STW Zwift Race Series 3 – Winter

Some great times there! And well done Phil…more handicap to come! 😉

Yeah, I think I saw you on the climb nick

Haha people were prob thinking what are these idiots doing on a MTB!

…more handicap to come! 😉

Yeah, I didn’t think that through did I?!!

@robbo1234biking – FTP is now 346

I think there may be a few more increases on Tuesday…

Well done guys, it’s remarkably hard for 8km isn’t it? Some good times there on MTBs.

Rode that pretty hard for 21.32, 3.6Wkg which is similar power to my best effort on a TT bike. Good negative split and control on the climb but was bouncing around on the lead in. Don’t know if it was the MTB or I’ve just not done that course for a while but didn’t feel very settled.

Saw a few of you pass me on the MTBs then looked at my avatar and realised I hadn’t switched to mine!

I know my pacing now and where to start to go flat out for the finish line so nicely prepped for Tuesday.

I actually quite enjoyed that, but that clearly means I didn’t go hard enough.

Did manage a decent warm up for a change which I think really helped.

I just did it on my normal road bike as I’m still getting used to what numbers/duration etc. I can do and was following the advice I read above about just under FTP on the flat and over FTP on the climb, which being a skinny ass I think helped. Folk were streaming past me on the flat on TT bikes but passed quite a few on the climb.

19:47 3.6w/kg 236w.

Great timing as well to bash out a few of the stresses of the week gone by before collapsing on the sofa for a well earned Friday beer.

Phil I didn’t know a e-mtb was available yet.

18.3 on mtb, that’s impressive, Chapeau.

Well that was hard work after last night’s TTT 😖

16.41 on the road bike, so no idea what an MTB will add to that. Glad I did a recce though, that last 2km was like slow motion

I couldn’t change to the MTB. I think I left it too late.

Ended up 22:29, 220w avg. Position was 132/177.

I guess I’ll be a bit slower on the MTB…

@robbo1234biking FTP up to 270W after that, doubt I’ll be getting such a favourable handicap from now on if I can race any more of them.

I’m not sure going full TT bike was optimal but what the hell.

Robbo – next week is my “definitely can’t make it” week (thank God !) but for the week after I think you might need to swap over my weight and FTP numbers; all I’m doing this week is getting home late and knackered and then seeing the turbo only in passing as I go to the beer fridge

… or is that tapering ? 🤣

370 watts

🥺🥺🥺🥺

🤬

@nixie – I’m afraid I’m too old to understand them face things!!

Ben averaged 4.7 W/KG – that’s going to take some effort to match up that hill!!

@phil56 he did yes and he’ll be damn hard to catch (impossible I’d wager, he came past me
uphill on Tuesday like I was stood still) but 370W is damn, damn impressive.

Right handicaps are live on this one. This is so difficult to predict. Because it is such a short race it is going to come down to how much everyone can suffer and those that are better at suffering will perform better!

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1QPxMGqez2VsN-4mD17f90t06NzqSLMMoGe4cUEK1E3U/edit#gid=1188670151

A small mistake could cost you a lot of time as well such as a wrong gear change or grinding to a halt!

🥺 was expecting Phil and Ben to ‘worse’ off this time. This one is going to hurt!

A small mistake could cost you a lot of time as well such as a wrong gear change or grinding to a halt!

Yep, I lost a huge chunk on the hill when I ran out of rear block last night. There’s 30 seconds where I’m barely moving but even once I got going my power never really recovered and tapered down from there.

From the moment my cadence drops from reasonable (to zero) its 2.5minutes @ about 35rpm trying to drag my self up the hill to a point I can shift rings and then my legs were done.

Hopefully lesson learnt, though if nothing else I know to check my front mech works before I set off on Tuesday!

15s/20s to Phil & Ben. Not a friggin’ chance. 🤣

My ftp has gone up to 292 after tuesdays race and a Thursday night session 😬 looking forward to the TT…. I think 🤔

@danielcbaron I will update your handicap before Tuesday. Cheers for letting me know.

This course is such an unknown – when it flattens out you can also lose seconds by not changing through the gears and spinning at 120rpm but not producing much power!

Seems like I’d better check my gears are working 🙂

Anybody doing repack? I’ve had 9.5-10 stars before but best I could do today was 7. Using an iPhone on the bars.

Would be nice if you could calibrate before the start, at ten sec penalties per star it’s probably worth stopping to calibrate it

I’m on a different bike currently that doesn’t work so well due to the phone mount position. Hopefully have the normal bike back in action soon and I’ll give it a go.

I found it stupidly twitchy today. In the past I stopped to turn the sensitivity down. Maybe I need a slackerizer headset 😂.

I knew I was going to regret all this racing. Zwift has gifted me a rather substantial ftp increase this weekend, which takes me well and truly into category A! Feeling like I might be a bit out of my depth.

Have sent details of the numbers via pm.

Now I’m off to see what I can find to eat to gain 8kg and get my w/kg back down to category B 😂

15s/20s to Phil & Ben. Not a friggin’ chance. 🤣

Finish 25 seconds AHEAD of Kirky. Not a friggin’ chance. 🤣

This should be an interesting race: in all the others there is a large element of which group can you hold onto to tow you round and that’s disadvantaged the fast guys who had to do the towing. In this one with no drafting it’s all down to our individual W and W/kg vs Robbo’s handicaps; our ability to suffer longer above FTP. So that’s me out of the points this week.

J-R, we’re in the same boat. I’m pretty good at suffering slightly above my ftp for 45 mins, but not so good at shorter 20 minute efforts that would need to be a good % above my ftp to get a top 10 place.
Works well for the series though so think it’s a good inclusion. Gives a real opportunity to the fast lads whose tails I’m normally clinging to as they tow me around.
My legs are dead today though, did a long zwift session yesterday, 2 hours 20 (60 miles), at 226 watts (ftp is 260) and 3.3 W/kg. Wasn’t a hard ride at the time but it’s completely killed the legs 😭 (getting my excuses in early!!!)

Having scouted some of the fast lads on the Sunday Hills ride I think there’s going to be some biiig time gaps tomorrow.

I’m not looking forward to the TT. 😭

Just had a go on Repack, two laps, 2nd much better than first, Zwift said 10:46, Strava says 11:07, managed 7.5 stars with very twitchy bars on a notchy lazy Susan.

I’m sure you’ll be reet JR you tend to have quite a bit lower average HR than me so I might be working to max most of the time with not much more to give. I think you’ve a decent weight advantage which should come into play more on this route as although the climb is only 2km out of the 7 it should take more than 50% of the total time.

I’m thinking a winner from somebody with 3 to 4 plus minutes HC from the Cs this week who can muster a massive effort on the climb.

I think this one is making everyone a bit nervous…

I’m strangely looking forward to it! Won’t be anywhere near good enough to trouble the leader board but the idea of 20 minutes nearly flat-out pedalling up a virtual hill kind of appeals.

@nick go off the Zwift time not the Strava time. Will add your time onto the spreadsheet – first official entry!

Could have sworn there was a sensitivity setting on repack.
Twitchy as hell.
Just did a 9.00.1 wth 8 stars. No pic as it quit out.
Got a 9.01 yesterday with 7 stars, managed to get a pic of that one.

Don’t worry if you don’t get a screenshot. I can see on the activity record that you got 8.59.9!

That’s a relief! It’s like riding skinnies trying to get across the wooden bits. Had a few jaunts into the scenery even on the non starred bits!