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typing, though ? I'm impressed
18:00 Stage 3 TONY last night, only decided to do it with about 10 minutes to go, jumped on, hammered the first couple of minutes to get in a decent group, hung on as long as i could, dropped back through tbe groups trying to hold on, finally settled i to a group of about 10 in 60th ish out of 540 or so, worked hard to stay with them at points, 2 small rises at the end with a downhill finishes, 1st one i ended up 5 metres ahead, did the same on the second and decided to go long for the finish, ended up 3/10 in the group, 12 hour shift today, so a day off for the legs
Finally jumped on the Zwift bandwagon in an attempt to get a bit of motivation and fitness back. Got one of the Tacx Flux's on offer from Halfords which didn't work out too bad with AA discount and various bits of cashback stacking.
Straight in with the short FTP.. pretty woeful effort but it's been months since I've been on my road bike and found it a bit tricky to gauge the effort. Will probably just trial a few just rides and races this week before doing the FTP Builder plan (anyone done it?).
Signed up for ZwiftPower.. am I right in thinking you have to do an actual race (rather than a workout) before you can add yourself to a group?
am I right in thinking you have to do an actual race (rather than a workout) before you can add yourself to a group?
No idea sorry... been that long since i needed to do the team stuff, completely forgotten
Quick question, anyone on here using a rocker plate? I'm kind of intrigued both from the point of view of ride comfort and potentially reducing stresses on the frame, particularly the rear dropouts.
I'm still baffled by New York. It all the looks the same to me, well, at least the ground level stuff all looks alike and the above ground level wannabe Bladerunner stuff all looks alike too. I can imagine that racing there is slightly baffling in terms of predicting gradients etc.
NY isn't too bad for racing as you kinda get to know the ground level layouts fairly quickly, especially if like me you're a bit of a 1 trick pony. So for example i know the 6 train reverse has a steep 6-9% finish, which makes it a no go for me.... but the standard way round is perfect for me.... the LaGuardia works fine for me. The park perimiter has a longer climb on it which isn't hard, but the lightweights kill me on it...
I've stayed away from the sky routes as they obviously go up too much for me. That said, i did OK on the Watopia Jungle route recently which has the climb up.
If i'm just cruising round on the NY layout though and take a wring turn i have no idea where i am at all !
BWD, I have a rocker. Bought it for exactly the reasons you suggest (not so much "comfort", riding with a fixed frame just felt weird to me)
Got it from https://www.bikeacces.com/ but I reckon it'd be really easy to make one (I actually think theirs is almost too complicated with the bladders and I've essentially replaced them by shoving some lengths of pool-noodle in-between the plates (bladders are still there but it felt undamped with just them and I was wanting to go above their recommended max pressures - which was beginning to deform the (plywood?) top plate)
I like it. Recently tried mine again without it and that confirmed for me that I wanted to keep it.
CVR have just launched a new product: www.cvrcade.com
Going to download it later and give it a whirl, there’s literally 0 info out there at the moment other than you have your own island and can create/customise the road?? It looks like Zwift has met minecraft...
Curious to hear your thoughts Nath.
BWD, I have a rocker. Bought it for exactly the reasons you suggest (not so much “comfort”, riding with a fixed frame just felt weird to me)
Cheers for the input, appreciated. I'm quite bad at DIY, but I have mates who are vaguely competent and might be persuaded with beer and flattery 🙂
first race on NYC last night WBR 1 Lap Lady Liberty Hilly Race, lost two of the little whippets on the steep section of the climb, even with a feather. 54kg vs 76kg going up that hill there was only going to be one winner. https://www.zwiftpower.com/events.php?zid=97669
I'm coming to the realisation that I'm going to have to drop some weight to pump the W/KG rather than chasing FTP and stuffing my face like I have for a while. 375w avg was not my happy place.
Not sure how i feel about the CVRcade announcement, I've not really had a weekly zwift goal like I used to on a Tuesday night, I'd often drop an outside ride so I didn't miss my race!
I’m coming to the realisation that I’m going to have to drop some weight to pump the W/KG rather than chasing FTP and stuffing my face like I have for a while. 375w avg was not my happy place
I've come to a similar thought, but without realistically expecting to drop a chunk of weight, it's simply unlikely to happen. I may improve the FTP very slightly over time, maybe with more structure i could improve it more.. But Zwifting is about fun, desire and giving myself a goal and drive to ride more than i would.
Today though is a rest and test of willpower to stay off the bike... Plenty of racing lately so could do with a rest.
