STW Zwift Autumn Series 2

That group was doing well over the rollers…it completely split as soon as we hit the vertical though 🤣

Well done all, top 3 did great and as always Robbo, awesome event!
Cheers to Mark and Chipps for getting involved and pushing it forward with Zwift HQ. Hopefully you will join the next season

Awesome guys, well done Paino I didn’t realise you were in the Reckoning to be honest as I didn’t really study everybody’s worse race points to see what would be deducted.

Super tight finish with Matt, I was too busy keeping an eye on JR as going into this one I was concentrating on figuring out how the hell I could pull 4 or 5 points back on a lighter stronger climber on a mountain race.

I kept trying to push and prod and get Nixie or Phil to join me over the top of one of the rollers and push on and make a gap, but it didn’t really work out and I was in real danger of hitting the wall before the first Ramps up to the bridge. There was just enough distance to recover enough before the first ramps and then I was lucky that Ian caught me at the start to the long bridge so we could tow each other across.

This opened up about 10 second gap to JR on the road and I decided to go deep early to stretch the gap and demoralise him from going to deep to try and make it up. This went pretty well but I was also conscious of trying to keep within what I thought was a minute of Ian and 1.30 of Paino, which played out quite well. Was worried when at around 30 second gap JR was joined by savo and crazy Harry so fearing getting caught by this strong group I tried my best to push on. I managed to maintain the gap but was hitting max hr, and struggling to get enough air in as I hit final climb. The false finish line was harsh after the effort to reach it and I faded from there to the real finish. I doubt I lost the vital 12 seconds I’ve finished behind vmfp and really couldn’t expect much more out of my exhausted legs.

Just to make the next series harder again the savage effort earned me my biggest jump in FTP for a while from 284w to 299w.

Bad time to push for any weight loss to balance this out coming upto Xmas so guess I may have hit an all time peak and will struggle to trouble the podium next time.

Well raced everybody, it’s been a blast, and sick kind of fun.

Again big thanks for dedicating so much time and brain power to this Rob.

Any plans for Tuesday spin and sprints in the meantime?

@mossimus – that was me you were battling with to the line. I stuck to my game plan of playing to my apparent strength of strong if steady efforts on the climbs that paid off as I managed to keep reeling in folk who had dropped me on the approach. I thought I’d be on my own for the last couple of km, but you defied my best effort to lift my pace on the last incline. I almost fell foul of the false finish line and was fortunate to hang on and max out my effort and come round you to take the sprint by the finest of margins.

@robbo1234biking – brilliant concept flawlessly executed. Take a bow. Many thanks.

Thanks Rob for the series. I enjoyed the races from back of the pack!
I tried hard at the start of tonight’s race to make a gap between my nearest rivals. Paired up with O.gg for a while until the start of the epic kom, got caught by K Stumpy 01 and Jim then ended up soloing up the rest of the climb between those 2.
Hopefully by the next series I’ll be 15kg heavier but have the same power and then maybe I’ll have a better handicap 🤔

Thks for organising Rob – really enjoyed the series. Felt decent tonight – sharp climbs decimate me in a race but I’m better on something large that needs a steadier effort. Congrats to all who made the podiums – the handicap, GC and sprints meant something to go at for everyone.

I’ll echo everyone’s comments robbo, much appreciate the time and effort to sort it all out, loved every minute!

Race was very harsh, but well worth it. Them rollers on Titans Grove were hard going. I think @Straightliner was teasing me for a couple of km on the climb, he was constantly just out of reach! 😂

Great result all!  Close at the end,  for the top 3 spots.

Much better race for me tonight.  Was suffering over those bloody rollers, but found a rhythm up the hill and had a few targets to try and beat and some people behind that I was worried would catch me if I slowed at all. Really need to get my power up, my weight down and improve my recovery from short efforts!

Well done Robbo on a fab series (again).

@kirky72 I would have played on the rollers normally so that was a good plan.

So, I just listened to the podcast interview. For someone who has engineered so much pain and suffering for us all, Rob comes across as a very nice bloke. Don’t let the celebrity go to your head, Rob. Roll on the winter series!

some people behind that I was worried would catch me if I slowed

I had a good idea of the time I couldn’t afford to lose against you Stumpy so I tried my best not to drop too far behind. I always knew that Jim was ahead on the handicap but didn’t want to be caught by him either.

