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Still here, didn't quite set the gas alight. Four laps of that hill in the afternoon was a decent work out. First two laps were fairly calm with only a little splitting of the group as we went up. Lap three we had what I think was a power cut. The TV died momentarily and the wifi connection disappeared. I went all in till it came back and ended up about 5/6s off the lead group in first. The effort killed my legs though and I couldn't stay in touch over the top of the hill. Settled into a smaller group of mostly As and tried to get them to help real in the chasing pack ahead. No joy unfortunately. The last 2.5k got interesting as there was a B 30s ahead who seemed to be struggling. I upped the pace and pulled the group along till we caught him with just under 1 km to go. Had nothing left to sprint with so just tired to keep the power up as high as I could without a full out of the saddle effort. I came eighth which I'm OK with for my first proper A race. I think my weight is going to be a big problem in A though as most of the leaders seem to have 10-15kg less to haul around.
https://www.zwiftpower.com/events.php?zid=90484
Nixie - i am now automatically upgraded to A now and me at 80kg is not ever going to mix it at the pointy end. I am not an A but due to the new cats it seems a couple of my races have got me promoted. I was nearly 6 mins behind the A group today and stuck in my rightful group of B’s so no trophy wins for me in future. By the way i beat the other B’s in a great sprint finish.
The race today was laughable, some people need to take it a lot less seriously. The KRT boys were obviously ganging up to take a win but a few B’s stayed with them and other riders. One of the KRT chaps then went and checked ZP to see if the other riders were registered and then messaged to everyone each riders name who isnt registered and told to ignore them. I dont know why this bothered me but all i could reply was that they were a bunch of losers,immature i know but its only a game.
We're boys, we get sucked in at times, i kinda get it. But yes, some people take it VERY seriously...
It's supposed to be entertainment and fitness.
I'm sick of that course now. Tried to do a 4-lapper of the round-the-town course and convinced myself on the third climb of that hill that I would be better of watching the telly instead. When's Watopia coming back?
Watopia is back on Monday.
Blader, ZP has you at 78Kg, probably doesn't help the rankings. It does look from your last events that you should really be in B. In the ZP forum I did read a page to question your rank was coming. Might be worth contacting them.
Nixie - i had to put my weight in in pounds after my weight doping experiment last week so my guess was a couple of pounds out, it should be 80kg but i believe its at 78.9kg. I think that experiment might have been one of the races which got me promoted. Also the tour of innsbruck was so hilly that quite a few people broke the cat limits on the long climbs.
Well I managed to graduate the Academy. Still not fit enough for racing and my colitis is giving me absolute hell at the moment so I’m pretty pleased to have stuck with it.
Really really didn’t want to ride tonight but had to do module 10 or else. Feel pretty shit now but hey - I’ve got a nice green kit 🙂
did 2 races more or less back to back today, while the worlds was on, which was grim at the end of the 2nd
3 lap innsbruck ring 3 lap, then a 1 lap hilly loop
You crazy boy!
Had the lurgy all week - went straight on my chest again, so been struggling to breath. Today feeling much better so decided to give the 19.30pm CVR World Cup Training Race a go.
Small field of riders - and very steady pace from the off. 3 A cat riders and myself managed to breakaway half way around 1st lap. The attacks off front started not far into 2nd lap .. eventually my lack of lung capacity become a factor, and I couldnt go with two riders when they attacked .. so just myself and one other stayed together till the end. I went for it 400meters out - but 50 meters too far out and got caught just on the line.
My 20min average was 1w higher for the 2nd race
@dannybgoode - Did you just do the 10 individual sessions of the Zwift academy from the workouts screen? Might start doing some for when there isn't a race on at the time that I can get a workout.
BIG field in the 3:15 today, including some STW competition 🙂
Did you just do the 10 individual sessions of the Zwift academy from the workouts screen? Might start doing some for when there isn’t a race on at the time that I can get a workout.
For all but one session yes and then of course the group rides / races. But yes, for the workouts just logged on whenever and picked one off.
I found them nicely paced - even at my level they were fairly challenging without killing me.
Put about 25W on my ftp too but then I was starting from a very low base!!
