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@nixie I just logged onto Zwift, selected a race and joined. Lesson learned.
There was 26 cat A starters though. 17 dropped out (or aren’t on zwiftpower). 😆
@nathb - that is a horrible course. I did a group ride on it in the very early days of NY and it was proving impossible to keep the group together,i have never been back since.
I did the ADHR chop race this morning as yesterdays suffering wasnt enough! It turned in to the easiest B cat win ever as i mixed it up with the fast crew and ended up not far from winning the entire race.
https://www.zwiftpower.com/events.php?zid=187066
@blader : Damn, you're good ! That was my only spell on zwift in ages and you caught me at it. Cheers
Scaredypants - if Weeksy doesn't spot you its left to me as his back up, nothing gets passed us! That was quite a late ride you were on as i was heading to bed.
Little better today.... Jumped on for a lunchtime 'tester' to see what was going on. I've got a small ear/balance issue going on but putting that aside i wants to know if i could ride OK.
Did a social type thing, only wanted a gentle one, but went a bit harder than planned at 220w for 35 mins. But the HR was decent as were the legs, so all in all, not too bad. Stayed on for a final 5 mins.
Hoping tomorrow is dry and will head outdoors for a ride instead.
Anyone else going to sign up for the Giro ITT event over the weekend? That climb looks tasty! 😈
Did the Giro TT this morning 90kg up the hill was never going to be easy. Did the flat section in 9 minutes at 105% FTP , similar power for final 1.2 miles which took me 11 minutes. Think I lost >100 places on the climb. Good workout though. 21:47 total, anyone else had a bash?
Woke up sick and it was raining so didnt fancy the outdoors but felt i should do something even a small ride. I entered the KISS Z2 Sportive with an aim to hang on to other riders for an hour.
3hrs and 105k later and way after the sportive finished i got off the turbo for lunch 😀
That's crazy talk right there!
Did the Giro stage twice. Once with the boy and again as hard as I could muster after 2 other full TT efforts this week inside and out.
TT bike steadyish on the flat and harder up the climb.
It's quite an evil climb and I suspect a road bike on Zwift is faster when talking about being over 20 minutes.
21:34 for me. 30 seconds faster on Strava.
bit of a wall that climb
19:19 for me on app (18:49 strava), 300w bang on and 3.7w/kg average which im happy with, as that's as high as its been recently neo on 100%
23:28 for me, might be able to get a bit off that as hard to judge on first attempt. That second 16% ramp wasn't very nice though.
28 minutes for me! Was doing ok until it started going up hill but hey ho it was supposed to be a rest day. My weight and hills really don’t mix!
No intention of ever riding it!
The climb isn't that bad, ~3.5W/Kg will get you up there in under 15mins, similar to Bell Hill cat3 just north of Petersfield.
https://www.strava.com/segments/20559952?filter=club&gender=all&club_id=3229
Considering I've had one week back training after ~7 weeks of lurgy and my best power over 20mins has dropped from 314W to 262W since March, I was pleased to do the whole TT in 21mins21secs at the heaviest is been for over two years (~82Kg).
17:25 for me on zwift. 16:59 on the Strava section. The long 16% bit was evil. Didn't help my effort by forgetting to change to a TT bike.
First ever effort on a TT bike with Zipp 808 Disc wheels yesterday and ZwiftPower logged a 22:47 for the course, it turns out TT bikes and 16% hills are not a brilliant combo for heavyweights.
Today on my current preferred Trek Madone with Zipp 808 Disc wheels bike I managed 22:02 with the climb feeling slightly more manageable and faster.
The Giro TT event has suddenly opened my eyes to how much time is lost on the climbs as I winch my way up the side of the hill, I knew I was at a disadvantage when the gradient is above 3% but never realised how much.
It's a huge issue yes. Big blokes just get destroyed when it goes up.
I nticed the opposite today on a Richmond flat ride, I'm powering along at 320w on the 'race lap' in the last 2km and the guys on the front are at 4.5w/kg but that's probably only about the same sort of actual power, but i think their effort is higher in a relative context.
