I did my first Zwift race for over a year yesterday on a whim.
Big field in Crit Club and managed my primary goal of finishing with the front pack. Even managed to drift near the front in the last couple of laps on the crucial points of the Volcano lap. Unsuprisngly no sprint available. BITD I used to…
Still I think it was my 3rd best ever points score in a race which is insane for 30th place.

The monthly ZwiftHQ GC series can be quite fun, the only thing I really don’t like is that your best finishing time for each weekly stage is often down to choosing the right event start time that has a decent number of similar ability riders for the reduced aero drag, rather than pure ability.

So for a competitive GC time from the four weeks, you usually want to race in the Monday 1710 running, that attracts the biggest numbers. May is much harder to predict with the three bank hols, yesterday there were several UK daytime runs of stage one (3 laps of Volcano CCW) with fairly similar numbers.

I simply pick the races with a lot of riders in it… it just makes it more fun… but Zwift racing these days is a bit rubbish compared to where it was. I can sit in a bunch on a flattish route doing 140bpm… cruising along and chilling out. But then it gets to the last 400m and everyone has 12,000w of power 😀 😀
If you try to break you need 10-15 riders otherwise the bunch eats you up in seconds.. I’m doing better uphill now and hit 300w on a 7 mins climb in France the other day… but i still can’t sprint like the fast boys.

It’s almost like people are not inputting the correct data weeksy😄😄😄😄

It’s almost like people are not inputting the correct data weeksy

I race at 90kg fella…

Yeah but how much do you weigh?

Yeah but how much do you weigh?

About 140kg it feels like. 😀

Zwift always surprises me in the sprints. I am a weakling rider, all things considered.
Max power is somewhere around 850w or so and current FTP somewhere around 220w.

But, I find that if I’ve been in a decent group for much of the race and everyone has been working hard to stay in the group, then I can have a decent stab at the final sprint.
My normal tactic is to try & start upping the pace from a few km out to keep people working & tired. You can see people trying to sit back & get a breather before the finish, so I try not to let that happen. Then depending on the gradient at the finish I start my final effort from about 300m out & try to stick it out.
What normally happens is a few people get ahead of me, but then fizzle out & I drop a few others. So, out of a group of 10 or so, I end up perhaps 3rd or so in the sprint for the group I’m in.
Obviously, that group is never at the pointy end of the field, but still – It’s good fun.

Been a right slacker since the Reiver, so need to get back on it.

The Chainy group chat was quiet all day so I decided to go and bledge it round my little 17mile ‘Tempo Loop’.

It’s quite an interesting one as I don’t warm up. Literally treat it like a Zwift race you are late for and go hard straight out the gate. Because it goes uphill initially too, it means your average speed goes to crap and then you get to spend the next few miles chasing it back up again. The first 5 minutes were 313w!

I think because I don’t warm up, it is always a little disappointing on the power front. And because I know the course so well, I tend to save myself for the little hillocks (shop-ride kamikaze styleee 🤣). So if I’m cruising along at say 24mph and I feel the resistance easing on a subtle descent, I’ll just ease off the power and let the speed stay there rather than killing myself to do 25 or 26. But then stand up and sprint up the next little rise.

Anyway, long story short- I PB’d it by about 35seconds at 21.5mph which was cool as I felt like I was warming into the effort rather than fatiguing. My legs were also still cooked from Sunday. I don’t usually feel any kind of physical pain whilst cycling but this was definitely in that territory at times today. Power was 270w/294np for 162bpm (just into Tempo HR). My best effort last year was 21.2mph, 266w/287np at 166bpm.

The key now is to bring forward recovery week I think. It will give me a chance to catch up on stuff at work and hopefully absorb the mammoth efforts of the last ten days. I feel like I could ‘finish’ this week but I reckon I’m better off treading carefully rather than let those two big days go to waste.

Good effort on the “horses” segment, fair chunk quicker than my pb and I had a tail wind that day!!

I’m failing miserably on the power training front the last few days. Didn’t do any exercise really the last couple of days as family life got in the way.

Today I’ve had my daughter home ill from school whilst the wife was in the office. Just popping out on the bmx for a quick blast in the sun.

