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My cadence tends to average about 85 which i find comfortable for the pace i ride at in a race but outdoor riding it does seem to be much higher than that.
Until getting my Direto and then later this year getting a crank power meter for outdoor use, my natural cadence was ~95rpm.
But both power meters told me I produced more power in the 70-80rpm ballpark, so that's now my PB-chasing cadence zone climbing Hampshire's cat3 and cat4 hills this year, I've got very few left to have a good go at where I've not improved from last year's best attempts.
We’ll need to get Crosshair and NathB racing again.
For the first time since Nov 2015, I’ve stopped my Zwift subscription. Fairly sure I’ll restart in the winter but I can't bring myself to ride indoors at the moment. Even my TR intervals get done outdoors.
My SNAP had to go back again too (after 18 months or so and a lot of use) as the roller bearing has gone.
I’m hoping I get a Kickr Climb compatible replacement 🤞🏻🤞🏻
I need to get used to this new turbo so thought what the hell and entered the WBR 3 sisters. Entered as a B as i'm having a crisis of wattage and reset my FTP on everything till i get some better numbers.
900M of climbing and a trip up the radio tower should see what the old legs are capable of, usual array of excuses, skin full of beer last night, bugger all sleep thanks to the new baby and toddler and i've been a generally grumpy bastard cos i can't get out to ride in the sunshine.
It wasn't the biggest of fields, 8 A's i think on the start line and i spent a fair bit of time on the front and tried a few different ways of getting up the ramps and hills. It's much more realistic, if i go to stomp up a ramp and misjudge it and dont make it over the crest i pay for it massively, probably more so in the game for some reason, getting back to speed takes more of an effort and there is a probably 1 second lag between the on screen gradient changes and the turbo kicking it in, why it can't sync that up I don't know. I'm wondering if i need to get a USB extension lead for this one, there's a fair bit of electrical stuff going on in my garage now!
Came in 3rd in the race with a new FTP of 294 and managed 3.7q/kg for 84:33 round the 3 sisters. I should probably do a proper FTP test at some point and pick one of these new fangled training plans.
seems the world is not all WOE then 🙂
294 is a cracking number.
I was going to do the three sisters last night but wimped out and did the KISS two laps of Volcano climb instead. Same distance but less height 😁. I mostly cruised around trying to keep my HR I'm the 140s or less and legs spinning at 80 or over. Went ok though got outsprinted by a sandbagging 'C'.
Saturday night was better. Did a short race on volcano KOM. Not a massive field, just three As, two of which disappeared. The other A and us Bs were in a group till around 3.5km to go. I somehow got a small gap at this pipoi and decided to go all in. Went flat out to the top and ended up with quite a big gap. I think that was my first class win, or was according to the in game score board. FTP up to 308 now.
Scaled, I've noticed that slight lag on gradient changes, enough to be noticeable but not enough to be annoying.
Well done on the win Nixie 🙂
Thank you 😁. Shame still no zwiftpower to record it.
Yeah, I'm missing zwiftpower as well, since I usually have to lie down on the floor for five minutes at the end of a race and miss the Zwift breakdown of the results.
Did the Kiss First Base D race on Monday. I thought it would be a dozen riders battling it out as it was just two laps of London flat. Not a chance, flag goes and off they sprint like scalded cats, head down I try and hang on but there's no way I'm holding 300W for more than 30 seconds! And...........that was how it stayed, the leader finished 8 minutes ahead, on his own, not really sure what the point of the race was for him. I was about 7/8 over the line, after a great ride/battle with a guy called 'Keto Carnivore'. I saved a feather for the small ramp after the underpass and then turned myself inside out to the line. Best bit was an ftp increase to 237 from 232, if I lose any more weight on the chub club I'll be in danger of having to race C!
Thanks for the Ride On Weeksy, came at a good time!
Matt
Anyone on tonight? Thinking of doing one of the races around 8.
