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I realised I was going to spend the next lap and a half yoyo-ing back and forth so just pulled the pin to save holding everyone else back. Very generous of me I think you'll agree!
I should have followed your lead Ivan just didn’t have the legs tonight found it much harder than usual. Good ride everyone thanks for organising Adam.
Thanks for organising. My start was a bit of a disaster as my power meter had gone to sleep after not pedalling for 3 min in the pen, so I had to burst myself to get back on before we'd even started!
During the races I normaly do i just sit in the pack the whole time, so find it hard to judge when you are trying to take a dig in front. What i was finding is i was sitting 2nd or 3rd wheel busting my balls to get to the front, and then as soon as I managed to get to the front id just zoom off leaving a gap. In real life you slow down when off the front but today I appeared to speed up??
Didn't help that at one point my friggin anti virus popped up on screen..I had to smash myself to get a wee gap, jump off the bike to grab mouse, then back on before I lost your wheels..
Good workout though
Enjoyed it tonight, I wasn't firing on all cylinders and my discipline was shocking but felt strong and it was good fun as usual.
Reckon if we can get TP to do the hill pulls and rotate the front as we did a few weeks ago to maintain 40+ KPH we'll be unstoppable I tell ye! unstoppable!! Unless we stop...
Cheers for the ride all. That was a lot warmer than I expected though, my office looks like it's been hosed down!
Frustrating with those passing teams playing silly buggers though, was only coasting at a couple of points when they slowed right down immediately after coming through.
It really was, though I'm not entirely convinced there wasn't something weird and buggy going on this evening.
Climbing out of the tunnel I was making time on the group who'd passed us and actually coasting up hill at one point.
There were a few times I tried to drop back to pick someone up and at barely above coasting I still seemed to be doing 30kph on the flat.
When Ivan dropped I over shot the group pulling back on which isn't unusual but I went through like you were stationery, dropped to a dawdle and was still moving up the road. I could see phil's numbers and he was pulling 2 or 3 times my effort and making no ground.
Other times I'd be pulling hard and seemingly standing still.
It's almost as if I had about 10 minutes of lag.
Oh and it felt like the lap one took about an hour.
It’s almost as if I had about 10 minutes of lag.
I thought there was lag as well. As mentioned I'd be trying to come to front, sittimg in the draft putting out over 5 w/kg and struggling to come by, then all of a sudden I'd shoot forward and gap the group. Not ideal in a ttt format!
Where did we come overall?
Provisionally 95th out of 148 in Frappe. I'm actually pleasantly surprised by that given it felt pretty scrappy this evening and the hold up with those teams passing through or rather not passing.
That was a good ride. I hate passing other teams (and being passed) but I handled it a bit better than previously this week. The long drawn out pass cost us some time still.
We finished in 54:57, 40.6km/h. And overnight we are in provisional 95/149 in Frappe and 181/399 overall.
Next week is Sand and Sequoias twice, so 42km with the rolling Titans Grove KOM. It's not steep, but it's really irregular so that'll be a nice challenge to stay together. It was showing 3 laps this morning, which would have been madness. I'll get an entry in when they open.
I quite like that route and to be honest the hilly ones tend to suit us better, or at least they suit everyone else less 😉
Where do you get the fixture list @Savoyad? I can never find it. That S&S was the first TTT I did and the descent was hard to ride well as a group.
You might want to consider tagging all of your names (STW) in zwift if you're not doing that - we could never be arsed, even with the same kit at first but it created some chaotic passing manoeuvres that can really bollox things up. I think if other riders see a block of names on the right hand side menu, all the same tag, it helps them process the approach and pass better.
Solid from my club tonight @53.59 after the inferno of last week which had me struggling. Not the most interesting course I guess but quite liked the 3 laps, seemed to get a good rhythm.
@dangeourbrain On the commute yesterday morning there were definitely some strange things going on with the resistance. When I hit the Richmond cobbled climbs on the 2-3% gradient it felt like I was spinning downhill and then it took a while to respond to the steeper portions as well. I think you mentioned on Tuesday you thought there was something wrong since the update. A lot of my other training rides are in ERG mode controlled by TrainerRoad so I don't notice any issues.
Robbo, one of our team had that issue yesterday. He had to drop of asking - how come you lot are riding at 350w for 20 mins? I wish.