I finished 10th in the sprint out of 30, but that wasn't actual sptint, just consistent power at a decent pace. I did see 600w for a short while, but it was fleeting.
The fast guys are still sticking out 900w+ so i'm never going to compete in that !
I nticed the opposite today on a Richmond flat ride, I’m powering along at 320w on the ‘race lap’ in the last 2km and the guys on the front are at 4.5w/kg but that’s probably only about the same sort of actual power, but i think their effort is higher in a relative context.
Yes, this is why using w/kg as a 'pace' for group rides on Zwift is mildly idiotic on anything other than a continuous steep hill. People are riding off the front of a group on the flat not necessarily because they have exceeded the prescribed w/kg figure, but because they are heavier and - on the flat - outright power determines speed rather than power to weight ratio.
If I weigh 50kg and put out 5w/kg, my power output is a modest 250w. If I weight 100kg, I'm putting out 500w. To stay with my heavier self on the flat, I'd actually need to make something like 10w/kg. Go figure.
I've posted a variation on this about 500 times here, but the enduring mystery of Zwift is that because it chooses to highlight w/kg as its prime metric rather than outright power, people have got quite confused about it. It'd be more helpful if it displayed outright power on the flat, then power to weight on climbs above a certain gradient. Or allowed you to toggle between the two metrics.
God I'm boring 🙁
Is the Giro TT still live? Can’t find it on the companion app and I really fancy a go!
looks like it is missing, that is a shame. Hopefully it will return soon as it seems a huge waste to have created the course albeit a very short one only to abandon it days later.
yep - limited time only: https://zwift.com/events/series/giro-ditalia-tt-challenge/
Boo thanks for looking.
Wasn’t any races that appealed last night so went out into the new desert section and mashed the pedals. Got a 12w FTP increase!! Now matching my highest ever, but 5/6kg heavier 😆 Hoping I can push on to compensate as I’m feeling healthier than last time..
Team Celebration series this morning and 3 laps of the leg snapper in Innsbruck. Had to stay towards the front to cover attacks which ruined my already shot legs (100 miles outdoors last 2 days). I knew the 3rd lap was going to be tough and it was, 48s up the dreaded hill with average of 605w! That took a lot to recover from and ruined my sprint, finished 8th in the bunch but i closed 2 attacks down so my team could go over the top of me.
605w for the hill! Beast like.
I wasn't going to ride today as my legs are battered, but i did. It was a social ride with sprint sections, i wasn't going to sprint, but i did. I have to show more restraint although at least it wasn't in vain. I hit my new max watt in the sprint with 1105w and max cadence at 167rpm. One of the other guys soon put me in my place by hitting 1560w! He is 6ft 7 and is just over 102kg but because of that the difference in time was tiny, he did 9.68 and i did 9.71, he also had truck pu and i had aero. The winner did it in 9.09s which is just madness.
167rpm ? seriously ! LOL. I'm not convinced i can hit 115.
Weeksy - i dropped to a lower gear than normal so i was turning pretty fast but i am not so sure if its as accurate when you are spinning fast. I am not really sure what is normal/possible?
Debating a Zwift race today, Richmond 3 lapper at 11:20. So suits me for timing and suits me for layout and distance. I've done lots of miles outdoors recently so not sure i have any legs today though ! But was planning on tomorrow off, so i guess it makes sense to do the race.
I've seen plenty of you lot riding, but very few reports 😛
Ive had a few ride ons from you weeksy but I have just been doing the Gran Fondo training plan in prep for the Jennride so not very interesting I am afraid. They are pretty hard work mind - especially producing a power output at a certain RPM (which is normally higher than I am comfortable with). Last ride this afternoon before a week of the bike with the half term holiday. Planning on doing some running on holiday to keep the fitness up but a rest from the bike.
Been mostly riding outside, but did the last stage of Tour of Watopia yesterday. Felt really hard but still missed by best time by 5 seconds. Not going to ride it again for a bit. I blame the wind.
I'm finally feeling better. I'd got to the point that energy levels were so low racing was pointless so was just riding around to keep the legs moving. That's sorted now the drugs are finished and energy is back to normal so I've celebrated with back to back days racing hilly events.