I don't know if the current results going round are related to ZP and CVR not being working, but yes, there's a few (lots of) riders battering the Cat limits in the races i'm seeing, more so than i'd usually expect to see. Yesterday i ended up racing twice as my Snap started throwing out random power, from 0 up to 1250w... neither of which i was doing at the time. I think it was down to incorrect tension on the adjuster as it worked again in the next race.
Yesterdays race i ended up doing was Aussie Crit series and it was pretty hard. I bailed on lap 5/6 as i'd done too much earlier... but there was a cracking group of 20+ out there, all going at a decent clip and a few guys flying along at around 4w/kg in B pushing us all on hard at times.
Usual story of me finding the H-G hill kick VERY hard though, it just seems a LOT easier for other people to hit 5+w/kg than it seems to be for me... But i hung in there on all the laps until i bailed.
The lack of ZP means though that bailing is now more of an option as there's no consequences to it, even though they're just silly ranking points, they matter.. So the sooner it all come back, the better IMO.
If i'm going to race today it will be 9:15am i'm afraid Nixie.
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
Today, i can't even get a power output out of the Snap... 0 that's all it shows. Tried multiple Android devices, multiple laptops too... Nothing, nada.... Dead as... .well..... something that's dead.
🙁
Ouch !
If you can be arsed collecting from Romsey you can borrow my drivo while you get it sorted
(although "losing" my indoor option would obviously guarantee 40 days of rain for everyone in southern England - that's your risk !)
Awwww thanks mate. I'm ok though, i'll just scoot outside anyway. Waiting for Wahoo support to tell me a plan, but they're on US time of course so slightly complex. But hopefully they'll give me an RMA etc and get it back to Evans.
Well given all the outdoor miles i have done lately on pretty hilly routes i thought i would test my new deluded vision of being a mountain goat (fat goat) and try a double lap of greater london loop. I was so deluded that i thought it might be fun to do large stretches of box hill out of the saddle. I hadnt even got to box hill yet and i was hanging on to the back of the A group and blowing hard. Box hill arrived so closed my eyes, didnt bother getting out of the saddle and tried to maintan 400w all the way up. Not sure if i managed it but got up in 6:47 which is my best time in a race. Most of the A’s went up over 20s faster than that so had to solo the ne t lap which wasnt fun at all. I was leading B but way behind the A’s.
I spent an hour messing about with my laptop and Zwift and eventually got it working. Mrs Weeksy was updating our Garmin Sat Nav the other day and messing with Garmin Express on my laptop, that conflicts with Zwift. But when i removed G/E it screwed up the Ant+ drivers too and i couldn't get it to even see my ant+ dongle.
Once i'd got that done i had a working Zwift after an uninstall and re-install of Zwift itself.
It was too late then to get a race i fancied but the 15:35 was a shortish flatish race but a TT due to my avatar and weight being big, i suit a draft not a TT. But in for a penny in for a pound as they say.
I went off well and was leading C.... 10th out of 25 on the road. I had 4 Bs behind me too. I was sticking to about 305w approx which is pretty strong for me ! As the race progressed i was caught by 1 guy but passed 3 others... So was sitting in 8th overall.... I was trying my hardest to maintain around 300w, but every now and again i'd drop below into the 250s and have to recover my head and kick on again. I wasn't sure on which gear, the smaller cog was giving me 80rpm, but the power was good.. 1 click up the box was 95rpm but felt like my heart rate was climbing more.. So i settled on bottom click for anything slightly down or 1% incline, 2% or over was a click lighter. That seemed to work.
Coming into the last 4km i had a guy on my wheel, he'd put out 4+ and then down to 2.... then up, then down... I think he was just trying to get the power in but the legs/heart wasn't playing, he passed me, i passed him, and again and again. With 1.5km to go though i broke him and pulled away, 2s, 3s, 6s, 11s.... I was over a minute ahead of the next C riders and no-one else was closing. But i tried to keep putting the power in..
I rolled over the line a mess... destroyed. Surely i'd increased my FTP which had been stuck this year on 275w... YES !... Oh.... 278w..... all that for a 3w increase LOL.
