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10:05 3R Richmond Flat Race - 4 Laps - stayed with the front group the whole way round, until it got too fast at 1.5km to go, from the results, it was all the A's that sped off, 3rd in B - 2 above me are 4.5w/kg and 4.2w/kg they were less than 0.5s in front of me, so I'm taking that as a win 🙂
https://www.zwiftpower.com/events.php?zid=165959
I was abandoning my idea of a Zwift race for MTB smashing a Swinley. However, 3 days of rain before Sunday will leave the usual Swinley grinding paste... back to Zwift maybe.
Swinley is going to be a swamp whether it's dry or not in the next 3 days as it's rained tonnes lately. I'm certainly not going there this weekend.
Another KISS long one for me last night. 55k, 6 laps of Watopia hilly reverse. What was I thinking. I always get dropped on that route, often as early as just after the sprint. For once this didn't happen and I hung onto the lead till second time up the KOM. Tired legs from Sunday then decided not to play and dispite staying in touch up the steepest bit I couldn't hold it for the next roller and dropped back.
I did lap three with one other rider but he didn't seem to be putting much effort it when pulling. A quick check of the live feed revealed he was a B and was in-fact trying hard. Problem was the gap ahead was opening. When the group ahead went up the climb on lap 3 I saw a couple drop off so opened the taps and dropped the B rider (40s up that climb).
Lap four became a ITT as I furiously tried to bridge the 1.30 gap. I had got down to about 20s when a group caught to within 5s at the base of the climb. I extended that back to 10s by the top but they had closed me down by the esses. Just before the sprint we caught the rider I had been chasing. The next rider was 2 minutes up the road, but in a small group I thought we could catch them. Unfortunately the rest of group couldn't be persuaded to chase. We lost a few up the climb on lap five and started the last lap with 6 together.
During the esses one rider gapped the group. No one seemed bothered so I jumped the gap and we rapidly escaped together. They were strong so I stayed on the wheel as much as I could and did the standard trick of jumping out out their slipstream with 200m to go. After finishing I hung around to top 60km for the ride. Very stiff today!
https://www.zwiftpower.com/events.php?zid=165498
Cracking write up!
no racing today, did 77km/2010m/3h10m of the four horsemen loop, ran out of time before the nursery run to finish it, decent steady ride
40km at tempo today, I hate those rides.
Anyway, w/KG says I'm a B. Do I enter as B with my limited experience and accept the lower end of B results or do I enter as C? If I enter as C and overpeform as C, will I get DQ'd?
And, how do I know how long "2 laps" is?
Enter B. Worse case you get a DQ, best is auto upgrade.
For distance look on zwift power. The event list tends to have the race distance.
Thanks Nixie, will do.
B. If it turns out you can't get over the category limit for B then you can downgrade to C next time. If you're miles off the back but breaking the Cat C limit still well get better at drafting ;0)
I would think you'll be fine just remember to go hard off the line and hold on until it calms down a bit.
I would think you’ll be fine just remember to go hard off the line and hold on until it calms down a bit.
I'm used to that real/MTB racing. I'm not concerned with the result, so lets see how it goes! This will be a great measure (power/HR) fitness test for me at the start of my season.
You're no C mate. You'll be a competitive B at the very least imo.
Ooof this is tricky. There’s an Ottawa race in the morning with some stiff climbs. I’m not a climber but I’ve been training that over winter. Ends on a big climb
Then again, theres a Dutch Diesel on Volcano flat in the afternoon which better suits me. Ends in a flat sprint.
Both are close to 90 mins being 52/61 Km’s respectively which is perfect.
For me, pick the one with the most likely entrants. The race is about the battles, holding groups, pushing on, etc
I don't race often on zwift, and only started a couple of months ago. The last two attempts of entering a race have not worked. Can anyone tell me what I'm doing wrong? This has worked in the past so I should have all the right setup.
Fired up zwift and while I was waiting for it to load I opened the companion app and searched for a race. Found one and entered it. Then I started a zwift ride and waited for the join event button to pop up. It never arrived. Also the race had a start time of 6pm, but at 6pm when I checked the companion app it said starting in 11 minutes.
Some races have staggered start times for different categories so it is possible that a 8pm race could start 10 mins later for lower categories. Look inside the event description for more info on category start times
I still haven't managed to enter an event on the companion app that shows up when I go onto the game. Missed a couple of races before giving up and going back to the old method of entering in-game from the top-right menu before beginning to ride. That usually works OK provided you wait until the orange "going" notification comes up alongside the race you enter.
Entered the 11:20 Ottawa race. If I’m going to be at race intensity I may as well go the whole hog and hit the hills as this is a training race. Expect to be well down the leaderboard ! Should be fun in an odd kind of way.
Only downside to that may be number of entrants. Sunday seems often to be a cruise day for people, they do the Dirt, the SZR and DBR rides by the tonne... but the racing can be a little quiet on Sundays. Me, i'd wait until about 9am, see which race looks like it's likely to have the most people in and then maybe change if needed. It's all well and good having a course/layout that suits what you're looking to get from the weekend, but not much point if you're alone for 99% of the ride.
