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Aside from buying Sufferfest videos (if that’s still a thing).
No, it's not, though presumably the old ones will still work, but without the smart trainer controllability. All current SF stuff is app based and very good ime.
Folk seem to like the GCN turbo vids on YouTube fwiw.
The racing, structured, and social elements aren’t really factors tbh. Especially as you often have to be on the trainer at specific times. If I’m on the trainer, it’s either a recovery ride or 30 to 60 minutes at 6am. Basically just some time spent pedalling. You could call them junk (trainer) miles but I seem to benefit s great deal from training almost every day, so long as some are easy efforts.
Yesterday being a good example, if the trainer was set up. I’d have done some active recovery, but as it was I did naff all.
I think I’ll try RGT. But I’m coming round to the idea what I really need is Netflix or Eurosport.
Is there any way of getting a sneaky extra free Zwift trial when you've already used yours up? Used it on a standard turbo, but now have a Kickr Core on the way so would like to give that a spin too. Assuming an alternative email address would do it?
The racing, structured, and social elements aren’t really factors tbh. Especially as you often have to be on the trainer at specific times.
there's about 100 races a day
Is there any way of getting a sneaky extra free Zwift trial when you’ve already used yours up?
https://support.zwift.com/de/zwift-free-trial-B1WDzRJBX
Thanks, hadn't noticed the monthly "have another go" before
there’s about 100 races a day
How many are recovery paced? So it’s group rides. That happen to start the minute I get to hop on the bike. Although I do recall you can join group rides after they started, maybe?
Even with the races included, I almost always used to find myself having to hang around or just missed something. Waiting 15 minutes with the time I tend to have available didn’t prove workable last time I used Zwift.
If I’ve time to be flexible, I’ve time to go outside!
Is the companion app the best place to look for group rides?
Yup.
And Yes you can join an event mid-event...
I find zwiftpower the best place to look for events. More info in the table and you can filter by event type. Almost all group rides allow late joining (you join near the ride leader I think).
Welcome back Weeksy.
I've been doing a fair few races but haven't posted write ups as the tumbleweed was getting a bit thick.
If anyone fancies something different the Zwift Community Live event last week was really good (Tuesday 19:25 GMT). They are playing with the settings to try and improve the racing. e.g. last week was double draft but modified drag to try and allow you to attack. Also the power ups were modified so only offensive ones were available (including the rather cool ghost mode). So no van or XP powerups.
https://www.zwiftpower.com/events.php?zid=205476
Interesting race yesterday, despite the fact the results don't really show it as only 50% of the riders are on the list. Went off with the fast boys and then set a PR up the climb by a fair bit (30s quicker on a 6 min climb) which continues to confuse me as to why i failed on the SDW as clearly i've not lost form IMO.
Sadly we had the usual power>weight issue on the climb and i lost the guys i was racing with mostly... The rest of the race was a bit of cat and mouse. Some guy caught me and i was tempted to jump on the wheel, but it would have ended up putting me deep in the red to stay with them, i had over 1min to the guy behind, so i just took it nice and steady for the 2nd lap, making sure i held the power on the climbs.
Had some slippage on the turbo on the 15% bits, i think it was down to tyre pressure so will have a peek today.
I jumped on for the first half of the 50km London Flat yesterday. Only got on it because Murdo had signed up from here. In the end he never joined which was a shame.
Went out in group 2 off the lead in, i could have held the As at this stage but wasn't part of my plan. But we settled in with a fast A leading us round and keeping us all very honest throughout. Esepcially on the little 3% kicks where i was getting high HRs in this heat, only 174bpm, but that's high enough to get me near the edge ! But on the flatter parts it settled down nicely so i was cruising in the low-mid 160s.
I did 45 mins and decided that was plenty, as i'm still trying to get back into things i don't want to kill myself. But the pace was good, the legs were good and form seem OK 🙂
All of which, makes my SDW failure even more confusing !
Weeksy - although Zwift gives you good base I don't think you can compare efforts to riding a MTB outside. It might be more closely matched to road riding but I dont think it is that comparable to riding a MTB on off road terrain.
Part of it is that producing power on Zwift is fairly simple but when you are having to shift your weight around on a MTB it is a lot more fatiguing than just sitting and spinning.
Well yes, but it's not like i only train on Zwift, i ride plenty outdoors too. My point was more than on the SDW ride i seemed completely off form, struggling to ride with a mate who rarely makes me work hard, but out there i was losing time on hills to him, which is mostly unthinkable. (sorry mate if you read that 🙂 )
I thought i'd lost form somewhere in a generic context, but it really does seem to be that i fell apart that day only. The rest of the riding i'm doing my form seems great 🙂 Not quite at my peak or highest power and lowest weight, but decent enough.
Fair enough - the distance is hard to train for as well. My zwift rides and normal rides are very rarely more than 2-3 hours so riding all day on the Jennride was tough for me.
