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You ever ridden a mountain bike with a motorbike racer?
I was a motorbike racer 😉 So were most of my mates...
But no, not proper ones 🙂
180 average and 370w .... **** !
Scaled - great write up but not as great as those stats. That is very impressive and many leagues above me, your ftp is just about my best 5 min power on a good day with a tailwind. Its safe to say that when i join cat A i will be bottom of the pile but the only way is up.
[url= https://www.procyclingstats.com/rider/edmund-bradbury ]Edmund Bradbury[/url]. He's a bit quick.
Thanks njee20, i knew i recognised the name. No shame in being beaten by 45s then (we wont mention he was taking phone calls mid race and warming up, he was probably tucking in to a full english as well). He only beat me coz he is 20 years younger than me 😉
@weeksy - They look like they were racing? 😆
When I was heading to hillingdon in full kit on my racing bike I was drafting boris bikers, grannies, buses and got a large tow from a e-biker for a few miles.
@scaled - Those numbers are fantastic, chapeau. Out of curiosity what setup are you using for power, trainer or pm?
Apologies for the massive write up for such a small race!
First race for a while and first race on the low carb high fat diet, the EVR race (Cat D), eight laps of the volcano.The start pen seemed unusually quiet, though I fairness there were only four D’s. Do they pen people in different pens, as I launched off the line I was at well towards the front, but within a few metres a swarm of faster riders flew in from the right hand side?
One of the D’s (a Portuguese chap) shot off like a scalded cat, clinging to the coat tails of the B/C group, no doubt, whilst I found myself in TT mode. I could see the other two D’s just behind but took the decision not to wait for them and tried to get into a rhythm putting out around 2.1 – 2.2 W/kg. Once we hit the volcano I notice one of the Ds is catching me quite quickly, pushing 2.7 w/kg. When I check on zwiftpower later he’s only around 10kg lighter than me so latching on was always always going to be tricky and that proved to be the case. That definitely left me in TT mode so it was head down and push on. Getting out of the saddle for the small climbs showed I have absolutely no peak power today (probably diet related) so I just try and keep it steady. Over the next 2/3 laps the D who had lead from the start drifted back to me and then sat firmly on my wheel, I had a feather and so used it on the climb to the finish line. The Portuguese rider stayed with me up the climb, but drifted off when I kept the power high up the drag to the line, ha 2<sup>nd</sup> position!
About 2/3 distance and a large pack of A’s and a couple of B’s came flying past. As the second group (B/C) starts to catch up I notice they are dragging the Portuguese bloke with them, bang, a couple of minutes later and he’s 10 seconds in front, WTF!
OK, head down and same again, steady power and no silly sprinting (each one was taking longer and longer to recover from). Towards the end of lap 7 and I get back, this time I don’t give him the chance to sit on my wheel and there’s soon a comfortable 10-15 seconds between us. That gap is maintained for the final lap, though he looks to make some gains up the finish hill (oh no you don’t!) and I flop over the line second in D.
On the whole I’m really pleased with that, didn’t explode, got an FTP increase from 219 to 227, all my laps were between 7:13 and 7:30, and neither of the last two were the slowest. The slightly more distressing part was the 3 minutes between myself and the C group/first D and the shambolic lack of any top end. I’m hoping that comes back over the next few weeks. Checking zwiftpower later, the first guy in D put out exactly 2.4 W/kg and an average power of 234W.
Matt
Just done stage 5 of amgen tour and out of 229 i managed to finish 13th. I could have finished higher but on the big climb either my network or zwift had issues and everyone disappeared for about 3 mins. I was towards the front but by the time they all came back i was in 30th but at least i was back in the race. I quite like these stages as the fields are huge so you can ride and have a bit of banter with others.
me too, but 5 min slower and 75th place. Which isnt bad for a lump of lard
p.s Matt, hell of a report!
Second day at race school for me. Lesson 1 don't do all the work pulling a group back together when you don't know the course. Did the EVR Europe race on Watopia figure 8 track ( https://www.zwiftpower.com/events.php?zid=60931). Seemed to be sticking in a nice big bunch, or so I thought till the first climb when a group split off the front. I spent the next 15k trying to get the other two riders I'd ended up with too help reel in those who fell of the leading group. We had picked up 2 or 3 riders before hitting the 6% climb. Suddenly a couple of my companions lit the power up and disappeared. I could generate enough power but not yet keep it up. They very rapidly disappeared 30s down the road. I ended up riding with one other guy to the end. Afraid at this point I went lazy and mostly drafted him before blasting past in the last two hundred meters. FTP was up again though I had to wait five minutes before attempting to walk downstairs. Despite a new phone the companion app dropped out several times so a ant + HRM is on the shopping list (anyone used the decathlon geonaught one?).