375w avg was not my happy place
I'm not all that fond of 275
I'm pretty heavy to say the least but even if I skinnied down to my absolute lightest ever racing weight from when I was training near enough non stop and properly fit/skinny, I'd still only go from my current 2.8 to 3.5 which isn't exactly going to set races on fire. Training and increasing my ftp really is the key
Ref CVRcade I think they'll be looking at a roblox type model where users create the content for people to use - that will have huge savings over zwift's business model - smart move. Obviously the quality of the worlds will be more variable but I reckon there will be some really good creations. Interesting times - it's about right for someone to come along and challenge zwift even if not an exact match
10:00 TONY Stage 4 - bored of New York now, the hills are sods for us heavier lads - 3 times up bloody lady liberty hill or New york kom reverse whatever its called in 22km, still nice trophy next to my 1 minute power on ZP - 46/180 in the results but there was 500+ on zwift and i was in 70th or so
Sounds like some good racing been going on over the last week or so.
I'm out for my first NY outing tonight in the 20:05 KISS race (6 laps on The 6 train). Live commentary on this one again so going to see if I can get a mention :D.
Weight wise dropping from my current 78KG (ha not likely after a week on holiday) to target 75KG would only give me a 0.12 W/kg improvement so got no choice, I'm going to have to chase FTP increases.
I did a race with the (not really very at all) crazy belgians earlier on - Nice big field (50 or so in B). I'd never heard of the route and still don't really know where we went ("1 lap" race but I swear we passed the finish line on Watopia 3 times before climbing the bloody volcano
Now Belgium's largely flat, right ? How come a massive bunch of them took 45 seconds out of me up there? (fair enough, one or two were skinny but most seemed to be actual person-sized)
So I thought I would try out the new wheel off turbo that Mrs Farmer has been using for the past couple of months. Realised my 25 free kms would run out tomorrow so jumped straight in for a hill-climb workout in ERG mode. Couple of things I noticed...
1. As mentioned above, the New York course is very samey. I didn't actually find myself looking at the scenery at all and have no idea where I went (seems we did 2 and a half complete laps of the park!)
2. The trainer is bloody quiet but the power reading seems much less stable than the old wheel on trainer. It was up and down like a whores drawers
3. I got a Ride On from Scaredypants, though I never saw him out there to give one back to. How does that work?
4. It still hurts. Will use up my November miles next week and see how the weather develops before commiting to my winter subscription.
3. I got a Ride On from Scaredypants, though I never saw him out there to give one back to. How does that work?
If you have the app you can see riders you're following (in my case that's just anyone with stw in their name) and do it without being logged in. I think I was actually on there when I did you but internet kept dropping out so I quit after a couple of minutes & went on later for a different event.
(weeksy especially but also Leeroy get me on a regular basis - I think weeksy has a team of henchmen watching screens all day & night 🙂 )
... and change your power setting to every 3 secs in zwift, see if that improves it
LOL i just give them when checking what events i'm doing that day, i often base that upon how many riders are in the event so i check that every now and again.
Looks like today is the 15:05 4 laps of Volcano CCW. Not my ideal layout, but fairly high up my list of preferences. Nothing else really jumping out at me today as i'm in the office until 2ish.
Legs feeling heavy after a rest day.... But we'll give it a go anyway.
Did not go well last night. First impressions of NY not favourable at the moment. Dispite being billed as flat there seemed to be a lot of long draggy climbs. I got spat out the back on lap 3 I think along with four others. We were noticeable slower than the main group and got caught by the B's with just under one lap to go. Only good point for me was that I produced a decent output for the uphill sprint to the finish. ZP seems to have some big gaps in my power output which aren't there on Strava. Feeling a bit off colour which probably didn't help.
Noticed tootallpaul floating around while I was warming up.
Good race that...settled into the 2nd main group, but i expect group 1 then split a bit....
Spent the whole race trying my best to hide in there, not pushing hard and only kicking on for the sections i really need to.
Coming towards the line i kicked early to try and catch them off guard.... almost worked but i lost some places on the run up to the line... 29/75 overall
https://www.zwiftpower.com/events.php?zid=98378
Enjoyed it though.
Not Zwifted since July! Pah! Need to get Mojo back
Dread to think what my FTP is now or where I'd place
Sneaky little bronze there weeksy 👏.
Sneaky little bronze there weeksy .
- must've been my stealthy ride-on !