I enjoyed the ride, it was full on effort, heart race creeping, creeping.... but i enjoy pack racing more really... But at times it's frustrating trying to break a bunch... in the TT, it's just you and your pedals... get on with.
Sadly, Zwiftpower is still dead... but hey ho...
Glad you got it working again. With that ftp your going to be in B soon surely?
Zwiftpower missing is also making it hard to pick a race based in distance (given that quite a few don't include that vital bit of info on the event list).
Nah Nixie. I can mix it in B on some shorter flat races, but anything with a hill and my 89kg is destroying any chance I have of seeing a B. When I was riding on a roadie I wasn't a bad B. Now I'm on the 29er full time I'm not quite as fast. It would be slightly interesting to try a road bike again and see if I improve power with a better riding position, but I'm enjoying the 29er.
AHH I'm being silly, was comparing FTPs without taking weight into account (I'm 80kg and even that is hard work up the hills).
I did the EVR two laps of Greater London this evening. Mixed with the As group till Box Hill on lap one. They then disappeared along with two Bs. Me and one other B ended up together at the top and then picked up a straggling A (TBH they waited for us). Just before the ramp on lap two the A disappeared, just couldn't match their power. I pulled out 30s on the other B up Box hill on lap two which just left holding a reasonably high power output for the 5k to the end. Didn't even need to sprint. Finished third in B I think. I spent a lot of this race using lower gearsbamd higher cadence. Managed most of it over 80RPM including both big climbs. Also working on smoothness as I'm very lumpy.
Good work Nixie 🙂 nice one.
Great effort Nixie, that second climb of box hill is tough if you have gone hard on the first.
Weeksy - glad you are up and running but that sounds like a ball ache if you are going to have to do that after every garmin update.
rest day today, done 120 miles in the last 3 days with over 7000ft of climbing.
I will wait and see Blader, i'm not convinced both things are completely related. When i was getting 0 power rating, the laptop was working fine and happy. So whether there's still an issue with Turbo i don't know.
I've got a case open in Wahoo and Evans should i need it for warranty anyway... So we'll see.
I was planning a rest day today... but it's been drizzling outside so currently no KTM riding.. So it's generally either/or... If i'm not riding the KTM, i'm riding the turbo/outdoors. But if i do ride, will be a 150w effort and cruising for an hour.
1 race in the last 2 months for me, I may as well cancel the sub in truth. The draw of outside is too strong at the moment, running is I'm short on time, the bike if I have time spare.
Re. cadence, there are some proper spinners on here I see. 75rpm is normal for me on the road, just over 80 in Zwift.
I'm in for the wbr 11:20 short and classique 3 lapper today
Thanks both. Bizarrely I thought I'd gone harder on the second Box hill climb but actually was two seconds slower! Think I'm going to try a three sisters race when we are back in Watopia!
Out for a ride IRL today, do wish I had more time to escape outdoors however I'm definitely noticing an improvement in my real riding from using zwift (better fitness).
Bleeuuurrrgghhh i was rubbish today. LOL.
257w average, could have gone a bit harder, but was no point as the group was impossible for me to split. I did try at the start of lap 3 and got a 4s lead on them, but i'd have had to maintain 340w to hold it i rekon... No way that was happening today, so settled back in.... then got destroyed in the sprint as usual 😀
Sprints, urggh, I've been going easy on those since I made myself sick a few weeks ago!
@weeksy - "We’ll need to get Crosshair and NathB racing again."
Think I may restart, getting married in 4 weeks or so and dare not risk another Hillingdon crit 😆
@scaled - kind of saw that coming sorry! I guess it's hard to benchmark if you don't race road bikes outside too?
(Congrats on the baby)
It does show you can't take zwift racing results seriously unfortunately, it'll always be a game/motivational tool not a sim.