I quite like that route and to be honest the hilly ones tend to suit us better, or at least they suit everyone else less
I liked it and had an weird ride. it felt like one of the easiest despite a Z5 training session the prior evening, and I cruised in at 3.5wkg average with more to give.
There's always some lag when you put the power down and then again when you ease off so if you're not used to it, you end up putting down too much power for too long which is probably why you were overshooting the front. It's just one of the quirks of Zwift racing and something you get used to!What i was finding is i was sitting 2nd or 3rd wheel busting my balls to get to the front, and then as soon as I managed to get to the front id just zoom off leaving a gap. In real life you slow down when off the front but today I appeared to speed up??
Where do you get the fixture list @Savoyad?
It's here https://wtrl.racing/WTRL_events.php click on upcoming. It sometimes changes a little (gets easier than predicted, like when 2 laps of the Magnificent 8 became just 1 a few weeks back).
Yes, thanks for pointing out that the descent will be as complicated (as a team) as the climb next week, you are quite right. S&S is a fun course. I'll be doing 2 lap races of it twice this week. It's a smart choice for the TTT.
There are a few threads on the zwift forums complaining about weird behaviour since the last update. Dangeourbrain sounded completely bewildered at one point yesterday.
You took nearly 2 minutes out of us. Well done. We were 20seconds up on the last time we raced that course.
S&S will be better as we get much higher placing on hilly routes as all the 90kg+ power monsters struggle.
Dangeourbrain sounded completely bewildered at one point yesterday.
That's probably about the time I was "stuck" 20m ahead of you folks and about the same behind Tim and magneto, ambling along at about 150-200 and not losing ground.
It was the weirdest thing I've ever had in zwift.
Felt like I'd fallen asleep on the back of a tandem.
I think what was worst was none of your numbers made sense for what was happening on screen. At one point pulling Lewis back on I was about 2.3w/kg so well under 200w and I was dropping him despite his being sat up so in draft and him pedaling at 3 point some on the flat.
I'm wondering if it somehow knew I'd forgotten to pick up a towel so was trying to keep me moving if I decided to get off the bike and go fetch one.
@Dangeourbrain - that bit was really weird, I was doing well over 4w/kg pulling the group back on and you we're doing 1.8 w/kg and dropping us!
We were scrappy last night - at the time I though it was because we've not had 8 riders before, and pacing for a bigger group was more difficult. I can normally find a pace that works for the group, but last night we kept getting splits, we slow a bit to tighten up, and then suddenly people are flying off the front!
Still fun though!
Zwift seemed fine to me tbh. The developers have said nothing has changed with the power/resistance algorithms and I could only see about 2 or 3 actually complaining about issues, so I'd probably put it down to individual peoples' setups if there actually is a problem with power, rather than a Zwift thing. Plus Danger is not exactly known for his consistent power output 😂
It's definitely glitchy after the update, as Robbo said yesterday on the cobble climbs he seemed to just stop at the top of the climb and was suddenly 20 odd seconds behind and going backwards, I thought he had dropped connection or something, next thing I know he is next to me, no indication of him catching up or anything! Also whilst riding solo I'm getting a lot of frozen screen moments, but it always seems to get back to normal after a few seconds.
It's going to be interesting to see how it handles tomorrows tour group ride, right now there is 4000 of us on the start line! You might want to avoid the Watopia KOM if free riding.
that bit was really weird, I was doing well over 4w/kg pulling the group back on and you we’re doing 1.8 w/kg and dropping us!
Glad it wasn't just me seeing the numbers at least!
I enjoyed it more in hindsight than at the time, there were times last night I was genuinely exasperated as I seemed to have developed the same sort of belligerent intelligence as a dodgy shopping trolley.
Plus Danger is not exactly known for his consistent power output 😂
How very dare you!
The developers have said nothing has changed with the power/resistance algorithm
It actually felt normal on that front (vs earlier in the week but I'm not convinced that wasn't my end), the effort in certainly felt to tally with the onscreen W, the hills were a little out of time but the gradient was certainly there.
It was more like the power just didn't translate to anything happening in game, like really bad lag.
So it sounds like what we're saying is I wasn't crap zwift was to blame excellent i'll take that haha.
Unless your zweight is 12kg there were definitely times when you should have been leaving me behind and quite the opposite was happening.
Might have a go at L'Etape ride tomorrow as I have no other plans, bit rubbish that they're recycling a Watopian route but am I right in thinking they've added TDF banners, etc? So it might look slightly different.