I was so CLOSE. Just done last stage of Amgen tour and i was with the lead bunch but hanging on for the last mile. I was in for the bunch sprint so shut my eyes and with only a bit left in my legs hit the pedals. I looked up with 100 meters to go and i was in 1st but my legs gave out and i got pipped at the line by 3 others, i finished fourth out of 160 with avg of 300w for the race, so bloody close.
Actually i finished 5th,only 0.83s behind winner
Not a race report. Speaking to a person today that works for a UK cycle clothing distributor. He said that sales of winter cycle clothing have been lower than previous years ... and it’s been attributed to Zwift; less people bothering to go out during the wet/cold winter months and choosing to Zwift instead.
Another friend said that he is not organising track sessions this Autumn/winter; instead looking to arrange regular Zwift events ... Zwift still quite new, so is this the way things are going?
is wet winter riding a thing of the past??
is wet winter riding a thing of the past??
It is in my world yes.
If I gave up wet winter rides I'd only ride outdoors for 3 months a year.
I keep running into other Cat D's who can hit the 2.4W/kg limit bang on the nose!
Two laps of London hilly reverse tonight, some Italian chap puts 40 seconds into me on the first time up Fox Hill, but I manage to drag it all back by horseguards and stretch out to 35 seconds by the bottom of the climb second time round. That's got to have given me a chance!
Nothing doing, this bloke from Bury was not flying up the hills. Although I only lost 9 seconds on the first time up, my opposition took 11 seconds off his first lap time and beat me by 80 seconds. Try as I could on the way back down I could only close to 45 seconds. Ah well, another increase in ftp, for consolation.
Matt
I was planning to do that race till a damn windows update took 30 minutes to apply!
You're getting better all the time though mate, it's only a matter of time 🙂 PAtience and hard work will see you right 🙂
I've been outdoors in this weather so Zwift hasn't had a look in
Ouch, that hurt.... Although as always, only right at the end.
https://www.zwiftpower.com/events.php?zid=61192
6 laps of Classique. That's LONG for me these days, i generally only do short races now. But this one fitted my timeframe so i jumped on it.
Pace was decent, without being insane. If i commentated on our race it would be quite boring.. We had a group of about 25, then 23, 21, 20, each time with 1-2 riders getting dumped at the top of Horseguards Hill. I was right there until about 1.5km to go. I stayed in there up Horseguards, but was just about losing the front of the group, but a couple of guys came back past me who'd lost the wheel on the hill and dragged me back to the group.
Sadly though as we took the last hairpin and down to the funny gazebo thing, i lost the wheels and that was the end of things mostly. They pulled away by 1, 2, 3.... 4, 5....GRRRRRR
I then bimbled the last 800-900m on my own.
Two laps of London flat for me last night; https://www.zwiftpower.com/events.php?zid=61284 . Did not go well! Got dropped by the lead group around the start of lap 1. Tried to go alone for the next 6-7k before realising I wasn't going to make the ned doing that. Slowed up a bit to allow the group of two that were 25s back to catch up and then tried to stay with them. That was going fine till around 3/4 of the way through when one tried to get away. The resulting power spikes I put in to keep up shifted the turbo forward far enough that I pulled the power plug out of the wall! Arrghh, Lost the best part of 2 minutes fixing it and getting going again byt which time the the next group was only 20s behind. I was knackered by now, gave up trying to keep them behind after about 1k and instead opt to stay on their wheels. One sprinted early though I was confident I could out power them so let them go as as too knackered for that effort. Put in a big spike with about 300m to go and dropped the rest of the group. Just didn't catch the early sprinter though and finished ever so slightly behind them.
On the plus side the decathlon Ant+ HRM has sorted the HRM dropouts (which was especially good as the companion app would not connect at all last night). FTP up again.
Have noticed that my power graphs jump all over the place compared to others that are much flatter. Poor technique??
Two laps of London Flat for the fatties tonight for me as I've not been out on the bike for a couple of days, I was sceptical what I'd be like as although I've been riding I've very little Vo2 Max stuff and it's all been base miles and I've put a couple of kilos of pure chub on.