Thanks @robbo1234biking. The whole thing was superb. Happy to wait a few weeks for the next series though…

And congrats to the winners. It was exciting until the very end. Can’t believe how close @paino @v7fmp and @kirky72 were in the final scores.

That lived up to its queen stage billing didn’t it? We had the crazy start, some really aggressive racing through titans, and then it broke up on the climb and as it went on plenty of positions changed.

I had my now-customary mechanical right at the bottom of the first ramp of the climb. Chain came off which hasn’t happened to me (inside or out) for years! I was lucid enough (but maybe a bit sweary) to get sorted quite fast but the group had gone and I knew I’d never see the front few again.

The adrenaline made me a bit erratic up the climb. I got back past @dazh before the bridge and eventually picked up @j-r. @crazyharry came storming through the field and I stayed with him for a bit, but I wasn’t much company by that point and he eventually moved ahead. I couldn’t have followed @kirky72 nor resisted the charge of @crazyharry so I ended up where I’d have been without the chain incident at the finish.

You’ve created a great event Rob. We’re even getting zwiftpower ranking points now (@weeksy might have to explain!). See you all in the next series.

Thanks all for the kind comments – I am glad that you have all enjoyed it. I am pretty excited for the next series already!

@kirky72 if someone wants to set up some sprint and spin meetups then you are welcome!

@oblongbob – thanks for the kind words – I still find it weird, firstly, how successful the races have been and secondly, that people are interested in hearing me talk about it!

Oh and if you aren’t on ZP join up and if you are on ZP and are affiliated to a team then join the STW team. Go onto your ZP profile, select the race we have just taken part in and click on the STW icon next to one of us. That will take you to the team page where you can join.

This is one way of showing Zwift how active the community is and help us in getting more recognition!

Joined STW on ZP.

Oddly also looking forward to the next series!

Thanks @robbo1234biking for organising the series I really enjoyed it, the discusison on here before and after really makes the series something special.

For me the race last night was a total disaster, I’ve been feeling my fitness and motivation ebbing away the last few weeks, and I’ve really noticed a loss of power on the hills, I lost a fair bit of time last week, but this week I was hoping I could dig deep and save the series for me, despite what my numbers where saying. Sadly it wasn’t to be, I struggled from the start, just managing to hang on to the front group but kept falling off the back and having to work to get back on, everytime I joined the group again, someone would put in an effort on the front and I’d be off again. I finally got dropped toward the end of the Titans grove section. Tried to keep the power reasonable, hoping I’d feel better later on and wouldn’t lose too much time, but my trying to hold 260w rapidly became 250 then 240, about a mile into the epic KOM I was struggling to hold 220w and was slowly getting passed by rider after rider, managed to save a little bit of dignity for the last mile by having a little dig, but even that was a depressingly weak effort. Think I’m going to do the Thursday TTT then take somem time off, come up with some kind of a training plan, do a ramp test and reset my numbers and go from there. I think I’ve been pushing my luck with a lack of base miles this year, and it’s caught up with me. Brilliant effort by so many riders and it’s been great to see so many people improve week on week, even if I haven’t been one of them 🙂

Once again thanks robbo, hopefuly be back in the next series (albeit with some considerably lower numbers)

Well, normally I’d post a bit more after the race, but was pretty shot with cramping legs and was just sooo tired!!
What a brilliant race, and end to a great series!
bravo the winners, and Paino (who surely MUST be an A category now??) for snatching the series via the sprints…well played!

