Zwift, my journey, my weight and my fitness.

scaredypants - Member
Interesting - but I'm oot, for now at least

(I thought you were a cat4 CH ??)

On here: http://zwiftrankings.com

He's a cat 2.

I'm still down as an Elite, ha that's not going to last long.

ah, I see

on there I'm a 2, inactive, 4, 4 - work that out

Somewhere up there ^ I linked to the league that CVR are launching.

Edit: guess I’ll be bringing up the rear in B as that’s what they reckon I am 😯 7pm for me

OK, we'll give it a whirl potentially. 4pm for me.

[url= https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4528/24868987668_c9fcd7cfe6_b.jp g" target="_blank">https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4528/24868987668_c9fcd7cfe6_b.jp g"/> [/img][/url][url= https://flic.kr/p/DTA4Bs ]hilltervals[/url] by [url= https://www.flickr.com/photos/152318156@N08/ ]Steve Weeks[/url], on Flickr

Hilltervals !

aww, imagine how proud CH is going to be !

Good work weeksy - interesting HR recovery "drift" between sprints.

interesting HR recovery "drift" between sprints.

Depended on who was around me after finishing sprint etc, sometimes I went harder than others, I was also texting a mate a fair few times.

So KISS are now running the Zwift official EU/USA ECrit series (like they did for the Australian one) after the Zwift one imploded just before the finale. The exact reasoning isn't clear but a lot of the guys and gals who committed to racing it were pretty pee'd off!

Anyway, the new incarnation is as follows:
Starts 7th December, 10 races, Thursdays, 8pm, mass start, no cats, best 7 races to count for points, top ten men and top ten women to race at a live final.

All quite exciting really, it's CVR v KISS in a way. Although I'm sure some guys will race both.

https://m.facebook.com/groups/644249712382917

Did the WBR 4 lapper last night. Think I'm getting the hang of it now as managed to stay with the front group fairly consistently. In fact it felt fairly pedestrian so managed to have a bit of fun by launching a couple of sustained attacks. Didn't stay away but also didn't get dropped so fairly content. Didn't have the legs for the final sprint but that's not a suprise as I've never been a sprinter.

mass start, no cats,

dazh - Member
Did the WBR 4 lapper last night. Think I'm getting the hang of it now as managed to stay with the front group fairly consistently. In fact it felt fairly pedestrian so managed to have a bit of fun by launching a couple of sustained attacks. Didn't stay away but also didn't get dropped so fairly content. Didn't have the legs for the final sprint but that's not a suprise as I've never been a sprinter.

It's nice when you can have a bit of a play, although 99.5% of them i'm not able to do that.

Apologies for not posting for a while, been a bit ill for the last month, seem to better now...

I did my first KISS 100, suffered, and then I was under the weather at the same time as Zwift kept going offline and ZP went down, a strange coincidence. My first proper return ride was the World event last Saturday and I got dropped on the first hill but then warmed up and stayed with the chasers to finish 71st.

Checking CVR today shows that I have not done much lately but I am now in the Elite category so the challenge is now to stay there. I may do some of the CVR & KISS series, just for training, the initial pace is always too much for me. In the World event, which was 120km, I set new PR's for every segment from the start until I got dropped.

I have kept up with everyone else's progress on here recently, Zwift does make a big difference once you get the hang of it.

Today I will try FulGaz for a bit of variety for a recovery ride and then may be the KISS 100 at the weekend.

I don't think the numbers for a weekly series will be quite as big as the one off events that cause the real problem.
Zwift are anticipating 12000 concurrent users this winter by all accounts. I saw 4500 the other day.

What's the most you guys have seen?

Thanks for all the advice and pointers on PC setup etc. I've now got a refurbished tower PC on its way and also ordered a good budget graphics card, so will hopefully get it all working by next week.

Tried the WBR Cat C last night, and held the lead group for nearly a lap until the lag became too weird to keep pace. I think most of that is the slow internet connection here, rather than the my current PC (work laptop).

Good race all the same, and looking at the other results in that category, I'm not that far off the pace, so hoping that once I get an improved setup working, I should be able to focus on pace and stamina, rather than cursing the kit!

Gavinb - it wont matter if you have the greatest kit in the world coz if you are anything like me then any losses/bad performances are always the kits fault as i am too awesome a rider to come second. 😀

Haha - that did occur to me too! Once I have this new setup working, the excuses bucket is looking pretty empty.

Use mine...