Found time to do 5 laps of the volcano. Small field so was feeling good about it. That's was until my legs made themselves known. The a/b group was together for the whole race. Myself and a few As putting attacks in but either no one went with it or the were closed down quickly. My issue wasn't making the initial break, I couldn't sustain the power after last night's effort and quickly got collected. Also miss timed the sprint and ended up a few seconds back in a race I could have won.
Back to rocker boards. Have much give do these have? My turbo is currently on top of two layers of carpet and underlay and already has a fair bit of side to side movement. Wondering if it's worth looking at rockers as most Ive seen pictures of are on hard floors.
And there we have it ladies and gentlemen, first GOLD since getting the Direto. WBR 3 Laps Flat Race
First two laps were absolutely brutal and I was sure I was going out the back on a couple of occasions. Barely dropped out of the red the whole race, recovery was short and sparse. Average HR was at 180 and maxxed out at 203, first time i've broken that barrier since I came down with some lurgy about 3 months ago.
Feels like i'm (nearly) back somewhere I can progress from. Alright, wasn't the strongest field but gold is a gold 😉
Wow. That's some impressive numbers ! Well done indeed !
That'll teach me to feel positive. Woken up with a cold.
Nice work Scaled.
I don't understand the TONY. I thought it would be an entirely new course around New York, but it just seems to be loops of existing zwift courses. So i entered one the other day, started out in 600ish position out of 650ish, then started jumping up through the ranks to get to 1st out of 650ish but I only ever saw two other riders, those being the ones I was riding with. Then my position dropped down to about 80ish but again I never saw more than those two riders. Dropped out after a lap because it was pretty dull.
Struggling with it today... Can't feel the desire to race today, but it's lashing down outside so not fancying that either.
I was going to try a longer non-race ride today, maybe up Alp du Zwift (want the Tron, only 44,000m to go!). Instead might get the rare chance for a IRL ride.
16:00 tour of New York.
Was going well for me then suddenly someone 20 seconds behind ended up a minute in front without passing me.
The with 5k to go the distance to go numbers started to rise and kept rising. At 22k there was 9k to go and it said i was 2/502 by which point i threw the toys out of the pram and went inside.
As i have mentioned before, either NY is glitchy or Zwift cant accomodate large fields. There have been lots of people with issues lately and its always NY but that could just be because thats all we have had lately.
Rode the New York course today, LaGuardia loop I think, didn’t like it at all. The hills drag and the scenery is average. Doesn’t come close to Innsbuck which I adored.
First workout yesterday and then first race tonight (Tour of New York S5).. and first experience of the hills! Added another 20W to last week's initial FTP - I obviously wasn't trying hard enough lol!
Did the 10am stage 5 - started late as i couldnt get my hrm to sync, then saw id not plugged in the ant+ stick, should trade in the garmin one for a wahoo then i can just use Bluetooth - said i was 567th out of 570 and that number never changed despite working through the back of the field, ZP has me at 79/234
did the 11am one as well 68/251
1 minute power best up that ramp to the finish, quite like that one
Arghhhhhhh
Dragged myself into the garage for Kiss C at 8pm. Warmed up and raring to battle for 27th place and it crashed with 30seconds to go. Too late to restart the app.
Seems pretty shit at the moment - second race in a row that I've had all other riders disappear on me multiple times. Not sure if it's my end or theirs but bloody annoying either way
Yep it's a right pain, I'm guessing it's a problem at their end. Managed a sufferfest vid instead but was looking forward to a race. I'd been getting into but missed last week with a sore throat.
Has anyone tried the Zwift running side? We've already got a treadmill so i've just ordered a foot pod to give it a whirl.
My wife's tried it a couple of times, seems to work ok but not particularly exciting. There's also no decent events, just some group jogs. Unless I'm missing something (very much a zwift beginner).
13:20 WBR 5 Laps LaGuardia Loop Reverse, was billed as 32.5km but was only 16.61 - i guess the 32km is 10 laps? dunno, lined up thinking it was longer, went out hard with the front group, through the lead out, then says 14km 1/5 laps remaining, decide to stick at the front as long as i could, which ended up being the whole race, finished 5/17 in B, 4 seconds of Bronze and only 8 seconds off the top A, great race, perhaps one of the best ive had - 2w increase on FTP from 287-289w was a nice bonus,
due to being a short race, i decided to do the 14:10 ToNY - decent 2nd group up the front again, lost 1 rider who escaped midway through lap 2, tried to get away myself with 5km ish to go, got reeled in with 3 to go, out of a group of 11 - 7 of us got the exact same time with the others 1/2 seconds behind, 12/75 on ZP