With this in mind I ramped down and entered as a Cat 'C' anyway got onto the lead group and was happy hanging with the 'B's and one 'A' who soon was off the front and just pulling out time (turns out he's some Danish Elite rider that rides for a team)
So I just hung with the lead pack for 2 laps, put a little dig in to break it up and soon it we'd snapped the elastic on some of the pack and it was 5 of us out in front.
Bit of cat and mouse and then a sprint down The Mall, I thought I'd got 3rd overall but looks like it got nicked by less than a gnats nadger pube. Oh well 4th overall but I'll be DQ'd for being a big fat sandbagger 🙂
Zwiftpower doesn't seem to be updating
No more CVR rankings, just as I was heading back to Elite. Website says it will be back once the GDPR stuff is sorted.
Whats that all about bigfoot?
Is the cvr rankings the one you now see at the top of the zwiftpower page when you have logged in? My ranking says i am 58th in B.
i won a gold today but it was a pretty small field. It was a bunch sprint so i was quite surprised i won that given my max was only 800w.
my wahoo cadence sensor doesnt seem to be registering correctly on zwift, keeps saying i am doing over 150rpm. Logged a called with zwift as it seems to work perfectly fine when out with my elemnt. Anyone else having trouble?
http://www.cycligentrankings.com/
The rankings on zwiftpower came after the cvr ones, although I never really understood the cvr points after I got -1 for finishing second in the A's.
"my wahoo cadence sensor doesnt seem to be registering correctly on zwift, keeps saying i am doing over 150rpm. Logged a called with zwift as it seems to work perfectly fine when out with my elemnt. Anyone else having trouble?"
Might be a coincidence but I did a couple of laps around greater London yesterday including the Mall sprint section twice. First time I cruised through at roughly 170w in about 15 sec. Second time I cranked it up and was hitting about 420w by the end and was slower!
My overall distance and time seemed about right though. My cadence was what I would have expected although I have had the odd crazy reading in the past.
Ate too many Tunnocks Wafers and felt guilty so jumped on the Watopia lap 5 mins late.
Bit of bantz as I tried to haul my virtual fat avatar up to the radio mast.
After an hour of sweating like a ....... in a ........... I Think I made a dent into #wafergate
oh and wasn’t sandbagging this one as I was late could only join as a C or D no idea why? But as there was a massive climb C worked
Tiger, was that the KISS race? ( https://www.zwiftpower.com/events.php?zid=61666). I also did that one but in B. First time up to the mast for me. Damn that was hard! First mid field finish though (had some frustration with mother decline to work out). Seems I'm ok at climbing as I overtook a fair number of riders on the way up. New peak power in the sprit and FTP up again.
Yep KISS race I assume I was / you were the other STW in there 👍😀
I was yes 👍
Great average w/kg! I reckon if we got organised a Team STW race working together as a team could be fun! Would have to be flat though 🙂
Have noticed that my power graphs jump all over the place compared to others that are much flatter. Poor technique??
Or intermittent tyre slippage. Or comparing your power graphs to folks using, say, Wahoo Kickrs with power smoothing enabled - use a Kickr on ERG mode with Sufferfest for example, and you get weird, near perfect power output that's clearly totally unrealistic.
ZwiftPower is down till 1st June.
Will our results still stand??
Well we can all claim gold's while its down :D.
It seems the world has fallen out of Zwift racing at the moment. How much of that is down to the GDPR issues for Zwiftpower and Zwiftrankings and both platforms being down i don't know or how much is down to it being summer.
I've done 5 races in the last week and i think the biggest field i got was 50. I'm looking for todays races and can't find any with more than 9 riders ! usually you've got a few 20+ by this stage of the day.
Results last week were decent enough for me, but i'm still not hitting the power and performances i could do on the Isaac and at my peak.... but i'm doing my best. Usual problem of not having what it takes in the last seconds. Yesterdays was Volcano flat and i went at 1.9km to go coming down the snakey bit.... Only reason was because i had an aero so thought i'd put it to use.... Got a 4s lead but the all pulled me back on the kick and i still finished in the exact same position i would have if i'd not gone 😀 Had to try though.
I see we're getting 'part' of the Innsbruck World Champs course soon too. Could be interesting. Hopefully better than Richmond.
Right, i'm back, and frankly it's a bit of a rude awakening, I was dead last in the CVR postseason race last night.
I was all good, well, mostly, right up until the first climb where it all went horribly wrong, i couldn't get up the bloody hill. What happened? I'd gone out of got myself a Direto over the weekend, not had a chance to try it out before the race other that to actually build the thing and do 2.8km to try and sort out the rocking from my apparently not-so-flat garage floor. My god, it was like trying to ride up a wall, 2% gradients were killing me. All i can think of is that my winters worth of turbo training has left me with a fairly decent power but in such a small envelope of cadence that i'm buggered outside of that band.