" I was 14th, but all the others should be DQ'd for breaking cat limits"

I like that one 🙂

Well, I'm finally on it and have done just a couple or rides so far. Going to sign up to pay this weekend a the trial ends. Great so far, but holy moly, aren't there any other fatties on there? Everyone seems to power away up every hill. I suspect I'm going to loose a lot of weight soon to enable me to keep up!
It's astonishing how hard I'm prepared to ride as well, genuinely flat out, sweaty smelly mess and want to do it again. I bloody hate turbos, this is good fun.
Another few weeks and I'll start entering a few events.

What weight are you mate ? I'm at 95 or so, there's others on here in the 3 figures....

But yes, there are plenty of light ones on Zwift !

I'm 93kg but the power output is pants! Doesn't help that 10kg of that is lard....

It's astonishing how hard I'm prepared to ride as well, genuinely flat out, sweaty smelly mess and want to do it again

My experience exactly. I'm fairly fit (do endurance races) but have always struggled in the past to push it when training out on the road (intervals etc). I rarely come back from a road ride absolutely wasted, an hour on this though and I can barely walk.

an hour on this though and I can barely walk.

I nearly crashed my bike, on the turbo (final sprint in my first ever race).

Did a little warm down spin for about 15 mins after that then cramped up getting off the bike.

I managed to tip the bike and turbo nearly 45 degrees yesterday trying to get off it after a rather sprinty workout organised by mgcc left me quite wobbly and unstable. That being said i have done this before on the road but that was down to being clipless and incompetent.

My bike came completely out of the turbo (Kinetic Road Machine) racing the other day! I grabbed my pedestal fan off to the side, smashed that on the way down and ended up on the floor!

It was well clamped in when I started but the clamping bar unscrewed over the length of the 4-lap race I was in. I contacted Kinetic and they are sending me the upgrade parts. Must be a known problem with older Kinetic turbos as they only have a lock ring on the non-drive side whereas the newer ones have a lock ring both sides.

Extracated myself from the wreckage, put the bike back on the turbo and finished the race. It doesn't get much more realistic than that! 😆

My chain snapping now firmly in perspective

Extracated myself from the wreckage, put the bike back on the turbo and finished the race.

Eemy i would have done the same but rightly claimed that i had the race in the bag before the crash happened.

I'd already covered just over three laps at the point of the crash and was toast anyway. I figured I'd put all that effort in I might as well finish (last in group C). Zwift is getting a little too realistic for my liking!

The worst thing was finishing the last lap without a fan. I've got a nice, new, high-powered, gym fan now though. 8)

You know those idiots that turn up on a group ride then blast of miles ahead of the beacon.

I just did that, on the plus side I gained an extra 4 watts on my FTP trying to stay with faster riders.

It's nowhere near as bad as the condescending patronising dribble the ride leaders come out with whilst trying not to blow their tops 😆

If you fancy it, crack on I say 🙂

All signed up for the 5 / C's (I think) in the CVR 7.00 slot, ideal as the little one is at Cubs.

Will be interesting to see a proper competitive league. Would love to do the Thursday night Kiss one as well but thats night-ride night.

Assume that rankings are taken at the time of registration? or am I able to register a load of DNF's and get me back down into D?

Winter is very much upon us though that's for sure. Cold, damp, rainy, muddy and chalky! Sounds about right for winter in West Berks.
It was nice to be out and its nice when its all leafy etc, but I can't say most of the trails are great right now.
We cut the ride a little short as it was just getting too wet. The fine misty stuff that drowns you but doesn't feel it at first.

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[url= https://www.flickr.com/photos/152318156@N08/38755286692/ ]2017-12-02_02-55-07[/url] by [url= https://www.flickr.com/photos/152318156@N08/ ]Steve Weeks[/url] - [url= https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.dariogf.flickr2BBcode_lite ]Flickr2BBcode LITE[/url]

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[url= https://www.flickr.com/photos/152318156@N08/27010522479/ ]2017-12-02_02-55-17[/url] by [url= https://www.flickr.com/photos/152318156@N08/ ]Steve Weeks[/url] - [url= https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.dariogf.flickr2BBcode_lite ]Flickr2BBcode LITE[/url]

100km ride tomorrow....

...outside...on actual roads!

Wonder how well those 100km Zwift rides have prepared me for the Moray roads?

Anyone fancy the 20:05 KISS race tonight? I'm all signed up but currently drinking a nice Belgian beer while I cook a roast dinner.

Might need a pre race nap

Maybe scaled, although it off by the layout which suits me 0%

Depend what times I get home from keeper coaching in Ascot.

Sod it, I'm in. Will be a disaster on this course. But wanted a session

Well i'm not sure what happened there on several levels !