BIG field in the 3:15 today, including some STW competition
Bit more notice next time, eh? I was just in the bloomin garage
went too hard, paid the price 10km in, then 13km again, then bailed
I was the STW competition on the 3.15 in group C. Out the blocks and settled in at around 40th out of 83. @weeksy you seemed to be doing about 3.4-3.7 but I couldn’t get on your wheel and those in your group. Our chasing group scattered apart and I broke away in the second lap. Almost bridged the gap to your group (passed ‘A,Weeksy’ (relation?) who looked to have stopped and given up).
Got two laps in, couldn’t quite catch @weeksy, then an oven engineer turned up an hour early, so put the race on hold. I think he was a bit surprised to be greeted by a person streaming with sweat. Anyway, transpired the clicking noise in the induction hob was it power balancing each heat ring.
Returning back to the race, I rolled in last place obvs, but completed it just for the sake of it.
Did the SZR joyride C group which was 3 laps of the flat course.
Joyride my arse! I was still a bit sore after a 50k hill ride on the weekend and fell off the back with half a lap to go when the pace went up to over 3.0w/kg. Even then I smashed several PBs according to strava.
Day off tomorrow and then will probably do the road to ruins SZR autumn race the following day.
Skywalker, our lead guy was knocking that out, I certainly wasn't. However at that stage I had been riding around or over FTP far too much and I had nothing left, so bailed on it.
Bit disappointed in myself but I really really need to stop trying to hold the As off the line as I can't sustain it and end up dying.
Well I didn't manage a race last night. Fitted my new turbo wheel to the bike and got that calibrated. Found that the turbo tyre is a lot quieter than my Scwable G Ones. It also gives a much larger clearance to the ground which is handy. After I had got that all sorted there wasn't much time spare and I was pretty tired so I tried one of the workouts - Emilys short Mix. A 30 min mix which was a pretty good work out for the time available. I ended it sweating quite a bit and managed to do something so not all bad!
Going to be doing a race tomorrow night now I think but haven't decided which race to do yet.
I'm a little confused with mine, i fitted a 42T on the front yesterday, but i only seem to have gained 1 click. I'm now sitting in 9th gear for decent rpm/power instead of 10th... I thought i'd have got another click at the very least by going up 4T on the front.
Today is going to be low and slow for me. Planning 90 mins at 180-200w average. No race.
What turbo are you using weeksy?
I find even with 100% on the simulation setting I am spending most of the time across 2-3 gears on the back (13, 14 and 15) with a 48 on the front. I wont change from that though as the bike is used for commute etc so it makes most sense to keep it adaptable.
Kickr Snap. Weirdly, when using the new 42T i can get the power down in the higher ranges easier, so hitting a sprint off the line etc i hit 500W+ easier.... but my 'racing speed' still seems not far away in power and cadence...
I can't go any bigger really as i'm on a 'middle' due to being on a 29er with Raceface Ride single ring 104BCD. I even had to move the chainring when fitting to the other side (outside) of the cranks due to clearance going from the 38T to 42T. I don't really care about chainline as it's 99% a turbo bike...
Well I went to do the 1 lap race at 5:10 last night. For the first time ever the tablet didn't link to the turbo straight away. By the time I had them linked the race had started. So did the volcano time trial instead again for the first time lost connection. Luckily the route and gradient inputs continue so it was just a ride. Would have been last anyway as struggling to keep over 2w/kg.
Glad to make it to the end and at least it's a start to getting some sort of fitness back.
Did the 1830 cvr monday crit race - advertised as 26km but was 40km, 4 laps of flat reverse
end up in no mans land after 1.5 laps (seems to happen all the time at the moment) couldnt stick with the big front group, got dropped on a short rise and couldnt get back on but had put plenty of time into those behind so ended up soloing to the end
field seemed bigger than the results suggested
annoyingly had a coulple of drops in the ant+ data, switched the bike im using on the turbo and using neo power instead of the Quarq
Oh.... there's teh 15:05 today.... 3 laps Volcano flat....
I'm going to have a play.... and NOT go off with the lead bunch of A/Bs.
@Weeksy you went up about 10% on the front ring and gained one gear at the back? Sounds about bob on to me.
I just had a nice gentle cruise round wattopia yesterday with a WBR 2w/kg ride with a sprint effort on each lap. Not got a great deal in my legs at the moment for some reason but still hit some power PRs in the sprints so can't be that bad. I'm still wanting to get 15 second power up to 1.2k, I might find the 23 watts in fresh legs some time.
