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Thats Tom Pidcock and i claim five pounds.
Well that was frustrating to say the least. Thought I would give myself a beasting on a TT around the jungle circuit, since the last time I did that I had an FTP boost 🙂 This time I was playing with the big boys in Cat B though. Crazy pace out of the pens and through the aquarium, but managed to hold on to the front runners very near until the hill began. Was able to not lose too much up to the pass and was probably in 3-4th going into the jungle. There than followed a game of cat and mouse with 5 of us taking and loosing position for the first lap, with no-one having a clear advantage. So all to play for on the final lap. Going up the long drag to the swing bridge, one rider got a few seconds ahead and me and another were side by side as we approached the bridge. Then for no reason at all, I found myself pedalling on the spot as people came past! Byt he time the damn thing got me moving again the rider I had been alongside had 26 seconds on me and another 3 riders had passed me 🙁 I kind of lost heart then for a bit until another rider caught me and we raced it out to he finish. I recken he was cheating though as he out-sprinted me with 13W/kg at the end and didn't register on ZP. So I finished 6th in B, but only 20 seconds behind the rider who had 26 seconds on me at the top. 3rd was only 5 seconds ahead so I am left to wonder what might have been if only I had a reliable internet!
Thanks for the RIDE ON Weeksy 🙂 Appreciated
They still got me ranked to race in the A riders ... so tough trying to stay up the sharp end.
Did the 18.55 Gladiators Race tonight; I had updated my weight to add the 1.8kg I’ve put on the last couple weeks!!
I dropped off back of the front A group about 10km in - and had to TT solo to stay away from chasing B cat riders ... just about held them off with 20 seconds to spare.
Last A cat rider ... but managed to stay away from chasers, so happy with the effort.
Any day you're an A is a good day imo. I'd like to be a bad B.!
Did TdZ stage 9 today, haven't done any others, but the timing was convenient. I really don't like New York at all, and I swear the perspective is weird, I kept putting a little dig in thinking we were about to go uphill and it would be a descent. Too undulating too.
Managed 192bpm for 57 minutes, so I won that on Zwift Power (small wins), some bugger beat me with a higher maximum though!
I did half of the TDZ today, my heart wasn't in it, i'd done a 50 mins warm up and couldn't be bothered.... was cruising round at a slow pace really.
Do they have the "double draft" I keep reading about? The pace in the groups certainly seemed high, but I found it easy enough to get back on when I got dropped a couple of times.
Yes they're DD. Does keep the pace high.
https://www.zwiftpower.com/events.php?zid=145250
Big night tonight in Zwift land.
Pro team racing.
Canyon, Dimension Data, Team Wiggins, Tim Cartwright, Kim Little.... All the Superstars..
Streamed Live on the internet i believe... but i'll be watching Liverpool Leicester.
Goods heads up! I hear the last event was pretty exciting so might have to try and watch this. Any idea where it's streamed?
Apparently.
I caught it on Youtbue the day after the last one, i'll likely try the same again.
It was interesting although confusing while riding on Zwift with another screen streaming a race on Zwift.
Interesting as a lot of Pros really didn't know what they were doing and got dropped PDQ. The seasoned Zwift races were all up there though Pro or not.
Not sure I'd call it exciting.
The little hill in Innsbruck should see more getting caught out especially over multiple laps.
Live on Facebook and Youtube and a gaming app. Youtube was working better than Facebook last week.
I did the 3R Road to Ruins last night. Well done to the STW'er who won the B race by the way.
I came second (of two:)) in the race but the winner put out 3.4w/kg average and I was 2.9w/kg. I had thought C's were up to 3.1w/kg so how come the guy isn't upgraded or dq'd? Not bothered about the colour of the cup just not sure on the rules.
Good work. Looking at the rules for the 3R race Zwiftpower category trumps W/KG, so guessing that rider hasn't got the points for B at the mo.
As always Zwiftracing can be all over the place, more on the circuit than in the Zwiftpower App.
I raced on Tues, hanging on to 2 Ds both putting out 3.8w/kg+ on the flat for an hour LOL. I wonder if they know or it just happens by mistake or what... I just ignore the Cats and race whoever i end up next to.
Yup. I had a good race with a lad who isn't on ZP so it's not like that never happened. We were well matched and managed to work together to pass a couple of riders before I saw him off in the sprint. Some serious numbers higher up the leaderboard though. How do people put out 400w for 40 mins?
MrPottato,
that race will likely be live here:
https://www.twitch.tv/zwiftcommunitylive
(I had a look on facebook where it was also streamed but the sound was bloody dreadful (same feeds I think, though twitch started streaming just before the race))
I watched the pro race last week via youtube and it was quite good. It was interesting seeing people get dropped straight from the pen, they must have thought it started off with a parade. Ian Bibby won last weeks race with a finish that i can only dream of. It will be an even better race if some of the riders have learnt the mistakes from last week.