Ok good advice thanks Weeksy. I don’t have an option to race Saturday though.
You'll always get the odd race with decent numbers on a Sunday.
Sadly Zwiftpower doesn't seem to have an easy way for me to see what's common and what's not after last Tues.... So can't check to see.
I guess it may depend on your goals for the day... if it's miles, HR and correct zones... then it may not matter
90 mins of race intensity followed by 40 mins of a tempo interval is Sunday's goal :). Zones etc only come into the tempo component.
This is ultimately to replace an XC race I can't be bothered to travel to.
I did a 4 lap race of Innsbruck this morning with Jon Mould. Its probably not difficult to guess where he dropped me, the hideous hill in the middle of town on the first lap! I was 15s down after the first lap which i thought was respectable. Each lap i managed to climb that hill in a minute with an avg of around 430w which put me in the lead group of B’s apart from one rider who clung on to Mould and the A group. Last lap up the hill avgd 440w which put me at the front, so bunch finish of about 10 of us. No recovery from the hill so long sprint from 350m out and i held them all off much to my surprise (silver in B cat). The last 22s i avgd 551w with 15s best of 9.3w/kg which was pure torture due to its proximity to the hill. Mould managed 14.9wkg, that is too much for my brain to imagine.
Cracking stuff! Nice mate
An actual race that set off in categories.
Keith Hill After Party. Sedate (300 watts 1min) start and a comfortable (240 watts) journey around London and apart from one minor panic and big effort after the Classique finish line with the lead group of Bs to Keith Hill. They mostly buggered off at the start of the climb and I ended up with 2 others. Didn't have the confidence in my ability, especially after really bad legs yesterday, to go with the stronger one, who finished 37 seconds up the road, so stuck with the other and took turns on the front. With 2km to go then dug in and slowly dropped him. Just shy of beating the hour for the route. New PR up Keith and new power PRs for a full hour so happy with that.
https://www.zwiftpower.com/events.php?zid=167127
Mould managed 14.9wkg, that is too much for my brain to imagine.
well ish, there was a bit of furore on twitter the other day,
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infant its still rumbling on now, with GPLama, Chris Pritchard and Ian Bibby all bickering about something or other
context in here somewhere
I did my first race (in group C) for an age today after extensive eye surgery. I'm not as fit as I was but still a decent group C I think. The start was more mental than I even remember and I managed to hold on to the front group for about 5 minutes cranking out 3.5-4.0 W/kg waiting for them to calm down but they never did! My heart rate was going through the roof so I had to ease off and wait for the second group about 15 seconds back. I hadn't recovered by the time they swept by at about 3.0 W/kg so I just had a lonely ITT to the end and finished 17th out of 20 classified on Zwift Power.
Looking at the Zwift Power result the winner of group C averaged 3.4 W/kg and most of the top 10 were over 3.0 W/kg with 2 other riders at 3.2 W/kg. I thought the group C limit was 3.1 W/kg but then I found the classification system had changed. However, I couldn't find anywhere on the Zwift Power forum which explains what the new categories were. Can someone possibly post a link to the new categories?
Apologies if this has been covered before but I've been on and off the bike for the last 8 months and haven't really kept in touch with Zwift racing.
It's the average of your top 3 95% of 20mim efforts in the last 90 days that decide your category. So for a given race you could be over.
I'm not 100% what happens if the current race is what puts you up a cat but think that as long as you entered the correct cat at the start your result will stand. Even if it causes you to be upgraded.
There's also a button to show the 95% on your profile and race results page.
I'm sat at 3.201 or something as an average so a B.
In about 2 weeks if I can't get another one above 3.2 I'll be downgraded to C and I'll be dropping down to basically hoover up some cups. I'm currently not able to get over 3.2 (I don't try to not achieve it) but the 2 results that bumped me over came in a week I felt amazing after a 2 week enforced taper over Xmas.
Currently happy taking a kicking in B and finishing bottom 3rd generally. But you know cups :0)
What I really wanted to know was what the category criteria were now defined as for each group. In my group C, they seem to be saying now that 3.4 W/kg is OK as long as you haven't exceeded some 20 minute FTP level. The examples I have seen are confusing now though.
As far as I can see is all that seems to have happened is that they have bumped up the power level (for group C at least) from 3.1 W/kg to 3.4 W/kg. I used to be able to finish top half of group C races and have a decent race but in yesterday's race I just got obliterated. I don't even have the option of dropping down to group D now because I am classified as group C in Zwift Power and will just get DQ'd apparently for entering the wrong group race.
I don't understand what is going on now with Zwift Power.