I thought it was the full ruins lap back down to the bottom, I went off steady, sitting in a decent bunch and letting them work mostly.... We hit the hill and they disappeared ! oh... hold on.... No they never ! WTF, i was climbing like a BEAST ! Well, a beast in comparitive terms for ME ! I was sitting in a hard gear on a 4%-5% incline and pushing 3.5-3.8-4.0w/kg ! Which for me is unheard of. The HR was sitting at 169/170, which i'm happy with.

We're then picking guys off and i'm powering the straights ! powering, 3.5 again, then resting at 1.9.. then 3.5 to power on.... I'm telling the bunch of 6 of us what the gaps are... 10s, 6s, we got him too....

Then i looked at the distance bar... 2.8km.. Errrrrrm HELLO !

It showed 0.3 then and i pinned it... overtook 3.... then noticed the line was another 300m ! So rested for a few secs and pinned it again.

God knows if that was the actual end, but i don't care... That was the most involving and fun race in over 6 months for me.... I was happy, comfortable and reasonably powerful ! Where has that been !

Strava shows me as 282w weighted average, which i don't see in anything other than a 20mins sprint race.. So to hit that for a longer race is astounding for me !

BOOM ! !

The Hilltervals worked 😆

you've turned into a monster !

[s]must be those hill intervals the other day :D[/s]

Bah, would've gotten away with it, if it wasn't for that pesky crosshair

Slightly more serious answer- obviously it's too soon physiologically to be seeing the effects of the intervals but the other aspect is confidence. In a race, you know you have to pace to the finish so you hold a little back. In a training session you can actually go harder in a funny way as there's no consequences for having to ease off.
By exposing yourself to those harder efforts, you have more faith in doing one without bonking.

That said- the power trace is still crazily flat for such a hilly race!!! You must have the slider set pretty low?

https://www.strava.com/segments/16361124?filter=club&club_id=244094

Hold on a second. Lol

I'll have to check CH but slider is about 50% I think.

Edit: couldn't check as it all turned off.

you must've ridden it CH, surely? (or the "ruins loop" anyway) - fairly constant gradient of 3%ish up or down IIRR.

Nope. Only went there once to see what it was like but must have gone the other way. The hill puts me off when I'm training, I'd rather rack up miles on Volcano Flat 😆

In other news, CVR have redrawn the race 'Brackets'. I might have a chance in C......

[img] [/img]

That was a horrible race, two A lads went off the front before the first hill and hit about 185bpm chasing them down and dragged the entire group back to them on my own, then there was that hill.

I've not done a hilly race in zwift before. With no time to recover I was toast on the hill and just tried to hang with the mixed AB group I was in.

Good fun though, even with the weird no finishing line bug that seemed to hit everyone.

Scaled- nice work. Join the STW Strava club please 😆

I'd rather rack up miles on Volcano Flat

well done scaled - that first short, steep climb is a killer, with a nice loooong drag after it

Singletrack world forumites? I'm there: Kai B

Sounds an awesome effort weeksy.

After a couple of weeks of doing structured workouts tonight I decided do just freeride just to up the mileage as I stacked it on the clubride today and broke the bike. Im amazed how much more stimulated I felt just randomly attacking people and the volcano climb. I almost hit pb stats that I prevoiously set in a race. Any tips for keeping your head in the game doing intervals as I being told they are the most beneficial way of training?

Awesome in my world but not compared to Scaled! Them fast lads are a plane of existence over me. I'm just playing compared to them.

Scaled- Nah 'STW Zwifters' too. Although, the other one looks better Weeksy 😆 😉

https://www.strava.com/segments/16361124?filter=club&club_id=244094 <

Well done Weeksy!

crosshair - Member
In other news, CVR have redrawn the race 'Brackets'. I might have a chance in C......
[img] [/img]

Yay 😥

Rmgvtec- my personal technique is to think of intervals in terms of a goal I really care about. So 2 minutes = flying lap of Hillingdon , 5 minutes = Streatley Hill etc etc.
Other than that, just get high on sugar and caffeine and listen to loud dance music 😆

What's the new bit on Zwiftpower then ?

Left hand side, i've got ^14 for yesterday ? Doesn't seem to be CVR points as i got +3 for yesterdays race. So maybe it's some other form of rankings system ?

Races also seem to have gone back to all starting at the same time again now. In some ways i preferred the new split format. Although it meant i didn't get to mix it with the Bs, i felt it was a little fairer.