General update from me:
- Swapped the Tacx Vortex for a Elite Direto - much quieter and feels much nicer on the bike too, both feel and general position (was never convinced the block riser was the right height) plus I can move my arms left and right to turn 🙂
- I did a free trial with trainerroad - and wow I've never experience pain like this before, it's brilliant!! I started in the speciality phase skipping all the base so it threw me right in at the deep end! I'll be using this to train with and zwift to log miles as Zwifts plans look lacklustre in comparison!
- My FTP is up to 335w (4.8w/kg) - which I'm incredibly happy with as it's off 0-6 hours of riding a week since end of Feb after 2+ months off the bike. My weight is fluctuating between 68-72kg as my diet is all over the place. It seems coming off a keto diet has boosted my cycling tenfold, but clearly it's done some remarkable stuff in regards to my ability to fat burn on the bike. Will be returning to the diet in base phases of cycling for sure.
Three laps of Volcano circuit for me last night. Not a huge amount happened till near the end. Lead group stuck together with no serious attempts to break away. I lost 30s on the lead group at around the 6k mark. Managed to get back to 3s down but couldnt close the final gap. Ended up one minute off the first finisher. Third placed B I think and sixth overall. I did then manage to grab both the bridge sprint jerseys for some light relief.
kind of saw that coming sorry! I guess it’s hard to benchmark if you don’t race road bikes outside too?
No need to apologise mate, in just about every post I said i was doubting the numbers so suspected it was coming too!
I'm really struggling for time at the moment, having to do the nursery run has stopped my extended commutes (other than the one where we go down the canal for a mile so he can see the boats and the geese). I had all my kit, inc. laptop, water bottle and cycling kit laid out by the front door ready to hit the garage at 0530 so I could get an hour in but nope, 2 of the 3 kids were up and about by 0545. By the time it gets to 8ish when the kids are in bed again i'm bloody knackered.
On the plus side, I did finally get out on the mountain bike 😀
Feel your pain with children cutting into bike time. That's the reason I'm using zwift at all and even then I've missed lots of rides I wanted to do when they didn't go to bed quietly. Joys of young children! Good thing the monsters are also entertaining :D.
After 8pm is Daddy time in the garage for me. It makes the PRL100 workouts that last 2hrs really late.
I managed to exceed my target weight of 90kg (I'm 192cm tall), unfortunately it was not achieved by hard work or dieting. Food Poisoning is not a pleasant way to lose 4kg in 2 days. For the rest of the week my body was using it's reserves for fuel. Dropped down to 88.5kg and a week and a half later I am back to 90kg, and trying to maintain this.
For the first time in 20 years I can fit comfortably into 34 inch waist jeans.
Just realised that the workout plan I was following (PRL100 one where they work out the timings) finishes 1 week after the event. That's clever, that is. Back to the workouts that I select myself, which are harder anyway.
Had a ride with weeksy on zwift so just for a bit of fun we had a sprint to the finish line. It was a pretty close contest but what struck me was that even in top gear and spinning very very fast (not sure you could spin much faster) it only registered a max output of 885w. How is it possible to have a 1200w+ sprint? Only way i can see it happening is either using bigger gears (i run a compact) or my set up is wholly inaccurate when giving it some berries (this is a distinct possibility).
Weeksy - thanks for sprint sessions,not much in those. I didnt manage the race as i lost all network so thank goodness i did those sprints with you. In a fit of anger i deleted our ride but have managed to recover it and load it in to strava. I managed 885w max, what did you do?
it only registered a max output of 885w. How is it possible to have a 1200w+ sprint?
Trainers have a maximum power output, a Kickr will record up to 2000 watts, a Kickr Snap will allow up to 1500 watts, a Tacx Satori tops out at 950 watts, so it may be that your trainer simply won't register above a certain level.
In sprint 1 where i led you out, you were showing 11.3w/kg when you passed me.
In sprint 2 I was hitting 743w. That's about my limit. I was maxed out in gears at 112rpm.
My trainer has a limit of 800w so is my 885w just a guess by the trainer or zwift. Could this be an excuse to upgrade my tacx, i think it might. I am clearly a powerful fat middle aged man who can go beyond smart tech, thats seems like a new opening statement for my CV.
weeksy - my cadence was showing as 130 but i think once i go berserk it becomes very inaccurate.