Absolutely Robbo, but again, i'd done the SDW previously with the same mate, i've ridden with him for over a decade now, we've done it 3 times previously, yes it was hard but we both made it each time, just about 🙂
He completed it this time too, i failed... But i knew very early on in the ride i was struggling and in trouble, i just have no idea as to why really.
It doesn't matter now, i can't go back in time and change things.
Still in the quest for form and fitness, got a race in 25 mins on the London Flat layout, which i usually enjoy. Debate internally is whether i try and go with the A/B or sit and hang in for the fast Cs.... Not sure i'm up to the A/B stuff just yet, so likely to play it by ear and potentially jump in group 2 and see where i end up.
What sessions are folk hitting up regular ?
My little one just arrived so I'm confined to zwift so that I'm on hand during my hour of freedom and I'm sticking to socials rather than racing ATM due to lack of sleep.
There's a fair few social rides , some better than others ime.
Some beacons are weak as d the ride descends into chaos quick and others are ruled with an iron fist and are much better for it.
They now have a barrier ahead of leader, if you pass it you get 60s to get back or you're kicked from ride.
This now means social rides are more together than ever
https://www.zwiftpower.com/events.php?zid=207220
I don't know how many times I died a death in this one, but the main time was 3ish km from the line. Little 3% gradient, only about 500m in length but we'd had 3 break attempts leading to it so I was already at 175bpm when the surge came and that was it, spat out.
Tried hard 171 average HR
I just had a good ride with the herd tonight
Iron fist was deployed and it was good.
Fence was dropped for the sprints Nd then put back on a suitable time after to allow soft pedaling bringing the group back together. Most folk understood it.
Those that didn't got binned.
Was enjoyable.
Going to get back into Zwift to help push on from the modest base fitness that I have now
Was doing ok at the turn of the year- went from c to b, and enjoyed the racing
Never got back after a dose of flu in Feb
Will start again, hopefully I can go back to C
Did Off the MAAp Tour Stage 4 - jumped on in a rush an got to mile 16/20 when the Zwift app told me my free trial had expired. Must have cancelled the sub. Anyway worked well with a small group to that point and averaged about 3 w/kg, for the most part the pace was comfortable. Will renew subs and get back out soon.
Did the sufferfest 4dp test a couple of days ago, just to get an idea of what to work on, probably 90% of my riding this year has been full gas zwift races/local xc races and hard solo rides, and feel ive plateaued,
It seemed to suggest im a sprinter (i dont feel i am) - suggested sessions for that, and it suggested targeting 5 minute to help nudge up FTP from below
So whats the best way of integrating some actual targeted training when mixed with real life/kids/work/ when time crunched?
Are 2/3 targeted hour sessions instead of zwift races a week worth it when combined with outdoor riding and the odd zwift race?
"Emily's Short Mix" is a great 30mins workout if you are short on time.
https://whatsonzwift.com/workouts/less-than-an-hour-to-burn/emilys-short-mix/
The beauty of these Zwift workouts is you can easily adjust them on the fly by +/-10% during the session, or simply fudge the FTP in your profile to make things more easy or hard.
~6 weeks ago I pretended I still had an FTP of 300W, just like I had at the very start of March before lurgy knocked me for six, to do Emily's Short Mix. The final power stint had me right on the limit, but the unexpected bonus was that the final 20mins of intervals averaged ~284W and gave me an improved actual FTP figure at the time https://www.strava.com/activities/2452780239/analysis/419/1619
Unfortunately, that was the last relatively big sustained 20min effort I've done due to injury and now isn't valid to base an estimated FTP on, as it was over 6 weeks ago.
It's valid if you think it is still about right. You might get caught out if you try doing intervals based on it.
I'm still working off my last test back in Aprilish. I've failed a couple of ramp tests as my heads not in it but TT powers suggest I'm sat at the same place so I'm sticking with it for now.
Not much I can do now to improve it anyway before hill climb season so will plug along as I have been chucking in interval sessions when I can. Get back into full structure in November.
Are 2/3 targeted hour sessions instead of zwift races a week worth it when combined with outdoor riding and the odd zwift race?
Yes if you can maintain it. If you are going to be working hard a couple of other times a week anyway maybe restrict it to 1. If you want to see real improvements knock the racing on the head and do proper recovery rides on your outside rides and 3 sets of intervals indoors a week.
Did zhrc sub 2.0 ride last night
It was chaos . No fence , no beacon rider and no sub 2.0 ride. It was more like 3 with a final sprint up Keith hill
You get caught up in it all. It wasn't what I was needing 🙁
Glasgow green cycle club ride tonight.
Sub 3.0 propper group control and beacon.
Fence off for the sprints and quick regroup then finished with a 4km sprint.