Back on to Zwift for the first time this side of summer last night. Was going to do the KISS at 8pm only to find the kids had drained the iPad! Charged it and jumped on the WBR road to ruins a bit later instead.
Enjoyed it and was probably a bit fitter than expected. Managed 2.7w/kg which isn’t too bad for me on a hilly route. Got in a nice group of 4. Brilliant sprint between us at the end. Overtook one lad and thought I had held off the others only for another one to catch me on the line and pip me by half a wheel! Forgot what it was like to collapse over the bars shaking and sweating.
That was tough!
Bit of STW representation in the ISS Europe race, the Wahooligan race starting 5 mins beforehand cocked up and had TT bikes again so everyone jumped on the KISS race, the field was huge, 160 odd on Zwiftpower!
I jumped on with literally 8 seconds to spare, got thrown into the start pen and the pips were sounding. The start was brutal and it wasn't long before i was reaching for my water bottle... that moment of realisation that it's in the porch, not good.
I figured i'd hang on until the cramp sets in or I didn't get a PU to get me up the 'hill' on volcano flat, somehow I managed to hang on right up till the end. I'd clocked 3 team draft riders riding pretty tightly at the front and one was Leandro so knew that it wasn't going to go down to a sprint in the classic sense and I wasn't far wrong. We got to the bottom of the descent and it all went a bit bonkers, I was pushing over 500 watts average for the final KM and had absolutely nothing left at the end, no powerup either, having had one for every other lap, couldn't even muster a KW for the last dig lol, toast.
6.4 seconds back on the winners, glad i finished though, nice ZP points and I was down to <75KG when I weighed myself after heh. back up to over 76 now i'm rehydrating 😀
https://www.zwiftpower.com/events.php?zid=91289
Same race as above but didn't go so well for me. I saw scaled at the start and was going to try and hang onto him for as long as I could. Didn't last long. I got ant+ dropouts before the tunnel and by the time I was in the volcano I was last A by 40s. Whem everything was stable again I tried to TT back in but clearly was not going to work. The B pack was fast gaining so I eased up to let them catch me. I fell in with the large group and stayed there till the end. Lap times were 15s faster than I did I'm the TT last week so no way I could have got back onto the A bunch. We picked a load of As up on the way so I didn't finish dead last. I tried a few attacks in the ramps for a spot of fun. Clearly had the power there but legs were very tired when it came to sprinting. Still averaged 4.1w/kg!
Mine was an interesting race, although the results may not look like it.
https://www.zwiftpower.com/events.php?zid=91360
First job was completed after 2 mins where i let the A/B groups go.... VERY not like me, but in all honesty, something i need to do more, instead of maxing myself out on the HRM. So i settled into another group.. about 8 of us, which as some caught us and we caught some other swelled up to about 25 or so in the group. Couple of As, 3 Bs and a chunk of C riders...
First thing i noticed was how much i was struggling on the 1% after the underwater section, that whole next 1.5km at 1-2% incline was making it HARD for me... .but i was OK, taking advantage of my old saying "Trust the blob".... the blob being the bunch of course... I got onto the 3rd lap with the main C bunch OK, it was then my lad came home from school and "Dadddddddyyyyyy can you get my bicycle down please so i can go out with the boys for a ride on the Ridgeway".... To be fair to him, i'd reached the point of no return by then and was ready to throw the towel in.. I'd had 4-5 times at 176HR and that had pushed me hard... So i jumped off and sorted his bike, losing about 1min 30 doing so, then losing a bit more without the draft and the cramp that had now set in on my calves 🙂 Ouch.... But still trundled over the line to complete the event.
It did show me that i need to stop trying to kill myself jumping on the A/B group though. Along with setting my fastest ever lap of the volcano flat, 25/86 of STW Zwifters.... Not loads quicker than my 2nd time, but that was a very quick time being 40s ahead of my next best.... So i'm happy.
Ready for weigh in tomorrow after my 2nd day on 5-2 this week..... Mostly just hoping to keep it sensible on the scales this week, not really expecting miracles... .one would be nice though.
It did show me that i need to stop trying to kill myself jumping on the A/B group though.
Weeksy - the only racing tactic I have is to bury it off the start line and try and stick with the front group for as long as possible. Did the WBR 3 lap of Watopia last night and it was brutal. Very fast and unrelenting. Clearly all the good, outdoor cyclists are back on Zwift for the winter.
