STW Zwift Race Series 3 – Winter

Realised why my avatar looked like he had piles and couldn’t sit down last night, my daughter uses my Zwift account, I’d changed the height and weight setting but the Zwift FTP was 190

If she’s under 16, she can get a free zwift account. See: Zwift Support

I set it up for my kids – very fast response and they’re both set up on their own accounts.

Hopefully I’ve sussed my breathing issues and can find some continuity to my efforts. I hadn’t thought of it before but I suffer from silent Reflux and have been a bit lax with managing it/enjoying a few drinks lately.
I didn’t realize it could effect my lungs and asssumed it was Asthma related, trying to balance overheating and cold air on the lungs.

Oddly I don’t have the same problem in the real world, just on the turbo.
Hopefully next Tuesday I can actually apply full effort.

Can’t you put just let your daughter stay up late and cheer you in nixie?

If scardey’s time works better I imagine you might get lucky by leaving your earlier slot then having scardey leave and sign back on before you try again.
I imagine what’s happening is you’re simply refilling the earlier slot as zwift won’t move folks up the ladder, once their time is allocated it stays that way so every time you leave your simply leaving a spot on the ladder that gets filled by next sign on rather than people being pulled forward.

19:01 … urgh the indignity of watching people sail past me.

1907 here, I imagine I’ll have a fair few go past as well!

I’ve just changed mine and gained a whole 2 extra minutes!!! 19-02 now, so there is a 19-00 start time spare if needed.

@scaredypants thanks for the offer. Would rather not use your account but I’d be interesting in trying @dangeourbrain’s suggestion if you were game for that?

@dangeourbrain the eldest does watch sometimes. This is the youngest, she would be a liability in the loft room with a hole in the floor! Not to mention how crabby the next day would be with her over tired.

Some of us have the same start times – will we be able to see each other? Will we all go off at once?

Sorry for all the questions!

Yep, we will see each other, but there will be no drafting benefits regardless of bike choice (albeit we should all be given the Zwift MTB).

@snotrag Your start times indicates to the nearest minute, everyone is going at 10 second intervals so it will count down to your release from the pen, it may be 7-02:10 or it may be 7-02:50.

And yes you will see others, so you can chase some down or get passed.

Ah, it’s 10 second intervals not a minute, makes sense.

Just checked I’ve got 19.00 so  that will be fun

19:05 for me, should see the first person overtake me about 30 seconds in if the start of race 1 is anything to go by!

Good evening all. Got a bit of an update for you. As some people were struggling with the 7pm start time I have got in touch with Zwift and you now have the choice of entering at 19:00 or 19:30 – as it is the TT it doesnt matter which you enter as I will just take the time at the end.

So if you would like to enter the 19:30 one rather than 19:00 just send me a PM and I will send you the link for the 19:30 option.

Also apologies for the MTB selection issue. This should re resolved for next week. This is a screen shot from last night race. In the top right corner it doesnt show MTb specific.

The correct configuration should look like this (in the top right corner) and that is what we should see next week.

Cheers all!

Nice work @robbo1234biking (and zwift). Thank you, that’s great news 👍.

Well done for sorting it Robbo. Only myself to blame for Tuesday as I had ages to swap over before the race started.

Nice work Robbo! You definitely have connections 🤣🤣

Excellent work

Sorry ,missed nixie’s message earlier but I guess Robbo has a much better solution
(well done mate – you must pretty much own the place !)

Had a go at the course this morning, aiming to just do a steady ride to try and understand the course a little more, but then saw Kirky of this parish set off 30 secs ahead of me so tried not to lose too much time to him.

While it’s relatively short, it’s going to be a painful ~20 mins or so on Tuesday night – that hill is pretty unforgiving!

I also jumped on this mornings recce of Bologna, spotted you in the results Jules, good that we both sneaked into the top ten in Zwift power. Is this all cats or just B? noted there’s between 4.6 to 5.1w/kg in the top guys so guessing it was open Cat.

It’s a torrid process and definitely needs a decent warm up before hand, it’s hard not being able to put an effort in then just draft along in a group to recover for a bit. Averaged 292 so not far off my ftp and my legs were a little wooden this morning, also not sure if my bike was the best option and stuck with zip 454 lightweight for the climb, again not sure if that was the best thing but as more time is spent climbing thought it was worth a gamble.

Strategy wise my plan was to ride around 270/280 280 ideally and then 315/330 on the climb, not knowing just how steep or long it was.

Im not really a steady set pace kind of rider, more of a on and off, power, recover and go again so had concerns about maintaining 270/280 for 7 or 8 minutes steradian even though I’ve averaged more over an hour.

So I was actually up and down throughout, setting off at 350 to build some speed, not sure if you need to lay the power down 3 secs before launch on a tt or not so treated it like normal. I powered on the flat or any minor gradient and dropped off so I was 240/300 upto the climb. Strava shows all the flat sections as averaging around 275. so by luck not far off the plan but achieved in a more sporadic manner. I was on and off the power on the climb, hard not to given the severity up past the arches, that was harder than any section on the Alpe, I was out of the saddle on and off and from 260/450. I averaged 314 over the KOM again not steady but not far off plan.

18.33 minutes of pain that by choice I wouldn’t repeat for a while.

I passed a few riders but didn’t really know their standard so if it was a good indicator or not. One guy powered by me at 5w/kg in the last km or two before the climb, I passed him up the 16% section as he seemed to be dying a death. Hammering the easier parts is definitely not the right tactic.

So then – bike choice!

