STW Zwift Racing League – Autumn – 2021

I think Zwift have created two events. Dont join the one on the companion app. Join through the link that I have sent out @joedilla @andeh @scaredypants @driley @alexrbts

these rides had totally slipped my mind – tonight’s outsideride cancelled so switched oin the PC and saw this thread. Thanbks Robbo for watching your messages so close to the event. Wasn’t expecting to be enrolled ’til next week; well beyond the call of duty !

I’ve just walked through the door after a long drive from Wales so it looks like I’ll be missing the first race!
Good luck all and ill be back next week!

Do you have to join 10 mins plus before start? I saw it momentarily, then it disappeared. 😞

It took me over 25 minutes to log onto Zwift. Obviously missed the race.

One odd thing though.
I got to the menu at about 7.28 and, while the event appeared at top right, showing 2 mins to go, there was no option to go straight to the race. Instead I was sent to France, and by the time that loaded it was about 7.35 and too late.
How come there wasn’t an option to go straight to London for the race? Do we always have to go to the scheduled world and then to the race from there?

Oh my days. Well out of race practice, forgot my fan and forgot how hard the starts are!

Same time next week, thanks all.

Well that was tough. I got in with a good group that was a bit too fast for me and got dragged all the way round, mainly by K Allen, so thanks! Finished last in the blob sprint by some way.

I was there in the blob too, as above, thanks K Allen for dragging us around. And thanks again Robbo for organising.

Well it would appear I’ve gotten less fit since february despite riding all year. Either that or my legs were suffering from doing 500km on the roadie in the past week. Tried a suicidal attack from group 2 up the hill 2km out and predictably it lasted about 500m before I was caught. Need to work on that.

Well that didn’t go very well!

Got dropped by everyone within 10 seconds of the start. Really struggled to make any more power than 180w for more than a few seconds. Couldn’t hold a cadence above 75 without going into the red. Got lapped halfway round my second lap. Couldn’t physically turn the pedals any more once I started lap 3. It’s taken me half an hour to recover enough to type and the turbo trainer is making a weird noise that sounds like a knackered bearing in the flywheel, spins fine though and can’t sense any excess drag.

Oh well, suppose I’d better start improving ready for race 2. Maybe I’ll finish that one!

Busted myself to stay with the lead group on the first lap, found a just about maintainable pace after about 7 miles, just about clung with the pack, sprinted for the wrong finish line, nearly threw up trying to keep up to the real finish line, now trying to gather myself for a shower!

Great fun, thanks everyone and thanks robbo!!

New FTP too 232 –> 244 🤯😬

I led the first 200m just for fun then towed my mate Figg round until he sent me a WhatsApp with “done. Dead” and I tried to grab some sprint points, but I’m a rubbish sprinter. Although I was top for a lap. I think I stayed top 10 which ain’t bad for me.

Are there points for the biggest calamity? So…I was late getting to the garage cause my kids needed fed (I know!)…jumped on bike with 10 mins for warmup – it’ll have to do…that’s odd, pedal feels weird…ok, I’ve time to swap it from my new bike…pedals swapped, realise I’m bleeding everywhere from chainring injury. Never mind. Press on. That’s still odd, this pedal’s wonky too. Let’s take a look. Oh…my crank has a massive crack in it. 3m30 to go…ok, swap bikes…and put the pedals back over. Of crap, this is a bolt through rear, not a QR…find the box of bits. Swap them over. Jump back on. The gun went 30s ago, but I can get back on…redline and almost catch the Borg group…but just fail. Drop back to the group behind and all going very nicely. Chasing the sprint and manage to get secondishbi think. Lining up for the last lap, fancy my chances in the bunch sprint…3k from home the bloody trainer dies!!! Arghhhhhh!

Went far too hard at the beginning thinking the group would fracture and I could hang with whoever fell off, although I was the only one to drop off, so that didn’t go to plan.

Was fully in the red when I had to drop, until I found my moving buddies led by stumpy. Managed to hang on in the blob until the end despite several crises of conscience and continual hitching of the big boy pants.

Dropped the zwift ftp before the ride and post ride went up to 245, with my claimed as 247, so that’s as spot on as I can do.

If there had been any hills other than that slight rise I would have been gone.

Cheers, good to be back.

So who knew the lead in was a lap long? I thought it was 400metres,, webasicalltydid 6 laps!

33rd on the road, stayed in the blob for 1.5laps but need to work on my drafting and pacing especially over the little crests.