I went into this race VERY poorly prepped…the GF and I had had a hectic weekend, so felt like celebrating it being over on Monday eve…eek!! He,ce, little sleep adn excess boozing really aren’t good race prep AT ALL! In teh warm up, my HR was pounding, and I was worried I would blow up at 200watts!! But..I took it slowly, and reacostomed myself to the zwift scene 😉

The race itself went as good as I’d have hoped… My one ‘desire’ was almost identical to Brian’s pre race breif.. I HAD to stay with the front lot at least until the foot of the climb.. the rollers were pushing my HR really early on..I was pretty much at ‘race max’ or 178 from the off! We stayed as a tight lead group through titan’s grove, and even remained a good bunch in teh Grove KOM… cruising to the foot of the Epic was a decent pace and wattage. From the very start Niixie and Phil and Paino had made a break, and I knew I could push for a bit but would literally DIE, so I kept to my tactic of floating around http://FTP..slow and steady etc etc.. Kirky and I were together for a bit whilst Ben zoomed through, but I guess he too found his pace and we split… I was pretty much bang in teh middle of Phil and Kirky most of the way up.. I was eyeing up Nixie’s lead, as he had (I think) 30 seconds on my, so for the most part it was 23..24seconds.. YES… but then towards the end he gave a push that I couldn’t, and was about 41 seconds ahead of my time…

Was happy to have survived, and crossed the line 5th, but of course the hanidcaps pushed me waaay back…

Well done everyone who’s pushed their FTP up further…
I’ve actually dropped a kg, so will need to amend my zwift data and handicap time..will see what Xmas brings!!

DrP

Well done everyone who’s pushed their FTP up further…

Bugger, it turns out my FTP is 10w below what I thought it was. I seem to have done the opposite to golfers who fiddle their handicap to make it easier to win. 🙂

@giggsmaster – I wasn’t teasing, having been dropped in Titan’s Grove I’d made up a chunk of time on you and Robbo but then was running out of power/legs to pull away so we just had that little gap for ages.

and Paino (who surely MUST be an A category now??)

@DrP just refreshed ZP this morning. My 3W FTP rise has put me into B ‘almost A’ cat. The other thing these series are doing is helping me keep the weight off. Generally I’m somewhere between 78-82kg, this has been great to keep me constantly at the lower end, however another 1kg loss is going to put me well into A cat (over 4.1w/kg)

One question I have from last night-at what point does any draft benefit cease? Is it determined by speed or gradient?

I reckon, based on the pretty decent zwift physics, is that it’d be speed. I mean, there’s no headwind, so really there’s little draft to be gained going uphill at 15kmh..?

DrP

Paino, it’s finishing returns the slower and steeper it gets.

Apparently drafting somebody doing 330w saves in the region of 3% so not an awful lot compared to 35/45% on a descent.

https://zwiftinsider.com/draft-savings/

Thanks to @trolo for pushing me hard in that race! At the start I didn’t get into the top group, but ended up in a nice group of about 6 of us that stuck together really until the Epic KOM where we fragmented. I was chasing @trolo and @GarryLarger for ages up the climb with them being agonisingly close at 2 seconds ahead that took me an age to make up. I then had an epic battle with @trolo in the last 5 miles playing a bit of cat and mouse. Thought I might have been done when @trolo pulled out a feather PU 0.3 miles from the end, but I just went for it and managed to reel him back in and overtake to finish ahead. The banner at the top did catch me out for a second, but I quickly realised we had to continue to the blue banner.

I managed to go up a couple of places in the points rankings into the top 10 and overtake @andeh in the GC so very happy with that.

Thanks @robbo1234biking for organising this series, it’s been really fun. From not having done a Zwift race before until 2 months ago, I have learned a lot that will help in the next series and my FTP has increased over the 6 races.

I had a good time on the climb until I got to the castle. Straightliner and Giggsmaster both overtook me here and I lost all momementum. I seem to do OK when the gradient is constant but when it is variable (like just after the castle or after the tunnel) I seem to lose focus/struggle to keep the power up. I ended up at least a minute behind them for the second half and in no mans land so I struggled to keep a pace up and ended up 1min 30secs of my PB up there. Its difficult when you are on your own as you don’t have someone to push you.

That was tough (as always – probably need to stop starting my comments with that as it has been a given throughout both series). Another race where I wasn’t quite ‘at the races’ compared to earlier in the year although felt better than last week. Tried to stau with the lead group, but lost them on the Titans Grove climb and then got caught by a couple of guys on the descent. Start of the KOM, found a rythm and then started to pick of a few. Then spent a few km in a titantic battle with @savoyad – Every time I thought he’d cracked he kept bouncing back – but at the end pulled away to finish on my own (so no finish line sprint dramas) a good distance behind @kirky72 who I never really looked like catching despite some vague hopes further down the climb.

