STW Zwift Race Series 3 – Winter

Damn and blast. Not sure if you saw my message in zwift but I need to be dq from those results Robbo.

Woohoo! Thanks Rob & Nixie. In the pen now!

Bit rushed but got there!

Hope everyone is enjoying the hill. Looks like only a few in this group.
Better sort some music out!

What Happened brian?

DrP

Gggrrrr. Was having a great ride averaging comfortably above ftp and accelerating up the climb. Got o 0.8 mile to go and lost connection. Arrgggghh. Was too frustrated to try and reconnect. All been working great the last few weeks. Grrrrr.

Ouch! Holy crap that hurt. Got a stitch too! Luckily near the top.

Righto… I’m now in the pens for the Richmond TDZ ride at 2000..

Anyone?

DrP

4 times that striped bastard on the bike just sat there doing f all whilst I’m pedalling like a loon. Went off not pushing too hard and happy at around FTP on the hill grrrr.

Wow. That was awful 🤣 anyone else find it really hard to pace on the “flat” bit?!

The flat bit was easy to pace… oddly 310 watts felt easier on the flat than the climb!

After cooling down, that actually was quite fun!
I’m glad I watched the video on how best to pace… I pushed myself to FTP (plus a few) on the flat, then 115% ftp on the climb…
This meant I kinda did average 300w on the flat..320 on the climb! My average was 311 watts.. which for an ftp of 292 ain’t too bad!

Not sure if that’ll push my FTP up at all? Hmm….

DrP

That properly hurt! Even managed to break my bottle cage ripping the bottle out as I crossed the line!

Bottle went flying across the room so had to get off the bike, retrieve it then get back on for a warmdown only to find my legs refused to work 🤣

FTP has gone up to 237 though.

Well that went as I expected, rode FTP til the start of the climb, then got half way up at a bit above that, then blew up in the last km on the steep bit. The hilly road ride I did this afternoon might not have been the wisest choice.

Macho bottle cage destruction!

that was quite hard…

Edit – glad I was too busy to ride with you today, worked out well for me 😊

Urgh that really hurt and I was dying at the top…I had no sprint left.
I found the flat ok, but realised I was going too fast so slowed around 5 and 6km to save something for the hill. I was trying to catch Zilog but then realised I had to conserve energy.

First part of the hill went well and I passed a few but that 16% section killed the legs…just kept pushing and it went ok. Better than I thought.

That took alot longer than last time I did it back in the summer.

My power output indicates my ftp has not dropped as much as I thought it had since the summer, but even still I’m way off pace.

Only saving grace is I can know how to ride a tt, so whilst my power was piss poor, at least it was distributed evenly across the ride.

Robbo, my ramp test the other day indicated 242 watts, however by that 20 min ish effort it’s closer to 254. Not that it makes a scrap of difference to whwre I’ll come in standings but please update. Weight still 266

@benman took the second event by 2s 🍾. //Mutters something about taking a stupid rest on a flat bit.

I was planning 300ish on the flat then 350 climb. Pretty sure did 320+ flat and still around 350 climb. Ouch!

I didn’t realise there was a neutralised start, left the pen at 500w to get up to speed which was entirely unnecessary!

Definitely didn’t enjoy that but got an FTP raise it of it. Only another 30w to find and I’ll be back to where I was 6 weeks ago.

What happened to our winner btw? Awesome time but disqualified himself?

Edit..

I was planning 300ish on the flat then 350 climb. Pretty sure did 320+ flat and still around 350 climb. Ouch!

I’m confused..zwift results say dangerouss won?

Can’t complain at my average power, but my sense of time went wonky in final 1Km, one minute it looked like I was less than 25% up it according to bar and then suddenly there was barely any left…

So shifted to big ring for a sprint for the last ~30secs, but can’t help but think that should have been a bit extra power all the way up the hill.

Extra kudos to those who went sub 20mins!

You had energy to break a bottle cage AND do a warm down?! I slumped over the bars for 5 mins trying desperately to catch my breath while feeling like I was being stabbed in my side with my bloody stitch. First TT for me.

Robbo, my bloody FTP went up to 314w on that. Damn!

What Happened brian?

Mrs me did a ride earlier. I changed the weight and height over whilst waiting to start, only it didn’t actually change.

Given its <20min staring at my output and not much else I’d not spotted the w/kg was way off as I hadn’t looked at the list. I only realised something was wrong at the top when I realised I’d taken a chunk out of Phil which is BS, checked and it has me at an average 4.84kg which is nonsense. Should have been just over 4.

I think Brian didnt adjust the weight back from his wife looking at his power to weight ratio!

That was ‘fun’. I went hard out of the gate, realised it wasn’t the start, carried on as fast as I could. Reached the bottom of the hill and ran out of low gears to push the pedals round. I had increased the trainer resistance to 90% prior to starting and whilst it helped in the flat it was too hard on the climb. It was a realistic pace up the steep hill tho. Probably the speed and gear I would of had to ride in real life?
My other aim was to stay ahead of Jim, which I only just managed.

Golly that was hard. First TT so no idea on how to pace, went for 250 on the flat and 300 ish up.

Was in the second group with only a few guys.

FTP went up from 268>275 so I was trying at least. Off to lay down.

Owww!  Well done everyone as that was brutal.

Well at least it looks like all those races getting caught in no-mans land between lead and second groups has its benefits as it is has improved my time-trialing! Broken at the end but my FTP as taken a massive step up to near where it used to be – seems it was motivation was all that was needed. According to Zwift it is 314W – seems to have taken 95% of my average power for the race (which was slightly below 20 mins). Strava reckoned 304W.