Probably get out for some mtb tomorrow night and maybe do either turbo or cycle to / from work on Thursday or Friday.

Yeah but you’re in the top ten up Severalls 😭 🤣

I was also kind of single-speeding much of that section. Just pushing the 22ish mph gear. Had I taken it on properly I reckon I could have gotten top 3 maybe- in theory 😀 (My best 8 min power of the year is 354w v 268 for that segment 🤓 )

Whilst not a full on tailwind it was more helpful than often.

Sorry to hear that Joe. It’ll still be there when you’re ready 📈📈 😀

BMXing kind of passed me by sadly and I think I’d look silly trying to get on one nowadays 👴🏻 🤣
Folks who started with it seem to develop into really strong riders though 💪🏻

Yeah but you’re in the top ten up Severalls

Yeah used to ride it a lot and sprint up it….I looked at the ride where the KOM was done. He was coming down the hill into it and turning right, did it about 6 times, that’s dedication!!! Must have been hitting that sketchy gravelly corner at some pace…maybe he cleared it first!!

Wow! Yes that’s a bad bend. Double punctured there once. And there’s an ag-contractor yard at the top so a high chance of tractors 🤣

And there’s an ag-contractor yard at the top so a high chance of tractors

The cat farm you mean! Good chance of hitting a kitten as well!!!

May have to leave tools and drink at home and go back when the wind is right to search for 7.5 seconds 🤣🤣 😇 😇

I think it’s a bit late for me on bmx too at 42 lol

😂 Strewth man! What’s wrong with you 🤣🤣🤣

Fair play 👏🏻

hmmm interesting, good interesting though

so there’s a 51km loop near me, now I live in lincs, it’s flat everywhere! but it loops round the edge of the wolds and takes in a 1.27km at 7.2% climb, as the first of three climbs, I’ve done this loop loads, and this particular climb according to strava 44 times, 8 of my top 10 are from 2014, and the 8th is from when I kom’d the 51km loop in 2020 (I’m now 3 minutes back) and I was gassed! yet today, out after nights on 3 hours sleep before the school run, on a ride where my NP was 209w, ok I was on a 52/33 so had to keep on top of the gear up the climb, but I just felt like I span up, however I did 347w for 4m to 37s, and I did my 4th best time ever, and I didn’t even go after a time, and it was into a headwind

crazy 🤷‍♂️

Nice work 😎 Flying by the sounds of it 🚴🏻 💨
Z2 ftw 👌🏻

yes very happy with my progress this year all things considering, using the 85% rule of 5min power, that puts me at 295w theoretically, weight is 76 and small change, so what 3.85w/kg, almost there 👀, give it a month 😂🤞

85% of 5 minutes. Ooh I like that number for telling people. All time high FTP would be just over 300w then.
Reality at the time was more like 260w. Mind you it was only that high as I was a good 30 seconds slower than my best time in the Hill Climb race and closer to 5 minutes actual time :0)

That’s actually quite interesting.
.85 of my best 5 min power lately matches nicely with my suspected ‘FTP’.

I’ve “always” (just don’t look at the moment) had a good short power output compared to my longer effort powers.
Current years looks about right but I wouldn’t say I’ve done a specific 5 minute effort.

2021 was also a year of chasing a list of hills for a club competition and involved a lot of single effort rides.

My probable peak with a power meter I’d guess my best 5 minute from the same hill climb but a different year would have been more like 320w (85%) but the effort was short of 5 minutes. Actual FTP about 270w at the time.

I always thought (read it somewhere once!) that if you’re below 80% you do a threshold/SS block to potentially push your FTP up.

If you’re above 80% you do a VO2 block to raise the ceiling.

Managed 280w best 20 from a 25 minute effort around the local TT course the other night…current weight of 65Kg puts me at a nice 4.1 assuming 95% which backs up my effort up San Salvador in March. I felt that may have been a little on the high side at 295w from 18 minutes but I’m guessing the gradient may have helped.

Happy days anyway, may actually come out of retirement after all!

That’s awesome Haze well done!

I’m 340w/95kg for 3.6. I’m half tempted to give up my racing attempts up until such a time as I’m at 4w/kg.

Let’s say you’ve got 60 racers at a Hillingdon Tuesday night Cat3 race.