Did 6 lap race on classique course today and managed to stay with the A group all the way to the end but it was tough. I finished at the back of the bunch sprint but managed to avg 28.1mph and 285w avg. The figures that really stood out were for Horseguards hill in which i had to go up it at over 500w for every lap just to stay in touch, I even had to do a pr (avg 539w) on lap 5 just to stay in the bunch, it was a very quick A group today.
Usual story today, 1 lap London greater hilly.
Cruised along in bunch of B and Cs for the first 20 min which is flat, rarely seeing more than 155bpm.
12 in our group as we hit Leith Hill. I was sitting in 2nd but due to weight that was destined to fail. Stayed with them for about 3 min and then fell off. My personal challenge was to stay ahead of 1 rider in the group, I managed 2. Closest guy crested 7s behind me and next guy 32s. Neither could close that on the way down and I cruised to the line for 15/40. Lots of PRs on the climb by a decent margin, so happy with that. Worked hard but was never going to suit me with that layout.
Four laps of Watopia hilly for me last night. First lap was painful. Got stuck in a gap and had to work really hard to catch the bunch ahead. This took till the volcano and hurt lots. Took till most of lap two to recover. Lap three on the hill before the bridge sprint I went hard till after the bridge and split the group up a bit. Tried the same on four but didn't work again. Five us us left at the sprint which too my surprise (given we had picked up an A) I won. Third B again but a long way down on the first two who stayed with the leading A group. Did a fifth lap after to push me over 50k.
Going to rest till Thursday now. Wife is away so may try a long stint (2 hrs) or one of the mega loops. Think I'll bust 300k this month!
Did the WBR Road To Sky Climbing Race the other day. It was brutal! Not only is it the Alp Du Zwift but you’ve got to get there too, via the Epic KOM! Had I known the profile beforehand I might have had second thoughts....
I’m too fat for the win here at 72kg, the winner being 56kg?! Anyway I’m happy with the result from essentially a 68 minute threshold test...
https://www.strava.com/activities/1643704624
All a bit meaningless without Zwiftpower though!!
Well done guys 🙂
Yeah the lack of ZP does make it all a bit 'meh'. I'm still trying just as hard, but it's nice to read the results and have a look at who etc and see if you can see what you need to push to the next level. I'm hoping they get it sorted soon... but i'm not optimistic.
Yeah its a shame about ZP particularly as i seem to be in a rich vein of form.
Just did the 2 lap london loop race and managed a new PR for Box Hill of 6:33.8, that beats my best by 14s. Not sure where that puts me on the stw list but it still had me 17s behind the main A group, those guys are just too fast although i bet they dont weigh 80kg.
Really hope ZP is back soon!
Have signed on for the 8pm three loops tomorrow (assuming the terror sleeper goes down promotly)!
I finally got off my arse and got out to the garage instead of drinking beer and watching football. Pre baby i was a good couple of hundred km ahead of my annual goal, i'm not 350 behind.
Did the EVR race and entered as a B as I've still no real idea about my data. I spent quite a lot of time on the front before we hit box hill (schoolboy error) and the faster A's just went flying off and had about 30 seconds on the me, then 5 secs back to the next A, I let off the gas on the descent and waited for him, then the rest of the group. We never saw the lead A's again but it was a decent enough ride. I'd saved enough (and a feather) for the second climb of box hill but kept it until the escalator, dropped it there and basically sprinted up it as if it was the finishing line. By the time i'd run out of gas I had about 8 seconds on the chasing pack and they let me go to play cat and mouse. Cruised home for lead B but 4.2w/kg
I cruised round for a bit, checked the events and thought i'd have a go at 'The Chop' as an A. What a mistake that was 😀 Maybe nicely warmed up with fresh legs I could have given it a go. Looks like a good fun format though, maybe next week 😀
The really good news is that I seem to be getting the hang of using my gears inside. Leaves me just over 4.3 w/kg
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