I guess as most real road races, even crits, tend to start quite leisurely it's perhaps not that surprising that some weren't expecting the pace off the bat!
I didn't think many got dropped out of the start? I may well not have been paying attention.
They certainly got shelled on some of the short hills. Connor Dunn doing High Intensity Intervals off the front probably didn't help those without any experience.
They're beasts! 500w last lap average it looked! Sheesh.
Thanks for the links. Watched on Twitch with my lad - he was really getting into it by the end and wanted to start dishing out ride-ons.
I like the concept so interesting to see where they take it. Thinks there's a bit of work to do with the camera angles and graphics to improve things.
I'd love to see the ability outside of the game to click on the rider you want to view etc, I know you can within the game if you can find them. But an easy way to do that would be ace.
Angles, I'd like to see less of the flyby shots and more overheads, but that's being a bit picky.
Overall I enjoyed it, it's a bit more real in a weird way as they're people you can see out there day in day out rather than pros who you'll never meet on the roads.
You'd think someone would tell the riders, 750w as the countdown hits 0:00
I've watched a few of the races (for a few minutes) that they stream on Facebook, and it is surprisingly compelling. I watched some of the F1 Esports too, which was also good. Ultimately there's no reason that watching Esports shouldn't be just as compelling as watching 'real' sport, just a different facet of it. Hence it being a $1 billion dollar industry!
Had a really good race last night. Was a bit of a rush as the little guy had football, so got home, got him bathed and the mrs cooked mine and hers tea. Didn't eat tea until 7.20 with the race starting at 8.20 so thought I might end up feeling rough and pulling up after a bit.
First lap didn't feel great but I managed to keep competitive in a group of mainly B's and C's and a couple of D's. I lost a bit of momentum, dropped from that group and was caught by a group of 2 D's and a C. We then had a great battle through the next 2 laps with little attacks. On the last lap we caught another 2 D's and 2 more C's caught us so there was a group of about 8. I managed to hold on through the hills having to put in 400W sprints up some of the little hills to maintain the pace but felt pretty strong. It was my first mass bunch sprint finish. I did run out of steam a bit maybe 50 yards before the line but came in on the same time as 4 other riders.
https://www.zwiftpower.com/events.php?zid=142700
Good thing was that I felt a lot stronger throughout the race and was able to keep a good pace and close down attacks with little 300-400W bursts when needed so my fitness is definatley improving. I didn't hit any highs on my stats on ZP but it was easily my longest race and I felt strong throughout.
And a little silver trophy for your trouble 🙂 nice one.
Due to snow i think i'll be stuck at home all day... So a longish slowish one or the 10:32am Richmond flat... Hmmmm.
So who's coming racing then in C ? 10:30 race... .A or C only... so hopefully C will be a good battle.
Chapeau to you racers. I'm a fat old knacker who usually pushes out around 200W and can drag my sorry ass up Epic KOM to a rank of 180k out of 203k. Anyway, I'm getting realy sore hips so any advice for stretching, bike setup etc to try and ease it off?
The epic KOM is hard work, to get up it all is a decent achievement (I hurt for 3 days after my first go). No pointers on relieving pain other than to try shifitign around. I think one of the issues can be sitting in the same position for ages. I try to get out of the saddle for short periods regularly.
With last nights IRL ride being snowed off I did the BRT crit race. 5 laps of Grand Central station!!! That is a brutal course. After the 3R race on Tuesday and a 7 mile run pushing my daughter in the buggy on Wednesday my legs weren't in the best shape. I did an longer than normal warm up to try and get them going but they were struggling with the higher power bits for the first lap. I lost the lead A group on the opening trip up the reverse KOM and ended up in no mans land between them and the lead Bs. With double draft enabled this group (or around 10ish) caught me by the end of the descent. We stuck together for most of the remaining laps losing one or two each time we went up the climb. We also manage to collect a fer riders who had dropped off the lead group. By the last climb there were 6 left, this was 4 by half way up and just 3 by the summit. I kept the power on down the hill to prevent the fourth rejoining (they were only 4s back). Despite the tiredness I just managed to out sprint the last two riders to finish in 10th. Was a really good work out though with Elevate giving it a very high stress score and big jump in my fatigue (which I can feel today). Rest day for me today as 100th Parkrun on Saturday and I'm going after a PB.
https://www.zwiftpower.com/events.php?zid=142687
Why are so few riders in Zwift power lol.
https://www.zwiftpower.com/events.php?zid=143134
That was an epic race, I should have won. Group of 16 of us on Richmond flat, I got Aeros on the first 2 laps and tried to split the bunch with 450w efforts using it. But only managed to shell a couple each time.