20 are Cat 2’s but for not having scored their requisite points yet.

20 are ripe-plum Cat 3’s in the middle, they maybe pick up a point here and there but largely by luck.

And

20 are fresh back to racing or ‘just scraped up’ 4’s who are just pleased to not get dropped.

I’d say last July when I got back into it, I was in that last cohort. Now I’ve definitely progressed to the back-half of the middle group. I’m not afraid of getting dropped but can’t quite mix-it and race how I’d like to.

It’s clearly not a straight watts problem- so I reckon getting somewhere at or nearer to 4 would just stop the accelerations absorbing a lot of my power.

I’m very good for my age by watts:

And a pile of old junk by w/kg 🤣

I used to love a crit until I broke my collarbone a few years back…stuck to road racing after that (vets).

Then broke it again last year in my first circuit since the last time 🤦‍♂️

I guess your power requirements can be quite specific to the circuit, I don’t know Hillingdon but the circuits around here all seem to be about a war of attrition from accelerating out of corners…so maybe a bunch of race specific efforts rather than pushing for a specific w/kg? Although I guess it could translate across…

5x4m session @ 109% of 279w (305w) this evening, seemed a much harder session the 7x3m from last week

That extra minute makes all the difference! You may also be carrying additional fatigue?

Not over my fatigue issue yet 90 mins Z2 after yesterdays race felt tough! Not help by the stress of 4 attempts of Zwift to do its updates though.

Yeah I think it’s just maths everywhere I ride with other people to be honest 🤣

If they’re 70kg and doing say 9w/kg up the little kicker for 25 laps, that’s 25 x 30s @ 630w = 468kj of work on that feature.

For me that’s 25 x 30s @ 855w = 636kj of work.
Apply that to every little surge and acceleration and even having a big work capacity can’t counteract the efficiency of being a bit smaller 😀

I’m only a few weeks away from ToC so hopefully after that I can refocus on losing some weight.

Well done DR. It’s funny how the mind and body works. I think having a dumb ass chimp brain is helpful 🤣
Just tell it lies until you’re finished.

I can’t cheat the clock though- if I try and do it without time on display, my mind seems to make everything go even slower 🤨

thought I’d replied to this, wonder which thread my reply is in 😂

You may also be carrying additional fatigue?

no doubt, got through the session though, HR only peaked at 179bpm though

I can’t cheat the clock though- if I try and do it without time on display,

I tell myself not to look up, or at the laptop, I’m on watts, it’s going fine, then I look up and 25 seconds have elapsed, EVERY SINGLE TIME 😂

Not just me then!

Had a window to ride this afternoon and just couldn’t be arsed. I took it as a sign that I needed the recovery. That’s the first three day block of no riding this year. And tomorrows weather looks awful!
I will do something though even if only a Zwift spin.
Sunday will be the 50 mile “8 AM” ride, so about a 100k loop from home. It’ll be interesting to press on a bit on that and see if the recovery has worked.

I need to plan out my last few weeks into ToC. Even though we’re now doing the sportive, I’d like a good time. I guess the most specific work will be group rides (as that’s effectively what it is) and Sweetspot intervals. Maybe try and squeeze in one or two more solo centuries as well.

PR’s EVERYWHERE

weather looked iffy today, so I thought I’d go to Dalby, don’t mind it raining if I’m in the woods, stayed dry but was very wet in sections from the rain overnight, and MTB round here is naff, so have to travel,

fastest ever time for me round Dalby, 1hr 43m 37s, 278w NP

of course Dalbys changed over the years slightly, bikes changed etc, however, Strava matched rides gives me 20.5kph average, best before today was 19.4kph way back in 2014

will take that

Boom 💪🏻 well done 😀

You should have come out on the Banjo ride crosshair, the weather was great and we all laughed so much when the group, led by me, smashed into a water hidden pothole I double punctured and split my front tyre two others punctured and one managed to ruin a carbon rim!!

Ooooof, hard luck.

Rain and family stuff have limited me to a couple of 1 hr sweetspot sessions on trainerroad over the last two days. Found them pretty hard, harder than expected. Steady zone 2 tomorrow if the weather improves.