Tuesday was the Kiss long with one lap Watopia mountain. A nice calm start to this one as the no need to rush with that hill coming. As expected the power started to go down on the first bit of climb on the island before the long bridge. The A+ riders put the hammer down and were out of reach by the bridge with the better As (and a B!) in the gap between me and them. I was with one other which became a group of 3 about half way up. I didn't really settle into a rhythm till about 3/4 of the way up at which point we dropped one and started to close on the B who had by now dropped off the lead As. My the KOM barrier I had pulled a gap and was only 3s off the B but shortly realised I'd gone to hard and had misread the course/evaluation profile and forgotten about the radio tower section :(. Whoops. We went up this as a group or 3 whilst recovered a bit, at the top I put down the hammer for the last bit of climb and opened a small gap, just enough that it became a big gap as the downhill started. I kept on pedalling whilst the other two clearly went into aero tuck. This gave me 25s by the time we rejoin the main descent and nearly a minute by the bottom (I hit each incline on the descent hard to keep the speed right up). It was now just a game of keeping it going to the end. I caught one more non ZP listed rider on the hill towards the Italian villas and was closing the gap to those ahead. They were a bit out of reach though. Got a large number of PBs on strava for the different bits of the climb.
https://www.zwiftpower.com/events.php?zid=190245
Wednesday I was just going to ride around but instead noticed a 4 lap of Watopia hilly (EVR race). The field was small (20ish in game 5 ZP finishers) for this one but I like that course so went for it. The riders splintered fairly quickly at the start leaving around 10 of us going towards the first climb. It splintered again on the hill with four of us easing off the front. I suggested a truce at this point till the end of lap 3 so we could cement to gap behind us. This worked nicely leaving several minutes to play with. Third time up the hill we lost one leaving me, another BRT rider and an U23 A+ feather weight. The other BRT guy is nominally stronger than me so I offered to lead him out if we were all still together at the end. It didn't quite work out that way as we dropped him on the hill (he had done a 30k warm up to be fair). The A+ tried several times to gap me but I managed to hang on and picked up a draft at the top of the hill. It got really cagey until the last 250m when they popped and aero and went for it. I was just too late with my draft and couldn't hang on though suspect he wasn't flat out anyway. A nice rare A gold for my troubles :D.
https://www.zwiftpower.com/events.php?zid=190575
Nice racing nixie, must be good to be back to full health. I think you possibly could have found easier races to start back with!
I rode the giro TT today as part of the Dirt team. It was a 2 lap team event and i had never ridden this course. We worked really well as a team and paced about right but that hill is a bit of a pig to do twice. We managed a negative split on lap 2 so we were pretty much dead on our feet at the end. Lap 1 was 17:39 and lap 2 was 17:18.
Yeap good to be back. Been off colour since January so was very fed up. Got some fitness to make up so no easy races for me :D.
Good effort in the TT. That's a nice time. Not sure I'd want to do that hill twice.
https://www.zwiftpower.com/events.php?zid=190811
Lots more riders than it seems from that list. I'm a bit infuriated at myself for that. Part way round lap 2 and I was sitting pretty, top 10 all the way in a group of 20+.
Next thing you know 2 As kicked and suddenly it all went wrong and I'd missed the split. I was 2s down and leading our group of 5-6 riders, but then it was 3, 4, nooooo.
wrote a long post and it lost it,
not much on Zwift lately, been outside, got 2nd in the local xc/cx race, up from 3rd 2 weeks ago, about 30-40 seconds behind the winner,
also did Tour of the Peaks Sportive (114 miles & 3500m climbing) done this in the past 2 years, and both were around 8 hours moving, did it in 7 hours 3 this, pr up more or less anything apart from Winnats which i did 5 years ago, although i was a minute quicker than last year,
NP was 234w for the lot,
i feel about as good as i did pre 2015 injury, hich is a nice feeling, but ive done loads less miles for the same fitness level, just zwift races and hill, living in flat Lincolnshire, doing climbing on zwift seems to have helped massively
My direto just died, contacted support and have to send them a video of the issue.
