more get up and go off the line to try and make up some places
While i'm bored then, what's the thoughts on warm up, pre race, how hard, what sort of HR to be hitting off the line, pre minutes etc.
Most times i race i will go into the ride fairly cold. But i'm wondering if that then makes the step from say 75bpm up to 165bpm too hard a thing to do... So my breathing and HR takes time to match up. I'm not sure my legs really need the warming up... but thinking maybe i should hit the start at 145bpm which already puts me in a decent effort and closes the gap i have to make up before hitting my peak. I'll generally race a flat layout at about 163-165 average.
Thoughts ?
Race prep goes like this
Join race at 4:50 mins or whatever is standard
spin away for 4 mins
get off bike switch fan on
spin away again realise I forgotten both water and music, get off bike and sort
back to bike 1min 23s to go - need a wee, just enough time
wee
run back jump on bike 20secs to go drop gear and spin up
10 secs to go wind it up
0 secs 500-600w of pure fat man power
Weeksy, you should have joined me in the EVR cat A race today, it was the slowest race i have ever been in that it was more like a fast warm up. I had no intention of racing and i didnt, my avg hr was only 151,avg 227w and 2.9w/kg and i finished 4th! Granted there were only 14 of us at the start but everyone must have decided it was a recovery ride today as it was so slow, perfect for me today.
It seems the number of users is starting to drop now the weather is a bit more friendly. Lots of outdoor riding for me this week so today might be my only zwift day this week.
Oooooof that killed me !
I blame Tiger/Magnetodog ! Went off at a decent pace but was sitting firmly in group 2 after 2km or so, we were 7-8s behind the A and fast B bunch and slowly losing ground. Over the line we'd picked up a couple of dropped riders... Next thing i saw Magnetodog coming back to our group.... As we flew past him he pinned it up in the 6w/kg bracket to hold the group and he was in... I'm not sure exactly but i think there was 15+ riders in the group along with us 2. He jumped off the front a few times and i was SO tempted to hit it, but i knew from my HR that i was bordering on death, so best to hang in the group. Under the pass, up the other side i hit high HRs of 178bpm on the first full lap, especially on the false flat at 2-3% after it ... Along to the line i recovered and watched the Dog bloke nail it over the line, i think he was just having fun really in his comfort zone... We carried on, it's a long bloody lap that's for sure, but we plodded and i was happily in there, sitting in the bunch. Right up until the underpass, where i hit my feather, sticking up 4.8w/kg but getting killed on the hill and the after false flat... I just managed to hold the wheels of the guys in front, but as we were coming down the slight slope, i was trying to recover and lost them ! ARRRGGGHHH. On the next flat about 1.2km from home i nailed it and went from 2s behind my bunch to sitting back in them, but only just... right on the back. Trying to move forward but i'm now showing 181bpm... Gulp, that's me MAXED out ! i very very rarely manage 182 in cycling... But i was back on... Sadly, a few of them were 5+ and i was 4 or so... So i lost out fairly badly in the sprint for the line. I'll be interested to get Tigers write up as i swear he was waiting for me and trying to lead me out... If you were, sorry buddy, that's all she wrote !
Averaged 279w and 171bpm, which are both BIG numbers for me...
For info, i did a 40 min warm up at about 140w, with a few hard efforts in there and started the race about 140bpm.
Yeah sorry couldn’t type as my fan packed up and I was dripping more water than the Hoover dam so my mobile wasn’t responding to touch.
I tried to hold A group but couldn’t and saw your name not far behind and that was all the excuse I needed to back off ang join you guys.
Soon realised that group 2 was a tough group and I was far too hot.
i had no interest in going off the front I was just trying to get the group to control the speed a little. We had a massive gap on the next group and were happily mopping up riders off the back of G1 but it was relentless!
But yeah tried a couple of 2ups mainly at the end to bridge gap to group and in the sprint finish. If I could type I could have said 👍😀
end result is really enjoyed that, proper hard work and my heart rate was off the chart!!! (So not in comfort zone)
edit: falling asleep now 😳
edit edit: really good riding with fellow STW! We should sort a group ride/race 👍
I'll be streaming my race at 10pm on cycle view, you get extra league point on CVR for streaming the race and my ugly mug, sweating.
There's normally a live stream in the Facebook page with commentary, they're bloody partisan though.
Watching
Well i picked up a Silver, along with +7 CVR points... Which is the first for 6 weeks i've gained in a race... I'm sitting in Division 5 on CVR now.
My power was my best ever for a race of this distance, which considering i'm on the inappropriate 29er, i'm more than happy with. Hopefully that will now translate to the trails as the weather seems to have turned. I won't find out for a little while though. Wed/Thr are rest days then i have a 5-6 hour epic planned for Friday as i've taken the day off for the weather 🙂 But won't be hard efforts in there, just gentle ones but a decent time and distance ride planned.