You can't go back. You can never go back 🙂
I have been off the turbo now for over a month due to illness so knew I would be well down on power. So thought I would try and enter a race as a C. Was the right call, in that my 20 min 95% was only just over 3.0. I effectively managed to get 6th place in the Cs. I was, however, DQ'd on the basis of previous results putting me in the B cat. I would have been flat last as a B yesterday. But was nice to race against a whole group of C's, even if the result doesn't stand on ZP
Oh jeez. I went outside for my scheduled pre race warmup - in the middle a single 3 min 350w average climb .
I didn't make it, worse I felt terrible legs and sick . Does not bode well for tomorrow!
Take 95% of your 20minute power and divide it by your weight in kg.
If it's over 3.2w/kg on average for your best 3 events you get shunted into B. If you keep racing C most events will DQ you on ZP. What Zwift need to do is force people into their specific category unless they choose to race above it.
Mine is JUST over the limit so I'm a B but in 2 to 3 weeks I'll lose both of the races which are over 3.2 and I will be categorised as a C again, unless I can produce that in a race again. I'll currently choose to race C again with the hope to be promoted again. Some won't like this as my tested FTP is 3.44 but I so far haven't been able to produce that in a race.
Also on the profile of a rider lick on the info box next to their category to see the best 3 results. At the top of the results list on the RHS of all the boxes there's a 95% box to see all the 95% results.
In C with a decent crowd you need to be getting up to 3wkg or 250w plus average to be worrying the podium generally.
Also there is a new category system being worked on based on the US road race model. See FAQ here https://www.zwiftpower.com/rankings.php
Oh jeez. I went outside for my scheduled pre race warmup – in the middle a single 3 min 350w average climb .
I didn’t make it, worse I felt terrible legs and sick . Does not bode well for tomorrow!
I had that on Thursday. Couldn't hold 350w 50 second repeats even after knocking 10% off. Sacked it off. Did fine Friday night racing.
Hopefully you'll find your legs. At the end of it it's not a priority event.
Fair point Tomlevell - I've been in this place before. I'm mid training block anyway and these sessions are often designed to be a muscular wake up call rather than a successful training exercise. FWIW I've be doing, 1x 4 Sprints, 2x20 and 1 x 1:45 across a week for some time now so very much steady state in the main, so this is just a small "sharpener" before what was originally planed as a "B" race.
Right I've move to the 9:10 race which has 76 rather than 7 entrants . It's a bit shorter than I'd like but hey .
Any tips as to what view to have in my phone etc? How do I know whose B or C for example?
It's in the Riders Nearby panel next to the rider's name on the right of the game screen
Colours are the same as on here. You can tell on the map and the rider list but not those arround you that you can physically see from your camera position.
https://www.zwiftpower.com/events.php?zid=168248
B are Green
C are Blue
You can always add a 5th lap ;0)
Oh and you don't really need the phone app on unless you are communicating with people.
Never use the phone part myself.
It's a nice course for racing that, be aware when you hit that hill it's 1min for you but will be 375-450w to hold your group. Certainly at the pointy end. If you can hold some power after that hill you can make up masses of time in the next minute as many fade after the hill, hit an aero and 300w and you'll gap many.
I use the phone app. But mainly to look at the map or communicate. Also use it to fire powerups as using a mouse isn't that easy 'under load' :).
Finished the ‘build me up’ 12 week workout. Missed nearly 3 weeks with illness and being away for work. First 7 weeks, only missed 2 workouts, last 5 missed 12! Did the FTP test with a bit of a hangover, and the 20 min actual test started on the ‘down’ from one of the big London hills. That just felt odd.
With 8 mins to go and my HR at 99% of max, I just wanted it to stop. Last minute really tried to get the power up, so at the end I couldn’t physically pedal anymore. New Max HR!
New FTP as well. Came in at 229, finished at 254. Reckon I could do a bit more if I paced myself sensibly. Don’t have time to sign up to another workout and I’m riding way more outside now, so I reckon I can’t put racing off any longer!
Well that was a disappointment. Would have been easier to have ridden the course first.First went off average about 350w and was the usual shock to the system. Sat mid pack and waited for things to settle a little.
The first time the hill came was tough - not knowing of the second little lump on the downhill after, but also not knowing of the flat recovery to come. Anyway I settled in a decent group, but they started to get a little slow. They force me to shoot forward on small inclines despite doing my best to maintain power with them, then the flat sections were very slow - I was riding those in Z2 with the next group 34s in front, but it would have been me that would have had to push and chase and I didn't want to make all the effort. On the hill I found myself with the front riders, just spinning at 310w to stay with them.
Left it until the sprint on the last lap, but 3 of the group went for the long sprint and I couldn't get past.
Not a great race and under power with 3.1w/kg average.
I use the phone app. But mainly to look at the map or communicate. Also use it to fire powerups as using a mouse isn’t that easy ‘under load’ :).
You can just hit the spacebar to activate a power-up, which is also easier than a mouse.
Hilarious that pro riders are weight-doping on Zwift, above. I guess it's no surprise that you can be very good at riding bikes and also a massive idiot. As ever it comes down to the whole 'the internet, it's not real life' thing.