How’s Elites warranty generally?
Supposed to be good. Where did you buy it as it may be easier to return there.
What died?
Frustrating as always today.
https://www.zwiftpower.com/events.php?zid=191078
Lap 1 I was nearly falling asleep, even though I was in the lead group. I was putting the power down fairly well. Then as we came over the line there's a small climb on the reverse, that sent the pace up and I needed 450w to hang in. Then into the rollers I was trying to power/ease and save but I messed it up and found myself 1m off the back, then 2 sec, then I'd blown it! Sodding hell.
In all honesty I couldn't have hung in after the pace change but I'd have got near the end of the lap as it flattens for a while after that.
I had 35s on the guy behind, another guy was 27s in front. Both were sticking down 3w/kg roughly as was I. Over the next 10 mins I lost 10s on the guy ahead, even though I closed him by 4s at one stage, I pulled out 10 on the guy chasing me.
In the last 5km I lost another 15s to the guy ahead and 10s to the guy closing in on me, but I was ok and watching the gap and pacing myself to the end.
Overall I was happy, with this week having several outdoor rides, some kom and a few trophies, along with a decent 12 hours riding this week, I can't be expecting miracles when racing back to back days
Outdoors tomorrow either solo or with my lad, not sure yet.
I was in the same race @weeksy. Been on Zwift for a while but generally just go to Wattopia and do 2 reps up the big climb. Thought I'd try a race...
I found it mega hard to back off when drafting. I have a dumb turbo and get power from my SRM so not sure if that changes things but drafting seems to make FA difference to my effort/power. As a result I yo-yo up and down the group like an overexcited puppy.
You were right about the first lap, quiet steady all things considered. But when you got popped off the group I was absolutely hanging on for dear life then it all seemed to back off and then people were waiting for the gallop (through which i mainly went backwards).
A good smash fest though.
It's funny at times like that as I was looking at a few power numbers of the riders ahead and thinking, "damn I'd have been ok there"
It's them little surges at 400w that get me, if the race sits at 280w all the way I'm golden. But when it kicks up I'm in trouble.
Well done then matey, whoever you were. Lol.
Yeah those 400w surges are killers 🤢. I can sit at 280-310 ish for a while but anything sustained at 400w and I'm in trouble. Have taken to surging and micro resting at times.
I still don't think I've got the hang of drafting. I always yo yo between the front and back of whatever group I'm in. Supposedly it's a 20-30% reduction when in the draft but the only time.i notice it is when I have to produce it to stay attached!
I raced against Mark Cavendish this morning and he was getting quite testy with some punchy attacks. I did the dirt sprintapooloza before the race which was a terrible idea considering i did 2 1000w sprints in that. The race itself was a watt bomb fest or felt like it to me. All climbs were full gas requiring nearly 600w to stay in touch. There were only me and 1 other B with the A group and Cav so i new i had at least silver in the bag. Some of the dirt team got wind of my race so they all fan viewed me and over discord kept the encouragement going,this really did help. Had to hit 700w on the hill to the volcano to keep on the wheels of cav who had gone ahead. With just less than a mile to go cav and the A group really wound it up which is far too early but i kinda hung on to a few wheels. What little sprint i had left gained me a few places but sadly Cav beat me by 3 secs though i did put quite a few A riders to the sword. I finished 6th overall beating 6 A riders and the other B i dropped by 10s so Gold for me. The race was brutal and i did fear i might break cat limits but actually the stats were lower than i thought, ended up at 3.8w/kg and 294w, surprising given how many times i saw orange numbers.
Question for you old hands:
I've stopped my subscription for the summer but still go on occasionally and used up my monthly free 25km or whatever it is tonight. Once that had gone, seemed I could still ride and move my avatar, just that my "level" points count didn't go up any more.
Is that right - you can still go on and ride, just not race or add to your points? I'd assumed it'd boot me right off
I keep meaning to test how long you can keep riding after your monthly 25Km has been used, but I don't think I've continued for more than ~1min.