STW Zwift Autumn Series 2

That course is a ****, but I felt ok tonight. HR monitor wouldn’t pair tonight so maybe not having the HR in the corner didn’t make me think “oh Eck, I’m redlining, better chill out” so I kept on it.

Anyway, as it always goes I got to play with the big boys until my mum (the first climb) called me in for a bath. Toddled over the climbs with a few folk and then Crazyharry came hooning past up the last wee bit, so I dug deep and managed to snag a wheel, bringing Drysdale with. We cruised in a 3 for the next lap, with Crazyharry, the TT machine, pulling us along at a fairly constant 3.6w/kg. We didn’t make much time on those in front but cleared a bigger gap behind. When we got back around to the climbs the other 2 flew off and left me to race myself. Managed to just about hold off the chasing group, which I was pleased about.

Cheers Robbo 😁

It was quiet at the back.

Wow. That was…attritional. It’s a tough course but a shame it was hard on some people’s wifi/hardware! I count 13 DNFs (31 finishers from 44 in the starting pen).

I gunned the start and stayed with a fairly big (20ish) lead group until the first sprint when the fast lads buggered off and I was left to cruise with 5 or 6 others for a lap. The first set of hills split us and I was with @drew until we swept up a few more including @dangeourbrain and @garrylager. We picked up @mossimus and @v7fmp and the three of us ended up together and had a good scrap to the last hill when I eaked out a lead thanks to a feather. I’ve got to say the PU gods were smiling on me tonight. I hope I haven’t used up my luck ahead of next week…

Well that went ok. Tried to keep up with a faster group than usual but they all left me on the first climb. Then toggled with RM for a While. Top tip, don’t put your laptop on the floor right under where your hands are dripping sweat. Mine kept landing in the mouse pad and was causing me to wave at everyone for a few minutes, gave me the right giggles 😆

That was eventful! Probably spent more time watching everyone else’s power output on the sprints. I didn’t have it in me to sprint on lap 2 so watched in hope that Gary didn’t take the second sprint, then @Nixie stormed it, despite dodgy guts!
For me it was all about getting to the flat section after the first climb so I could draft the fast group. The gaps quickly opened up behind us. Didn’t quite know how the split happened in the last few km but great work again from @j-r who I’m surprised didn’t pass me at the banner!

Well another good race. I had a crash after 12 minutes so watched DrP and Nixie’s feeds for the rest of the race. I have got screenshots from Brian for the sprints but they match to the Zwiftpower data so I am fairly confident in the results.

So onto the results:

Cat A:
1. benman
2. Phil56
3. DrP

Cat B:
1. Paino
2. J-R
3. Kirky72

Cat C:
1. V7mfp
2. drew
3. Ogg

Cat D:
1. Jimdoubleyou
2. Whirld

Sprint 1 Top 5
1. Garry Lager
2. Paino
3. Oblongbob
4. Nixie
5. Ogg

Sprint 2 Top 5
1. Nixie
2. Paino
3. Garry Lager
4. Oblongbob
5. Kirky72

And the overall race winner with handicaps applied:
1. drew
2. v7mfp
3. J-R

With the sprint points added the top 3 for the series is as follows:
1. J-R (209)
2. Kirky72 (201)
3. V7mfp (196)

Green Jersey Race
1. Paino (54)
2. Garry Lager (46)
3. Nixie (39)

Congratulations to Paino on winning the inaugural STW Zwift Green Jersey!

The standings are close for the final race. Kirky took 1 point on the sprint which could yet come into play! Don’t forget the series points are decided on the best 5 results so it could all change next week (all to play for).

Link to the full results: These are provisional in case I cocked anything up. Let me know if I did!

Onto the final stage and the Queen stage next week which is a shortened version of Quatch Quest taking in the Titans Grove KOM and finishing on the summit of the Epic KOM (but not including the Radio Tower – I am not that evil!).

For those interested there is a TTT on a Thursday evening. I would strongly reccomend you to get involved if you can. Its a great event.

Zwift Team Time Trial, Thursday

oh yeah, power ups were rubbish tonight – sweating over the first climb – please be a feather, please be a feather.. oh crap more XP again!

Much better for me this week. Managed to hang on to a small group at the back for the first 10k, before the hills kicked in.

I very happily received prizes for coming last in the first series this wkend. Singletrack has been very generous and sent me a t-shirt, bobble hat, Chamois cream and some stickers!

Thanks again Robbo for organising everything and Singletrack for being so generous.

That’s how it’s meant to go, right? 🙂

@chipps the important thing is whether you or @Mark are having to pay for this week’s STW Towers drink beer at your desk Friday. Given lockdown means you’re likely working from a home desk I imagine this is also significantly more costly than an office bound one.

Hey @Robbo1234biking. Thanks again and sorry to see you stranded on the roadside. What a pain.

That was hard going rode lap and a half on my own stumpy 30 secs behind and a group nearly 2mins in front.

cheers Robbo, for organising perhaps do this course in reverse next time.