The other factor is obviously that the old turbo was over reading something chronic 😀 I'm pretty much going to be starting again, I can't even trust that the old one was consistent with itself, i'm 99% sure that the warmer it got the more power it reported. I'll do an FTP test once i'm feeling less shagged (2.5 week old baby, so not much sleep!)
Oh.... that's most interesting, you were our A god ! What are we going to do in the big events now without you.
We'll need to get Crosshair and NathB racing again.
I'm debating whether i jump on the 12:15 in a short while. 6 laps of Volcano CCW. It's a course i like, but the kick to the line doesn't exactly suit me. 🙂
I noticed on yesterdays race that the B's got a massive jump as their starting gate was WAY ahead of the Cs, so it's tempting to enter B.... .but the Bs are fast fellas as we know. LOL. Whilst i may be able to hang with the odd B.... it's not many of them
I've been doing a few races.
Got my first B medal (according to zwift end of race score board). Four laps of Watopia Hilly. The hill seems to be pretty effective at breaking the bunch up. The A's and a couple of B's disappeared up that on lap one and I again ended up in a no-mans land between the front the the bulk with another rider. By the time we got to the top the lead group had split again and on the downhill we caught an A and a B. This group split and recombined a few times over the next two laps (caused by me on the big as I foudn it relatively easy to pull away at that point). Going into lap four I went for it up the hill however one other B had a bit more in the legs and was 10 seconds ahead by the top. I tried to real them in but nearly blew up doing it. Those behind were 30 seconds back now so I settled in to try and not let the gap ahead grow too much. It stayed this way to the end. Another nice FTP increase, up to 305 now!
I seem to be OK doing 55-70rpm in a high gear but struggle with a higher cadence (HR shoots up). Need to work on that I think as currently have to get out of the saddle to climb at a decent rate. Also running out of gears for that cadence (bike fitted with compact double).
@scaled My directo rocks a bit too on carpet. I actually managed to move it far enough in one race that I pulled the plug out of the wall!
All i can think of is that my winters worth of turbo training has left me with a fairly decent power but in such a small envelope of cadence that i’m buggered outside of that band.
Was your old trainer controllable? ie: did it ramp up the resistance when you hit a hill or was resistance simply constant with your avatar just slowing down with progress. The hill feeling like a hill makes a whole lot of difference.
I was due a rest today, but saw a decent 6 lapper of volcano.
Went off hard and was with the A/B's in a group of 27... did about 9km with them before being dumped, my target/plan was to hang with them as long as possible and see where it led. The problem as always came on the kickers, they all throw down 6w/kg due to weight and whilst i can get 4.5 i can't get 6 when i'm pushing hard.
As it was still nevr going to make it onto Zwiftpower or Zwiftrankings i was happy to go all in for a short effort and then bail. The next guy behind was 40s and then a bunch at 55s which made me think "nah, can't be bothered" so jumped off..
I did set a PR of 5:22 for the volcano lap, which was 30s ahead of my best ever, along with 295w average. I couldn't have maintained that for the distance though i openly admit.
Nixie, 55-70rpm ?? Wow, that's REALLY low in my world. I average 90-97 generally in a race... I wonder what everyone else is doing
I have been doing some racing of late, in fact i had an overall victory last week. Sadly there were only 10 in the race and only one A rider but i beat them all by over 20 seconds.
i did a race yesterday and was in the bunch sprint with the A group but was towards the back. Pace was really high and i ended up with a race avg 284w.
Today though i did stage 5 castelli ride with very tired legs and to compound that my network died about 2 mins in to the race so abandoned. Did the next one an hour later but by that time i had been warming up for over an hour so wasnt expecting much. 92 people took part and incredibly i finished 10th and increased my ftp to 312w. It was a surprising result considering all the faffing about at the start and makes me wonder what my ftp might be with fresh legs.
There was no way i could consider sticking with you when i joined !
Nixie, 55-70rpm ?? Wow, that’s REALLY low in my world. I average 90-97 generally in a race… I wonder what everyone else is doing
I've never been a proper roadie so was wondering if this came from MTB pedalling style. If I tried 90-97 I think my heart rate just would jump up and on past faster attempts it feels like my legs are in an uncontrolled spin (I start getting a stuttering effect as I'm not smooth). Do need to speed it up though as I can feel I'm pushing the muscles quite hard.