I do feel ZP need to sort their stuff out now though anyway. You now have no concept of who's actually racing in their correct Cats. Put it this way, i find it VERY hard to believe the guy in C yesterday who finished at the same time as 7th A rider and 4th in B, was actually <3.2w/kg for the overall race... How many of the others were blowing away Cat limits ? Hmmmm.

IT does mean that at the moment, the Cat boundaries are utterly pointless ?

so they don't show "full" results any more (power spreads 'n'shit) ?

Must be some sort of turf war, looking to stop other people using data that ZP has collated. Is there a sale in the offing ?

scaredypants - Member
so they don't show "full" results any more (power spreads 'n'shit) ?

Must be some sort of turf war, looking to stop other people using data that ZP has collated. Is there a sale in the offing ?

I think that's to do with the public information stuff from a few pages ago, so i kinda get that...
But that sort of stuff was really good to have in there... Even just to see peoples power/weight etc and get a sense of who's playing by the rules and who's not.

Essentially it doesn't matter as we know, it's all just training. But it's nice to think you're earning your place in the grand scheme of things. Because we know eachother in the real world, STW is a real leveller, if for example i stuck my weight at 65kg, then i'm going to be ripped apart by the forum as you guys all know i'm closer to double that 🙂 But others in ZP/CVR world, i'm not quite as convinced about.

Who's playing today then ?

I'm torn between the 17:05 WBR 1 lapper that Muggo is entered in.. Along with the 8pm KISS 2nd base race. I must admit i do like the 2nd base.... but a short one may suit this evening more early on.

Decisions decisions.

Basically, in their new campaign against cheating that they launched, a lot more data was readily available. (Graphs showing your weight trend for example).

Somebody took offence to this (an outed cheater perhaps?) and basically threatened ZP with legal action.

So they've had to take legal advice and remove everything that isn't common knowledge already.

Once they've got their t+c's sorted, we will all have to re-register with our consent.

It's tricky now- before, Glen Knight maintained it was all
done for love and that they weren't getting anything out of it. And I know they did invest a lot of their own money in kit and stuff.
However, now Zwift are openly funding the hosting costs and have bought them kit, that line between 'fun, interesting 3rd party community website' and part of your subscription is getting blurry.

I'm not sure what Glen and the others long game is with this- I know they've already declined an offer from Frank at CVR to buy them out.

Glen ( after reading my earlier comments in this thread) spent a whole day harassing me on FB messenger pleading his case that he doesn't make anything out of it. I think one of his partners had assumed he was doing the dirty on them as they genuinely were getting naff all 😀

Between KISS, Zwiftpower and his other work he does for Zwift, Glen is pretty much the king of Zwift Racing as it stands. However, he uses it to his advantage- he's a member of our private TFC Club page example so there's no point even discussing anything on there about tactics for example as he can read the lot.

Because there's no competition for Zwift Power- he's the go-to man for all the race organisers too. They have to speak to him to get a race listed. So the KISS race series can always stay one step ahead of the competition because any good idea has to go through him!!!! Cunning huh 😉

Still- credit where it's due, it's an awesome piece of work and our entire Zwift experience would be rubbish without it.

[url= https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4554/38795223382_feb4764d3e_b.jp g" target="_blank">https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4554/38795223382_feb4764d3e_b.jp g"/> [/img][/url][url= https://flic.kr/p/227cEiL ]what[/url] by [url= https://www.flickr.com/photos/152318156@N08/ ]Steve Weeks[/url], on Flickr

Thoughts ?

Well it's clearly points rather than ranking as the higher Cat riders have a higher number. Haven't read anything about it though....

In other news, CVR have redrawn the race 'Brackets'

weeksy - Member
https://www.strava.com/segments/16361124?filter=club&club_id=244094

Damn, my 15 minutes of fame is over 🙁

Haha sorry fella 😀

With the CVR rankings, i'm apparently a C now, looking forward to that 😀

No worries at all 🙂 looking at your time, you damn well deserve it !

I'm taking on the STW resident power monster then at 17:05. Muggo is a bit of a beast ! i'm hoping to spend most of the ride sitting in his draft 🙂

I'll just copy/paste in one of the other 40 WBR 4 lap races and you'll know how it went.