DD is on apparently so should be able to get a fair few PBs given there's a crowd of 3500+ for each event 😃
Did the L'Etape ride this morning...made me feel sick at the beginning with so many avatars flying around, took a fair few Km's to settle down so I could see myself on screen. Fast pace but felt like I was going backwards on the KOM, still a PB though. Took just over the hour...was fun!
I was on the same one, finished just inside the top 3,000 out of over 4,500, took plenty out of all of my PBs. It's not hard seeing as there was a draft all the way to the top of the radio tower, groups started to break up on the descent which made for a fun run in leapfrogging up the gaps to pull back the groups in front.
Not easy to see where you were when everyone is on the same bike in the same kit. Although my avatar appeared to be the dick rider always trying to cut across others.
Anyone watching the virtual tdf at 2pm?
I will be, just doing a Zwift training workout now.
I'm going to watch on Eurosport at 6:30pm.
They could do with a gradient display - if you know the course you know roughly how steep it is but the gradient doesn't translate well to the screen.
Did the 5pm Tour ride thing...
6000 riders! Was bloody fantastic, best group ride ive ever done in fact.
Loads of people's systems crashed at the start it seemed. Mine didn't but I lost power in Zwift as we began... It returned after about 30 seconds and off I went!
Really,really good vibe going up the Kom with all those people.😁
Also in the 5pm event. First large group ride I’ve taken part in and found it very absorbing and hard work trying not to be the one on the front but pushing to get on to the next group in front and so on. I wasn’t sure how to pace myself but was pleased with my final placing (I know it wasn’t a race) and managed to average a fraction above my Zwift ftp for the hour. Noted the previous comments about it being confusing and difficult to follow your avatar so decided to go slap head and that worked a treat.
Got my first ever podium in the b cat last night, in a flat tt. Reasonably happy with that given I was on the aero bars which robs me of a few watts.
For those in the know, am i right in thinking there are only 2 tt courses, the 17.6km fugio flats course, and bologna?
I've done a TT on sand and sequoias I think
I've done a TT or two at Crit City, plus a few other courses on the ~25 mile "Flying Cheetah" series that used to run on Friday afternoon.
Has anyone else found Repack Ridge is broken since the update?
After doing the trail and the feedback, mine bombs out to windows and the whole ride is lost.
Tried it repeatedly and it does it every time.
Never seen any of those tt options. Will look out for them
Just seen I got my first trophy since Feb yesterday...
Silver in a group workout! 😆 😈
Also did the 5pm tour, did the kom the other day, 19:05 and 273w, the draft effect in the “tour” got me 18:07 with 274w
I did the 5pm etape too (thanks for the "ride on!" in the warmup poopscoop). I didn't see a gap open up the whole way round, it was just draft draft draft from start to finish, a never ending peloton.
I got bumped to Cat B afterwards. I have mixed feelings about that - it's nice to progress, but I need to push on now otherwise I've just swapped the fun of being at the top end of C for the less-fun of being at the very (and I mean very) bottom end of B. No more little cups on zwiftpower for me for a while anyway. And it means the TTT will less often ride as a latte rather than a frappe (but Phil and Danger lurking on the boundary of cat A is probably more significant than me for our categorisation...).
@tpbiker your TT was a great ride, congrats. You were pushing cat A numbers there (and not far off the podium times in A). You can filter for TT events on different courses in the listings in zwiftpower and zwifthacks. I think the companion app does it too but the 3rd party sites seem better somehow.
Watched a bit of the Pro race yesterday, thought it was great! The helicopter view especially is cool and lets you see Watopia from different angles. Can you select that view normally? Love the way the peloton sweeps round corners too. Also love the fact that they’ve left the power ups on 😂
had no planned to ride the etape as had a very long ride on the books for saturday but JNR was ill so i was confined to quarters.
Ended up doing chores both days so snuck on to the 19:00 etape last night .
AS others said - one long peloton.
The power on show from the base back to the line was immense we were bowling along at 50kph + for most of it and even 60kph at times.
saw you won the A's league on the deeside races Arron - Simon was calling out for the winners to get in touch via facebook for prizes.
There's a few "no draft" TTs showing on Zwiftpower from 1730 today, at not so common places (Tick Tock, Jungle Circuit, Royal Pump Room 8).
I'm doing the 5.40pm Team Italy race this afternoon.
2 laps of Harrogate, not raced that before.