Mega fist bump to D Dixon who latched on about halfway and we dragged each other round, I’d have given up otherwise.

I slipped my chain on the 11tooth just as I sprinted at the finish. So I beat you to the line but also nutted myself on the stem, so I guess you win that one!

Oh and.. Just call me Andre 😉

Oh yeah indeed!

20th on the road, which I suspect will equate to no points, but good ride all the way round.

Tried a sneaky drop of the Borg after the 4th lap sprint, got a few seconds but was well in the red and I couldn’t make it stick.

Got 4th in the final sprint so happy with that, but I think led Andeh out nicely for him to come flying past :p

So who knew the lead in was a lap long?

Zwift insider 😉 – gotta do your research 😛

I like the lap counter lozenge though, not sure I’ve seen that before.

“Good” to be back. Seemed to feel like every other STW race I’ve done.

Crazy start, just hung on for the first break, then when Paino, Kirky and the other fast boys turn up the heat again I’m toast and spend the rest of the race clinging onto the second group constantly thinking I’m going to have to drop off the back of them too, but just managed to avoid that indignity.

Despite all that, my FTP turned out to be lower than measured a few weeks ago, down to just 250W. So I’m way less fit than last year. Let’s hope these races can turn that around.

Great tone back racing with you all and well done to the winners.

Thanks for everyone for taking part in the series!

The results are provisional in case I have made any mistakes. Please let me know.

href=”https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1La3WIPQUrOIv7FQHkJ_SSKDJsRoQPgCCR8RtR15TrC0/edit#gid=1628366731″>RESULTS SPREADSHEET

Race 1 – London Classique

Cat A:
1. savoyad
2. nixie
3. tomnavman

Cat B:
1. kirky72
2. paino
3. mahowlett

Cat C:
1. feed
2. mossimus
3. jimdublyou

Cat D:
1. DD (Straightliner)

Overall Race Winner (with handicaps)
1. richardkennerley
2. v7fmp
3. mahowlett

Sprint Points (The Mall)
1. andeh
2. nixie
3. savoyad
4. jimdubleyou
5.straightliner

Green Jersey Standings
1. andeh
2. nixie
3. savoyad

Series Top 3 (including sprint/fastest lap points) Best 6 race points counts
1. richardkennerley
2. v7fmp
3. mahowlett

Urgh, been a while since I’ve done one of those! Misjudged my ability and went too hard to begin with, shot out the back of the front group after a lap and a half. Fell so hard I went straight through the second group, crippled with a plum crumble stitch, and was left floating in space until the Borg assimilated me into their ranks. Did a bit of pulling but decided to have a dig at the sprints (edit: which paid off, wahoo!), as I’d buggered any handicap points for the week.

Horrible as always, thanks Robbo!

Whaaaat!!?

Blimey, I’ve never scored a single point before 🤷‍♂️😎

(is it because I is fatter now)

Urgh, that was stupid. Never meant to force a split at the front, but kind of had to go with it after Nixie, Kirkby and Savoyad joined in, and it seemed to stick nicely. Just kept clock watching and hoping the distance would decrease faster than it did. Zwift gods were kind though and gave me 3 feathers otherwise I’d have never kept up with the lighter boys up the climb. Really had to push to get back on at the top. Great work from the other 3 but I never had the beans to keep up at the end. Definitely pushed too hard for the first race back.
FTP up to 305 though Robbo!

Thanks Robbo for organising the series again.

Had an issue with my PC, the screen kept going black (think my graphics card might be on the way out). So I didn’t know if I was still in the nice group I found myself in from the start, or if I’d fallen off the back. So didn’t do as much work at the front as I would have liked but we did well as a little group. Those feathers power ups people used on the little climb were so hard to keep up with. I forgot about the power ups for the first 3 laps, bit out of practice with Zwift racing.

All in all, I quite enjoyed it tonight but I’m not looking forward to the TT.

Well! That was fun!
After the start I was riding along with IMartin (I think) and realising that the blob behind was gonna catch eventually.

Once I’d been assimilated, it was a good fun thrash.
I’m crap at drafting and have no sense of tactical whatsit so kept pushing off the front of the group.
I knew from previous races that Jimdoubleyou has a powerful sprint and felt most aggrieved when him and Andeh pulled a fast one after one of the sprints (4th one?) 😂😂 Great effort! It was a good target to aim for to drag you back into the blob….