Went off in lead C group, got dropped on the usual hill at lap 2...(after warm up 3/4), then saw the next group of Cs about 11s back... so soft pedalled and got some HR in me and some breathing going.... Next thing you know, they're on me and pinning it.... jump on the group, caught a feather ! Yay.... So onto lap 3... i'm holding this group, quite big, but it's HARD... feather on the hill saw me mid-group on the run to the hairpin, but pushing the HR hard.... Over the banner to start last lap... Oh crap, no power up... i needed one of them.
Usual form of being OK in the grou for 3/4 of a lap, we hit Horseguards hill.... yup, the usual, nothing in the tank and pushing about 4.0w/g at 380-390w, getting left... as we crested i was 2s down on the back 3-4 riders, but the main few were gone... I'd dropped 2 guys which was nice... 1.5km to go and the 3 guys in front have 6s on me now.... right, time to hold them.... still 6... then 4.. Ooooh here goes, 325w @ 3.4w/kg and closing passing the roundabout on the straight, 2, 1 .... pass and leave them, putting 400w now and trying to hang one with 400m to go... but it's OK, i've gapped them and they're not coming back with a sprint so i cruise over the line...

Took a screenshot but it will have to wait, out of the guys ahead of me, only 2 were less than 3.2w/kg... Bring back the DQs please ! This is ridiculous. The lead C guy was over 5w/kg FFS ! Come on.. seriously !

Dead now.... bbye 🙂

Oh cool, the over the limit Cs got bumped today. That's better lol. 7th. Not bad.
Tough race though, my legs are not happy with me

I was in the 17.05 as well. Flicked you a ride on at the start Weeksy. Just as well as that was the only time I saw you. More later when I can think straight.

Yeh, all seems a bit daft at the moment

Basically, in their new campaign against cheating that they launched, a lot more data was readily available. (Graphs showing your weight trend for example).
Somebody took offence to this (an outed cheater perhaps?) and basically threatened ZP with legal action

I just want consistency really.

3 races in last week.

1. Split start, single C race
2. All in together, race everyone. No DQ s/upgrades
3. All together, race everyone, upgrades.

You just don't know.

It makes no difference to how hard I try, I just do my best.

But battling all these Bs is getting tiresome. A nice little algorithm to stop people who finish outside of cat limits 3 times and enforcing entry into higher Cat would be nice

Is it wrong that I'm actually quite proud about finishing 4 mins behind Ian Bibby and Adrian Timmis?

Not at all weeksy as that is truly something to be proud of, great work. I was proud this morning that i stayed with the A group for the first 11 miles of my race whilst having bubonic plague, i then got dropped and left pretty quickly and they beat me by 5 mins but i did get BRONZE in B but there were only a dozen of us.

I dream of decent results in B. I'm getting closer, but think realistically I now need to drop weight not gain power to do that. Again today I hit 280w for the race, which I'm happy with. But at 5kg less I'd be a damn pile better

That is a great result Weeksy!

I got off to a fast start but still got left behind by most. Got into a group of 4 and into the second lap we caught a bigger group. Stayed with them for a lap or so and then fell off the back. I TT'd the next lap and then caught another guy who I raced ( well sort of) to the finish. Curiously I was 81st in the results at the end and that is where I finished in ZP, 22nd overall in C. The group that dropped me finished a couple of minutes ahead.

Mixed feelings about the result. Quite pleased with the time. My recovery seems to have improved out of sight as well, at least I was not in the foetal position after the race for a change. I was almost bang on my ftp and improved my 5min and 1min average wattages according to zwift. Still have this nagging feeling it could have gone better though.

That's awesome then mate if you're hitting your bests!

Racing is very fluid, in 10 days, same race, 4 laps wbr I finished 2min 25 difference to my own result. Now admittedly the slower race I put out less power, but that's often related to who else you're racing as you sit in groups etc. But it's not just down to your own performance. A right break or a decent PU at the right time, suddenly you're in a fast bunch but holding your usual power only, but you've then lapped 20s a lap quicker.

Keep enjoying it buddy!

Struggling to be arsed tonight, the good races all seem to be a bit earlier on the evening and there's a bit of a void 8-9.

Doesn't help that I've only just woken up, reading 4 stories at bedtime too it out of me. Dashing out to the garage for a no warm up WBR one lapper seems ridiculous 😆

. A right break or a decent PU at the right time, suddenly you're in a fast bunch but holding your usual power only, but you've then lapped 20s a lap quicker.

Keep enjoying it buddy!

Cheers Weeksy.

The PU was a problem. I got a feather before the race but for some reason it did not appear in the app. I can only just reach my laptop but then realised I didn't know how to activate it on the keyboard. It taunted me for the rest of the ride 😡

Space bar

Thanks I figured it had to be simple but I was too afraid to experiment in case I stuffed something else up. 😀

By the way normally as my laptop is at the low end graphics card wise I run on 576p. After the last update it changed itself to 720p. Looks a whole lot better and seems to run fine.