Into the final lap, 2 riders kicked on and held 4.4+ for the lap, we ignored them as they're auto DQ with that power. Final 2km it started getting all cat and mouse, I had a feather and was saving it for the final 300m.
Then 900m out 1 gut went, boom 6w/kg. Sod it, I was in! But the feather and went. Oh, errrrm, no good. Couldn't catch him. Others were 1s behind so j eased slightly, jumped on a wheel at 350w. Holding. Then 300m to go I went 500w but 1 guy had 700 and did me.
Really should have won that.
Good work Weeksy. Isnt zwiftpower going to become more irrelevant and the race results are now listed in the companion app (with all rides not just those on zwiftpower)?
yeah i saw that, i dont much care in honesty in that context, i just want exciting races and thatt was deffo exciting 🙂
Thing is Zwift have shown no interest in any kind of policing of categories. ZP does that, yeah its not perfect but it does work reasonably well. ZP also offers more that Zwift don't, such as leagues. I think the most compelling point is that the KISS super league which Zwift appear to be well behind is being pushed via ZP rather than on a Zwift owned site. For those more interested in the racing ZP is going to be relevant for a while in my view.
From a league context I'd like to see a race series of say 7-10 races, full and complete separation of Cats, so you race as a C against only Cs... Full DQ for over power riders and completely different layouts to suit the fat boys and the light boys. It would mean of course i won't win.... but would be a series worth making time for.
With so many races being all Cats starting together it just screws up the racing as some Cs jump in with the Bs and that's it... race is over.... You then get 1-2 WAY over power limits and it's over again.... It's all a bit screwy.
It's a great idea, but needs work.
How the hell do zwift/turbos work out my cadence so accurately?!!?? its witchcraft I tell thee.
Noticed last night that its a lot more accurate recently. I don't have a cadence sensor but zwift is able to calculate my cadence pretty accurately, even changes in cadence when I slow down/speed up. How does it know, and how does it know I haven't just changed gear?
@weeksy the 3R ultimate racing league is like that, as was the wahoologan last autumn. 7 races of which best 5 count towards league table. Completely separate cat races. Variety of routes (2 laps Richmond long, 2 laps great London flat, Jungle circuit ITT and Volcano flat with volcano climb to finish). Neither of the last two race have been kind on the sprinters and the ITT catches out those who should be a cat higher. Its also very competitive!
@trailwagger my directo has a cadence sensor, it won't be the only one.
Excellent Nixie, will look into that 🙂
Anyone looking for a trainer?
I see SportPursuit is flogging Direto (1, presumably) for £540 - that may be ded cheap or if it isn't, might imply that there'll be bigger bargins soon as the "2" comes fully onstream
@trailwagger If your turbo is measuring power the torque isn't constant all the way round your pedal stroke, so each revolution of the cranks will give two spikes for each full turn. Hence easy enough for the turbo to calculate the cadence from that, which it transmits to Zwift.
decent ride yesterday, 14;40 Park Perimeter, course seems to suit me, highest post christmas wattage, slightly egged on by one of the other riders, motivated me a bit, randomly seemed to take an interest in me after i dragged him round half a lap solo, kept calling me out, we got caught by a small bunch, almost got dropped at one point towards the end of lap 3, had to dig in to get back on, got dropped at the same point on lap 4, solo'd in - 24/119 on the companion app
Sat i did a Tour event, i'd ridden it before but wanted to clock up some KMs with company. Cruised it mostly and then a push up the volcano, set a PR on the volcano climb which was nice.
Sun i was bored at home and snowed in, so saw a mate about to start a 2 hour ride.... Pinged him a Whatsapp to confirm he was in and jumped on with him, we then did a 2 hour event and 65km... So a decent bit of non-competitive Zwifting over the weekend.
Struggling to find a nice event for today.... there's an 8pm race series which i could do as it would be interesting... but 8pm is a bit late for riding.
Cruised it mostly and then a push up the volcano,
You can get off and push on zwift?
You can get off and push on zwift?
The speed i go uphill, you'd be forgiven for thinking that was the case 🙂
Just ticking off my TdZ catch-ups.. managed Stage 1 on Saturday (with heavy legs from riding in / through the snow) and Stage 2 should complete the set this evening.
Not a lot that looks fun today....Could i manage a 50Km race, 6 laps of the Innsbruckring.. Sheesh, i don't know about that....
The rest are just Zwift tours though. But if i can't hold a bunch on the hill etc it could be a very lonely 75 mins.