Pretty happy with that, just above ftp on flat then 115%ftp for the hill, managed to push slightly over target come the end giving an ftp bump to 285 can you adjust please @robbo1234biking

Glad I did a recce on Friday, knocked 35 seconds off that time and was only 3 seconds slower than my target of 22:07, so pretty pleased really.

Gutted for those that had drop outs, that’s a right kick in the wotsits for that to happen in a TT with all that energy spent for nowt.

Went pretty well for me. Managed to follow same method as the other day, increasing power up the climb and averaged a bit more on both the flat section and the climb. A 10w rise in FTP to 238w which was my minimum aim really as I’m getting fitter and stronger.

Indeed that was tough and the MTB is a fair bit slower. Sort of went okay, but ramped trainer difficulty up to 100% this time and struggled to keep cadence up in the steep bits. Oh well, all good!

@Stumpy and P Liddington, couldn’t type but thanks for the messages.

Owww.. that was a bit hard work. Thought it was going so well ticking of the kilometres on the flat but they took a bit longer going up the hill.

First TT for me but I’m not ready to think about repeating the experience yet

Congrats Phil. Looks like win by 8s. 👏

Thanks everyone for joining in. That was pretty horrible!

Onto the results. These are provisional in case I have made any mistakes. Please let me know.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1QPxMGqez2VsN-4mD17f90t06NzqSLMMoGe4cUEK1E3U/edit#gid=607126857

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

Cat B:
1. crazyharry
2. kirky72
3. danielcbaron

Cat C:
1. euain
2. funkybaj
3. oopnorth

Cat D:
1. lewisdeacon
2. crust
3. jmd12

And the overall race winner with handicaps applied:
1. jmd12
2. bails
3. jimdoubleyou

With the sprint/fastest lap points added the top 3 for the series is as follows:
1. kirky72 (86)
2. jimdoubleyou (84)
3. mjhes (80)

Green Jersey Race
1. Nixie (10)
2. Seabass (6)
3. Paino (4)

Next week we are back to the jungle – starting by the beach racing up to the jungle, one lap and heading back to town for Road to Ruins!

For those interested in joining with more STW Zwift fun(?) there is a TTT on a Thursday evening:

Zwift Team Time Trial, Thursday

Well, thanks to Roobo & Nixie for the 19:30 link.
I really enjoyed that!

FTP up by a MASSIVE 3w to 221w.
Sounds like there have been a few FTP increases!

I aimed for about 90% FTP on the flat and then just attacked the hill as hard as I could. Seemed to avg 250 up the hill, so 115% FTP.
One of those rides where at the time I couldn’t have worked harder, but now I’m off the bike and calmed down, feel like I should have pushed harder on the flat.

@euain nice work! Only a second or so between us last week and the same time this week!

@stumpy thanks for the encouragement 🙂

That hurt. I went a bit too hard on the flat, didn’t quite leave enough for the hill, ended up with a too even power split. I knew I was doing it (I said so out loud to my wife, quite lucidly, way before it began to hurt: “I’m going too fast”) but it felt good and I was enjoying passing people so I pushed on. I never really burned out, but I was 10/15w down on my efforts up that same hill in the Christmas Eve TTT, and I think those watts would have been better spent today on the steep bit than enjoying myself on the flat! It’s definitely a longer effort on the MTB.

In the end I gave away a few seconds to @w00dster and a few more to @kirky72 but managed to pinch some time off @j-r. They are the people it’s rational for me to compare myself to…

Well done to the top riders, obviously. 10 seconds between the top 3 is exciting. And @drp nearly muscled into there as well. Excellent if ominous to see @crazyharry and @tpbiker returning to form. It’s going to be very difficult for us Bs to find a way to unpick @kirky72 in the next few rounds.

Wait what… Neutralized start? Really?

I was going flat chat in the pens like the old wind up Evil Kneivel toy, was I not supposed to do that!?

Enjoyed it, first ever TT, I think I could have given a bit more at the bottom half of the climb looking back but I’m pleased with my time.

And I am on 7/8ths blood capacity too so I’m claiming it a personal result! 😛

You had energy to break a bottle cage AND do a warm down?! I slumped over the bars for 5 mins trying desperately to catch my breath while feeling like I was being stabbed in my side with my bloody stitch. First TT for me.

More out of necessity. If I don’t do a spin down I get horrible cramp for the next hour or so but after that effort I was really struggling to turn the pedals more than 60rpm at 100w!

Legs are like jelly now.

Yeah you don’t start till the start line though you can wind the speed up before it.

Just exited zwift and got an FTP upgrade from 304->317W. I knew the ramp test the other week was rubbish. Still down on summers best.

I had no legs for that today, I was blowing up through it. I went even splits through the course but at or just below FTP.

I think I was getting odd looks as the only MTB in the race too.

Robbo, says I’m still an A in the results spreadsheet, when I’m definitely now a B.

Interestingly, I sat out the majority of series 2, but there are lads on here who were part of series one who have made huge gains as far as I can tell.

@Savoyad & @kirky72, I’d have put money on beating you pair up a hill in series one, but you absolutely kicked my arse today! As I don’t think I did that badly tonight, am I right in thinking you guys have put on some serious wattage gains since September? Good work if so!

@straightliner I was demoralised when you passed me right at the start of the climb and shot off. I managed to keep it steady though then used you as a measure, trying to keep within 25 seconds … so thanks in a way 🙂