I knew once the sprints started my number was up.

They didn’t bloody crumble though, did they!? 😉

Do I miss out on sprint points cause I didn’t finish? Pretty sure I was on top 5 on 12.54 😢

Hoping the neo 2t has a 2 year warranty!

Annoyingly the sprint display only shows best time for a given lap, so although you might have a fast lap at one point, it may have been beaten by someone on a previous/later lap. The only real way to tell is the Sprint/KoM results on ZwiftPower post race.

Last lap sprint times were really fast. 11.4 seconds got 5th

Did everyone get shit powerups? – I think 1 feather early on, then 1 aero and then many, many extra points (i wouldn’t mind if it really was many but 10’s a **** insult !). Should’ve kept the aero to the end, when I unleashed all my nearly 556 Whaaaats, but needed it to get in front for the massive climb

Never mind! I can’t see my times on Zwift power, wasn’t sure if that was because I didn’t finish the race or just me being rubbish. Can’t remember if it was 12.54, but I was 2nd to andeh at some point…maybe that wasn’t last lap…11.4 does sound fast. Maybe I’m just deluding myself! Hope I can sort a trainer for next week’s instalment.

I think I mostly got the exp points. But I did get one feather and one aero so it could be worse. Didn’t get to use the aero as my trainer died though.

Thanks for organising Robbo, great to be back, despite the drama tonight.

Holy Crap oblongbob! Sounds like epic race prep! Is the trainer dead?!

Man alive andeh! The plum crumble stitch comment caused me to spit tea everywhere 😀

Power-ups weren’t too bad for me. Couple of aero, one of which I accidentally used in completely the wrong place. Also got a draft boost which came in handy.

Some good results from the blob group! Well done all.

Once I got an aero I sat on it till the end. Didn’t do much good though as @savoyad got the drop on me when we were both being cagey and I couldn’t quite close the gap.

I’m happy with that. Felt much better tonight than I have on most recent events. Even happy enough to put in a number of attacks. The split down to 4 just knid of happened. Seemed a shame not to capitalise once the initial split occured and the gap nicely opened up to around 45s in a lap. That gave the room for a bit more fun later on. @kirky72 and I nearly got away at one point before the final split down to two.

@robbo1234biking believe it or not ZP has me as B currently!

It’s so good to be back at this. I love riding with all those names in the sidebar.
I thought we needed a small group to push on at the front – @nixie and @phil56 have suffered in the past having to TT their way to overcoming handicaps – and we got one. I did nearly miss the boat and had to bridge across. I see now @paino is taking the blame for forcing that split taking @kirky72 and @nixie clear…
The four of us went well together (we were even 5 for 1km when @weeksy made a cameo appearance in the group) until near the end. The gap we opened did us all good for the overall standings.
At the end, we were down to 2 and neither of us really wanted to race home from the hill, but we could hardly trust each other so we pushed quite hard together and it came down to the sprint. I went painfully early, and @nixie was more patient and was catching me very fast as the line approached- so I managed to cross the line first, but in a panic about being caught! It took 15 and 30 sec all time power bests to stay ahead…
Thanks @robbo1234biking for organising.

Wow that was harder than I remember, and I’m much less fit than at the end of the last season… ZP put my FTP for that race at 262watts / 3.86wkg and dropped me back to Cat B.

More training and less pudding from now on…

Think it’s dead. Light all went out and no resistance. Tried everything I could to get it going to finish the race, but no joy. Will leave it for a bit in the hope it magically works again. Think warranty is 2 years, so email to merlin cycles sent. Also emailed madison as apparently ultegra cranks have a bit of a habit of breaking (though my mad power might be to blame 😂). Not sure what to do for next week. Dumb trainer and power meter I suspect…though my new bike won’t fit on that…hmmm

That sucks. Hope you get it sorted soon.

More training and less pudding from now on…

Same for me. Less beer as well.

@oblongbob what a ‘mare! I had an Ultegra crank fail on me earlier in the year. Yeah. They are pants. My LBS offered to send it back to Madison but their charge wasn’t worth the risk if Madison just said it was fair wear and tear.

Why do we always look back and think what if? I am now convinced I could have tried harder to go with ‘the big 4’ but in reality I was breathing out my a#$€ at the time. Chased @richardkennerley down with his ill conceived sprint thinking he was going for a break at the flame rouge so that took the edge off my sprint. Still, did a decent sprint from the second group but felt a bit rusty in terms of tactics.