TT bike presumably? And how about wheels? Light wheels for the climb more important than aero wheels? Probably won’t make too much difference to my final position, but minimal gains and all that.

If you’re practicing for Tuesday why not use the MTB?

Stumpy, are you asking about the Fast Friday TT or our Bologna TT?
Ours is Mtb only.
I’m doing a recce tonight, on a TT bike. After last night Team Time Trial there’s no way I’ll be doing it close to FTP, just using the ride as a tempo ride.

@Stumpy01 Use the Zwift MTB for the trial run.

Was thinking about my provisional plan for the event yesterday and I hadn’t thought about the fact it will be an MTB instead of the Tarmac Pro and light Enve wheels…

Sub 20mins for mediocre me is very abitious, read not a chance in hell, I’ve barely broken 20mins on the Tarmac Pro in the past.

In theory we’re all going to be forced to the mtbs (I think that was the previous races theory mind) so there’s nothing in the bikes this week. I think the super caliber edges out the zwift mtb by about 3 seconds on the alpe…

@kirky72 yeah, hammering any of it is really really not good. For me the hardest part is not relaxing when it flattens under the arches and for the dip in the middle, keeping the power on there is really hard, not least as you’ve no real time to shift so gearing means it needs a huge spike in cadence.

@straightliner yeah not exactly a friendly hill is it? Be glad we’re only doing one lap, you know the flat bit too start? Turns out that’s actually quite a horrid mix of almost flat and where did this hill come from in the opposite direction.

@phil56 it’ll force TT bikes normally so won’t be able to practice properly on a mtb.

Wow, Kirky has put far more thinking into it than I have so far! I was really just having a look at the course to identify where the steeper bits are and if/when there’s much respite. I think it was an open category race, although I only spotted it this morning as the 5pm one would be tricky for me.

As Kirky says, it’s a steep hill and doesn’t let off that much. I think it’s important not to push too hard on the initial steeper pitches, making sure you can keep going. I also saw one or two riders that looked like they’d gone off too hard and then had to wind it back in.

@stumpy01, I think we’re all on MTBs again on Tuesday so don’t overthink the bike choice. If you’re riding it at another time, something light is probably a better choice than a TT bike as the hill accounts for about 50% of the duration of the event. I used a Tron bike, but again, I wasn’t being particularly scientific about any of it.

@dangeourbrain I assumed the Fast Friday would force TT bikes too, but the rules on the entry page say you can choose any bike from your garage. Perhaps it defaults to TTT and you’ve never tried changing (why would you normally?!).

I picked the Scott plasma, only TT bike I have, wondered why most folks in the pen were aboard lighter aero bikes like the tarmac. So the plasma was probably held me back on the climb and I could get under 18minutes on tarmac/ venge/s5.

Never ridden a TT before or of course Bologna so wanted to get a feel for the course, when the hill starts proper, any other little ramps that you don5 need to change gear for. Mainly though to test out the theory of treating it as two parts with varying power over the sections and keeping something in reserve for the climb.

It’s a shame there isn’t any other routes and loops around there, I like the look and detail of the place especially nearer to the centre. A loop with just part of climb would be ace for crit/multi lap races.

A climbing bike can be quicker on the Bologna depending on your strengths – it isn’t as clear cut as Tempis Fugit where you def want a TT bike.. If someone does do it on the MTB that will help to calibrate my handicaps as I am a bit unsure about this one as there is no draft – you wont be challenging the leader board though on a MTB!

If you really want to you can ride on the 7pm and the 7.30pm TT on Tuesday night! See which time is best!

Fair point well presented savoyad.

In honesty the TT bikes are generally so much quicker on the flatter bits that you’d never choose anything else anyhow, (the specialized Shiv is 140[\s] 100 seconds faster than the (fastest flat road bike) venge on 2 laps of tempus fugit and drops 80 on a climb of the alpe to the tarmac sl7 (fastest climbing road bike).

(edit, if you’re bored gcn tried it…
https://youtu.be/MibvTpKIteM)

Robbo I wondered if as there is no draft involved and obviously no riding in groups or benefit from doing so would the handicaps be more towards the raw data rather than in bands of similar ftp/weighted riders. Ie more varied handicap times.

@kirky72 yes I have reduced the handicap margins to 5 seconds for this race – I was considering making them the actual estimated times but think there needs to be some margin for error. The last race they were at 10 seconds which will be the standard for the rest of the series.

I’m hoping to slope off a bit early this afternoon now so if I manage to make it I’ll do the 5pm on the zwift mtb this afternoon robbo. I’ve a few runs on bologna to compare with too so should help hopefully.

BTW there’s a useful tip in that gcn video on how to TT well, paraphrasing a little bit:
“Alex dowset always tells me to do my max 30 second effort at the start, then keep that up”

I’m giving the TT a go at 5pm tonight, never done one IRL or in Zwift before so thought better to have a quick practice before next week!

@robbo1234biking – if I remember, I’ll swap to the mtb. What info do you need? Just time taken? Presumably my time will appear in my Zwiftpower page?

I forgot the race was mtb only 🙂

Don’t need any particular info – just see what kind of time you do and what power. I can take it of Zwiftpower or from your activities in Zwift so I can pick up what I need once you have done it.

@Nick – what is your start time? I am off at 17:01

I take it in the companion app, the number by the orange person means that 7 people I am following are doing it, while the black person with 179 refers to other people I’m not following who are doing it?

@stumpy01 – my start time is 17:03. Good luck!

And yes that is right re the numbers doing it.