Good luck with the weigh in.
Weeksy – the only racing tactic I have is to bury it off the start line and try and stick with the front group for as long as possible.
My problem with that is 2 fold.
Once i get to the first/2nd hill, that tactic ends for me.
After i'm binned, i've peaked and it's all over....
Holding the Cs at least gives me a chance to have a longer 'race' with some peers.... Whereas staying with the fast fellas, i'm dead.
double bubble again this morning
11:20 WBR 3 Lap Hilly Reverse - thats was hard, best 20 min power since March, group of about 5 of us until the end, ZP has me 1st in C by over 5 minutes, not sure where the other C's in my group have gone
straight into 12:20 WBR 4 Laps Volcano Circuit Race - big group towards the end, tried to get away with 4km to go, go reeled in sharpish, ramp into volcano on the last lap strung it out, again about 5 of us at the end, ive got no sprint
The starts are an issue for me as well. I did the SZR autumn series road to ruins race. 80+ Cs in it and over 200 overall.
Worked really hard off the start and still got left behind. I caught a large number of riders up the hill and got into a group of 8 or so. Felt really good coming out of the ruins circuit and the group splintered up the hill out with three of us left. Stayed with them until the little rise in the volcano when they got a break. Tried to get back and thought I was going to at one point, but to no avail. 47th out of 61 listed.
Really pleased with the result as I beat my best time around that course and was 1 watt off my ftp according to zwift power.
I away for a couple of weeks now which is a bit of a bugger as I was just feeling like I was heading in the right direction.
https://www.zwiftpower.com/events.php?zid=91593
I really don't get the speedy starts. It's so pointless given that there are way better opportunities to drop riders if that's your game. Would be nicer if there was a gentlepersons agreement to go easish till everyone settles in.
Fast starts are part of racing - thin out the weakest riders straight away ... then break the stronger riders down bit by bit😑
ZHR Up & Down race this evening; smallish field of riders ... managed to survive with another rider to the top, then worked together so the spread out riders couldn’t catch us on the descent to finish. Surprising what a difference two riders can make on a solo rider trying to get back on.
I'm swaying between an easy gentle lunch-ride today or a powerhouse race type ride.
Legs were feeling the eeek yesterday, so was very gentle... . Today i'm inclined to see more of the same.. but when you think that, a pesky Volcano CCW or something pops up about the time you plan on racing LOL.
Felt shattered last night so ended up chilling on the sofa. The wind on my commute hasn't helped my legs feel fresh! I may do a race tonight but am taking the lad into town for an eye test and then meeting the mrs for family pizza express tea/ Hopefully that is early on though and will settle for about 8 so I can do something then.
I am having a week off, maybe two. Been flogging myself for two months and am tired in the legs and seem unable to apply myself. Hopefully come back stronger but in the mean time 100K gravel Audax to complete on the weekend. If I sit it out till Saturday that will be my allocated two weeks.
I'm giving myself a little break as well, still tapping out a few km on the commute and the odd z1/2 ride on Zwift but it's the last round of the PMBA enduro this weekend so i'm trying to keep my legs fresh for that.
Yeh I have been doing quite a big increase recently so it is prob that. I got a new bike on the 3rd August. Since then I have ridden 770 miles on that bike. In the previous 7 months of the year I had ridden 780 miles so half my mileage this ear has been in the last 2 months. Its so hard to rest though as you feel you are going to go backwards!
uh-oh, I've joined my first race of the "year" this morning. Went for B over C just to see what I can manage but mostly hoping for a run out
Now I'm in trouble - the bighitters are in !! 🙂
Ooooooh ... .and hmmmmm 🙂
Wonder how long i could hang onto you fellas for 🙂
edit : nah, that's crazy talk..... easy day....
Seems I've lost a little bit over my summer "off" but not too bad but I need to relearn that just because the bunch slips ahead slowly, I can't reel it in gradually - duuuh
Doubt I could have held on to blader and his chums 'til the end though
(seem to be a lot of unregistered finishers - I rode a lap and a half with a "C" who wouldn't let me take a turn and churned out 3.8ish for miles, then dropped me and rode off. Then I was caught by a bunch of 10 or so who I rode in with. Only one of those has shown up. Is that a thing now ?)