That was fun (well, type 2 fun). Thanks to crazyharry and andeh for the tow (mainly CH)! I just didn’t have the legs or lungs to do much on the front, sorry. Also thanks for not sprinting on the second lap – I think that would have finished me off! Andeh, I was sure you were going to catch me on the final climb – but I managed to just keep enough gap to the line. CH was just storming off into the distance.

Next week is going to be brutal for me and my mass! Just glad we don’t have the radio tower to do. Though I’m down to sub 90kg now, so I need to update my stats. I also really need to do a ramp test as I’m realising my claimed FTP is clearly well and truly out of date!

Thanks again Robbo!!

@slowpuncheur, think I was knocking around the same sort of group as you guys – P.Liddington on Zwift.

I was marking v7mfp before the drop out. Was going to go for the GC win but that isnt going to happen now! These things happen. At least my pedal didn’t fall off. I pedalled like mad for 1 minute hoping that it was going to somehow come back to life but realised it was time to call it!

Congrats @paino on winning the sprint comp, and wd everyone who threw in some hard digs – made it a fun (if somewhat sickening) thing to contest in the races.

I tried again second lap but couldn’t get in contention – impressive effort @nixie to take that deep in the race.

@funkybaj. Yep, it was a good group with everyone taking a turn. You seemed strong but the group just seemed to whittle down bit by bit. Those hills man.

well done all of you – I bloody HATE that course !

Got home from work early, just in time to boot up zwift and get my avatar in the pen with 5 seconds before the start. Then got the gamebar thing going and have an hour of race footage – tried to cover everybody, though I missed a few key points of course

Once I work out how, I’ll upload it somewhere – it’s a big file though (5Gigs) so not sure where or how. If anyone has any tips, …

(oh, and Mark had the nicest bike, by miles !)

I enjoyed that one, had a look at the course beforehand which helped with when to start putting the power in on the climbs with my dumb trainer so I didn’t get dropped too much. Big effort on the first lap to keep with the front 12 paid off for me and ended up in a nice group of 5 after lap 1. We slowly put more time into the chasing group then @kirky72 and @mahowlett shot off on the first climb of the second lap. That left 3 of us riding to the line and I luckily got an aero PU to use to sprint for the line. The only mistake I made tonight was my pre-race snack of super noodles, crisps and chocolate; defiantly not recommended!

Lots of issues tonight for people, just a thought, anyone got their xmas lights on? I remember xmas lights used to interfere with wi-fi (don’t know if that’s still the case).

Congrats to the winners and @paino for the green jersey.

retrorick

I couldn’t work out what was going on behind me exactly as K Stumpy and J imdoubleyou times kept fluctuating by 1 min or so between themselves.

Jimdoubleyou and I stuck together in a small group until the descent on the first lap when he shot off. Took me pretty much all of my effort to catch him on the hills, then hung on until the second lap hills when he battered me 😁

Crossed the line barely able to turn the pedals!

Crazy start again. I rather stupidly tried to mount a break not long after the frantic watt fest had died down. just to thin down what was a massive group at the time but none of big guns followed on so of course it didn’t stick.

seemed to offer myself up yet again as lead in for the first sprint.

was crazy hard trying to keep up with the fast and lighter lads up the climbs, managed just about on the first one but got separated on the second and gradually wound in a few up the last drag to form a group with. bloody needed it as the climb almost today drained me.

We worked together nicely as a group and gradually increased the gap behind a touch whilst keeping it to 45/50 seconds to the lead group. like JR i had one eye one his position and time, yet again he did amazing to stick with nixie and Phil in the lead pack.

our group crested the first switch back section together. I then made the massive mistake, probably caused by oxygen starvation to the brain, of thinking the arch on the next bit of a climb was the finish.

I drafter the group on the down slope leading into it, dropped a feather and sprinted Sagan style up the climb totally emptying the tank and opening a 8 second gap on the others. Elation turned to despair when I powered through the arch and realised the error.

thank god there was a stretch of downhill to recover before the final drag. unfortunately I was now stranded on my own and knackered so some time and vitally at least the one second that separated me from JR after handicap.
matt caught me and we had a very tired on off sprint switching positions a couple of times before I edged over the line.

Great race again, I’m going to try and keep fresher for the final race.

shame so many seemed to have issues tonight.

Well done Paino, consistently awesome sprinting along with the actual racing.

well done JR on stretching out the lead, I tipped you to win overall tonight and expect pretty much the same next week. you just won’t be shaken off the pack you bugger.

shit sorry that was so long. Think I could have done the uber pretzel in the time I typed that. mobile and no glasses is a recipe for disaster typo wise.

Yes congratulations @paino.

@Garry_Lager I’d been cruising the whole first lap to try and settle so had the reserve to try on lap 2. That second effort was enough for stomach to say enough. Was annoyed not to be close to you two in the first sprint.

If anyone wants to relive the pleasure:

(flips between groups a lot and I found that when you follow a rider right to the finish you get booted out of the race view but worked that out “fairly” quickly)

^^^ that’s my pink butt on that pink Trek in that shot…

😆

just to echo others, well done to everyone and the sprinters. I cant fathom putting such a big effort in multiple times a race and still hold on! Kudos!