On another note – a genuine question – my drop in performance has been sudden a quite alarming. I held a very steady FTP of 323W throughout the summer and even into and through October but it seems like almost overnight in November this has dropped by (I reckon – not officially measured it) by about 40W which is huge, but then remained fairly consistent since. Looking at my data the issue doesn’t seem to be with the amount of power I can actually generate, but my heart rate escalates really quickly to over FTHR and I cannot sustain it. By example, my personal best on the Epic KOM, set earlier this year, is 22:21 (so nowhere near enough to challenge for the win) at a average HR of 153, yesterday was 23.15 but HR was 167, which is a crippling effort given my FTHR is 162. But… when I finish, and regain control of my breathing my legs feel fine and don’t really like I have pushed as hard as a I could.

Anyone have any ideas or experienced something similar?

@robbo1234biking – I’d like to add my thanks onto the pile! Well done fella, I don’t quite understand why, and as you discussed on the podcast it is strange that a group of mountain bikers would get so enthusiastic about Zwift, but somehow you’ve found the ‘magic sauce’. Well done, and a massive thanks.

Well done to all the various points winners, but more importantly well done to everyone who won their personal battles, either in their ‘race within the race’ or to improve their fitness/FTP whatever. Well done to you all.

@crazyharry My guess is the higher heart rate might be a result of overtraining. Is your resting HR higher than it used to be? When was the last time you have a recovery week?

Awesome stuff @robbo1234biking, brilliant that it’s continuing as an official event within Zwift as well! (Top work from STW towers for their input with that!) NOW… have we decided yay or nay on mandatory MTBs for the next series, and did anyone dare mention “STW Jersey” when in discussion with Zwift HQ?!…

@zilog6128

Yes MTBs will be involved in the next series. I have full access to all the routes on Zwift and am utilising some of these to do some different races in the next series which will hopefully keep things interesting again!

The subject of a STW jersey has also been mentioned. At the moment we would likely need a bigger community in order to get one but the success of the series will help that. Mark is promoting Zwift by doing the podcast and other stories that he has published on the website so there may be traction gained from that side of things. This is one of the reasons I have been pushing signing up to the STW team on zp if you aren’t already affiliated to a team. 300 members gets you onto the front page on zp in terms of member numbers of you look at teams and then sort by numbers.

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This is one of the reasons I have been pushing signing up to the STW team on zp if you aren’t already affiliated to a team.

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Zwiftpower is owned by Zwift now, isn’t it? Does that mean we can log-in with our Zwift log-in? Or do we need to create a separate account?

Jesus Christ! Why do my quote keep coming out as garbled shite?! There seems to have been a recent change, which has cocked things up (or I’m doing it wrong).

You still need to create a separate account and connect it to your Zwift account. I think @savoyad has some instructions from the TTT.

You called?

Yes, even though it’s now run by zwift you still have to manually connect your zwift account with a zwiftpower account.

All the instructions are here: https://support.zwift.com/en_us/connecting-to-zwiftpower-SyldRc_4H
It’s a faff, but a quick, one-off one at least.

And once that’s done, go here for STW: https://www.zwiftpower.com/team.php?id=756 and press “Join STW” (top right).

Well done on a great series Robbo, I’d say it was a shame I couldn’t make the last 2 races but looking at last night’s profile I’m not sure that’d be entirely true!

I’ve no objection to there being mtb and TT’ing events but would prefer not to have to do everything on the mtbs. Mainly because it’s a bit “look at us we’re so crazy!” but also because choosing the right bike & wheel combo does have an impact on your time.

Joined  team STW on ZP.

Cheers savoyad…

I’ve joined team STW…. I thought I had already joined but I hadn’t.
I’ve been scouring everyone’s power data and mass so I can work out how much food and drink I can stuff down my face I’ve Christmas 🤣
Why are some people’s FTPs estimated and others not?

Well.. I’m heading back up the epic today, as going to tick off the “bigger loop” route..
Bit more sedate today I think! Garmin told me to recover for 72 hours after the race, so keeping watts sensible!

DrP

@robbo1234biking can you link to the charity you would like donations to? I can’t find it in the 30 pages of this thread.

^ Wot he said.

Double post when website went down for maintenance.