Felt like a good session rather than a relentless kickin.
https://zwiftinsider.com/titans-grove-released/
New area officially released overnight, with four(?) official routes to use this new undulating, bendy ~9Km.
Can't believe that once again I'm sat here on a day off, using the excuse of temps in the mid to high 20s Celcius (and also my sore knee) to not go for a real 2hr+ ride near Butser Hill...
The idea of simply riding Titans Grove on the Direto and knowing I have plenty of chilled water to hand and I can stop whenever I need to if my knee gets unhappy is very tempting!
I feel your pain Goat... I'm sitting here with my legs and knees feeling 2nd hand after Jedi yesterday and debating shooting on for pootle round. I really fancy a race but nothing really suiting my riding at the moment.
I've been using it because we have a 5 day old baby.
I feel entirely justified.
Much easier to justify to Mrs t-r that I'm nipping out to the shed for an hour knowing she can call me back at any time than a ride miles away from the house where she would be on her own....at this stage.
I've done nothing for over a week. SDW attempt tomorrow so unlikely to be back on till next week.
My last Zwift ride for 2 weeks today, social one as i'm still getting tired calves every day at the moment. Then off to France for 2 weeks and taking the HT also so it needs prepping, checking an sorting for the trip etc. Need to change the gearing too as it's got a 38T on the front currently which it won't need for some of the riding in France that's for sure !
I've signed up for the Tempus Fugit TT tonight
Quite like the zwift TTs
Did Bologna TT the other day. Fair chunk of climbing for only 8km.
Looks perfect that, apart from timings, it's either not long after my tea or a very late tea on my own, neither of which are ideal for me.
I got upset with Zwift this weekend. Sat on the turbo for 2hrs in Z3 and entered a 2.5-3 3/kg ZHR 100k event, only to watch the blob pulling 4 to 4.5w/kg on climbs. Judging by the messaging a few weaker riders and some people such as me that were in it for consistency were dropped and fed up they missed a group ride / opportunity to draft.
I rode with a second group until they started to chase as if it were s race then completed an hour solo. I guess this is what happens when there isn’t a ride leader / beacon to marshal things
I'll be cooking tea afterwards.
I imagine it'll only be half an hour or so
I also swapped out my old salvage laptop(pre I series processor so slow) I was using for a really cheap recon dell optiplex (120 quid) and now there's so much detail I've never seen before in the world's.
TT was good. Works well as a format on zwift.
Unfortunantly the 4 folk Infront of me were no shows so I had no one to chase.
Held a steady 290 ISH for 26 minutes and change. for 6th.
Let's try for a repeat in tomorrow night's old school club 5tt. No aero allowed. Taking the fixie.
I'm not sure what the world is coming too, think I'm about to buy a month of Zwift in August, to try and keep my fitness revival going while we seem to be moving into a rubbish wet period of late summer and I've got a bit of time off work during the next few weeks. 😮
Already used all my free trial 25Km per account for August and ended up resorting to doing a 20min FTP effort on the Elite Turbo App last night... Which is fine as a one-off, but my god, it's so boring compared to the likes of Virtugo; RGT; Zwift etc.
I did half a b cat race with tired this morning.
Didn't realise all groups went together so burnt a few matches early on.
Was quite happy when an unavoidable work call came through 🙂
Will be doing that again . Was quite fun.
Not as enjoyable for me as TT though
I've been back on Zwift recently due to the crap weather and my fan in the garage has finally died.
I quite like the look of the Wahoo Headwind but it's a bit pricey.
Anyone use one? Is it worth the money?
The other option is one of these:
Vacmaster Air Mover | High Power, Energy Efficient Turbo Fan/Blower/Dryer https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B06WRV12HM/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_X.huDbT1GFPF2
Seems well regarded on the Trainer Road forum
Is anyone doing the Zwift Acadamey this year? I am planning on starting it tomorrow or Thursday (a bit behind as I was in New Orleans for work last week but it is more flexible this year). Doesn't seem that hard to graduate (8 workouts and 4 group rides or races before 29th September) and for every 10 graduates a bike will be donated by Zwift to an African charity so worth doing if you are looking to Zwift and want a bit more focus. Going to start with a ramp test as my FTP is 269 but sure I must have lost a bit of top end so suspect I will come in lower than that.
Not for me. Life is getting in the way a little at the moment as we frantically try to tidy our house up to sell it. Can't paint and zwift at the same time!
Not for me. Life is getting in the way a little at the moment as we frantically try to tidy our house up to sell it. Can’t paint and zwift at the same time!
Fair play - before my week away I spent 2 weeks re-doing our kitchen so my cycling has been pretty low on the priority list for about a month now. Time to get back into it again for me!
Just started the Academy plan this week. Only done one workout and one group ride so far.
The group ride seemed a bit pointless as it just ended up as a race as any group ride on Zwift seems to end up!