I had an OK race. First lap was pretty decent, held onto a fast group (sorry, cant remember names), but then got dropped on the last climb, which left me on my own. Tried to keep in front of the chasing pack, but they eventually caught me. Then it was a case of working together to get round, which we did well, until it splintered on the final climb. Hard to chase a wheel when your eyes are bleeding!!

@robbo1234biking I knew we were fighting for GC victory so was pleased when I managed to pull away a little on the first lap (when you announced your legs were dead). Unbeknown to me you dropped out, so when the pack behind was catching, I assumed you were in it, so tried my hardest to stay ahead. It the kindest possible way, it was a relief when I realised you weren’t there!

I take it the GC is for all races, it wouldn’t work if we dropped a result? (PS, what does GC stand for??!?)

GC is general classification. It is taken from the Grand Tours as the quickest possible time over the whole route (or 6 stages in this case). You need to complete all 6 stages for the GC so I think you have a good lead over 2nd place now!

well there goes my hope of sitting out the last race!! 😀

Thanks Scaredypants, it’s fun to see what was going on with other groups and also the ones I rode with. It’s amazing how quickly those gaps can go out when a rider or two drops away.

Thanks Scardypants. All that was missing was the breathless excitement of Nathan Guerra’s voice calling the race. I’ve got to say the avatars need to be more realistic though. Mine had an implacable face of calm up that last hill but in reality it was a gurning sweating bright red mess. Not quite eyes bleeding though @v7fmp ;). I enjoyed our little scrap at the end again.

@v7fmp you don’t want to miss out the last race, as things stand and your worst result is eliminated (5 from 6) along with myself there would only be 5 or 6 points separating jr, me and you.

On second thoughts yes give it a miss, it’s a horrible climb up the epic and you don’t want to be racing up that at the pointy end of a race.😀

@slowpuncheur its becoming a habit! Once again you did the business on me (oo-er).

@kirky72 you make a bloody good point. ill be there, a top 3 finish would be amazing on a personal level. Fingers crossed the top 3 or so get gifted a sick bikes frame and a catapult to send it into orbit.

Its a shame we cant have a live group chat, add an element of phycological torment into the mix 😀

We could have discord going?
Or not…!

DrP

I’m not going to do any more racing this week in a hope I can recover sufficiently to keep the GC lead next week. Its mighty close. Even pulled out of the ttt tomorrow.

@DrP I thought from your other thread there was enough discord in your life already?

My race went better than last week when my link crashed after 1km. This time I got across the start line and immediately pulled out of my SPD, despite having done a ten minute warm up in them. I blame these new fangled start pen launches! The couple of seconds of realisation and clipping back in was enough to be detached from the megawatt blob ahead. I made my way forward a bit and settled into a good sized group that lasted until the first climbs when everything fractured. Thereafter, I found myself with @Chipps and @Straightliner, both of whom had more appetite for energised sprints and climbs than I could muster. The trio came together each time until the final climb series where first Chipps and then Straightliner left me choking on their dust. A feather on the last climb was enough to limit the losses and keep me ahead of the chasing pair behind.
Another great race and a further learning opportunity- though not sure what I can apply to the Queen Stage, other than checking my pedals and offering a small prayer & sacrifice to the connection gods.

Thanks to crazyharry and andeh for the tow

I was desperate for someone to take over the lead at one point and was poking the little ‘elbow’ button on the Zwift Companion in the hope that someone else would take over the lead of our group but @andeh and @Oblongbob weren’t responding to my kind invitation.

Also thanks for not sprinting on the second lap

That was me sprinting (on tired legs)… clearly I am not that impressive!

That was me sprinting (on tired legs)…

I was very surprised to see it was you you when we did catch you. I was temporarily pleased thinking you and I could maybe show a pair of heels to the small group but we didn’t manage to get properly clear. I don’t actually recall where I lost you though I assume it was on the cobbles first time out when I just couldn’t turn the pedals fast enough to keep moving forward.

but @andeh and @Oblongbob weren’t responding to my kind invitation

Oh man, I wasn’t paying any kind of attention, for the most part I was only just about clinging on. Sorry about that 😬

Well @scaredypants beat me to it, but I have some videos of last night. I got back into zwift a bit late, so it’s all towards the finish, and I tried to catch groups where there might be some action, so I have nothing on @benman flying along lonely at the front.

But here’s @phil56, @paino and @j-r settling the race for 2nd up Governor Street and into the neverending drag to the end:

Then came @kirky72 (who “has no sprint”) coming around @mahowlett in the sprint for 7th place (@scaredypants helicopter view of this is a belter):

And (this is my favourite I think) here’s @slowpuncheur pulling away from @mossimus and @v7fmp and THEN dropping a feather to seal it, ending up with an 8 second gain on the road…and overhauling @yanboss by exactly that margin in the handicap results as well:

that last climb felt like it went on forever. I was so done by then, so couldn’t do anything other than watch slow & moss pull away. But still fully aware there was a group closing in behind. So much to think about!

Something oddly satisfying to see yourself riding/racing!