Zwift meetups and social rides ?

6.45 virtual commute/workout in the morning if anyone wants an invite. 3 of us are doing a SS workout, you can choose your own workout or just ride. Rubber band will be on however!

Ah, that’s a point. I’m going to have to ditch on tomorrow morning sorry Robbo.
Was planning to go into the office today to do some stuff but about half of it isn’t practical to do solo so I’ll be in the office about 5.30 🙁.

RGT has a Flandrien route I think so I hope Zwift have something up their sleeves.

Woke up this morning and decided to do the Uber Pretzel loop. Finished it an hour ago after about 5 1/2 hours on the bike. Tough but really enjoyable.

Got a rocker plate for my Wattbike and it’s super comfortable now. Made all the difference.

Gonna celebrate with an alcohol free dry January beer 💪

Well done it’s a very tough route 👏👏👏

Good effort, I need to do that at some point.

Okey dokey…. after the fact that NY on Sunday wasn’t actually too terrible, and despite Brian’s protestations…who fancies another Sunday Hills this coming Sunday?

I’m strongly tempted by the London Pretzel… A nice long flat lead in to stay as a group and bash out the miles, a sprint to try to get a feather, and then Fox and Box hill to finish with.

It’s 10km longer than the NY route we did, but I reckon we could get it done in 90-100 minutes with a. Good group rolling pace.

It’s NOT the scheduled map either, so won’t be too busy.. I will probably NOT have it ‘meetup only’ so we can grab a wheel off strangers if needed…

Takers?

DrP

It takes around 100 mins for the London Pretzel…well it did for me and the previous times we have done it on a Sunday hills ride. It’s a good route with the hills only kicking in at around the 30km mark.

I’ll see how I am Sunday as the tour routes this week are big hills which I’ll probably do Saturday…I’m thinking Alpe or La Reine.
I can always join Sunday and do the initial flat if I’m not in a hills mood.

3rd stage of the tour is a choice between:

La Reine
Road to Sky
Mountain Route (which include the radio tower)

Not sure what to do but wont be doing it until Saturday afternoon so might just do a recovery ride on Sunday morning. I don’t think I have the motivation for La Reine or the Alpe at the moment. If it isn’t a scheduled map then should be busy enough to see some people but not mental like yesterday!

It depends how the weather is at the weekend, I’m eager to get out and properly test the Addict now I’ve cut the steerer added aero bars and a new set of wheels but don’t want the maiden voyage to be on slush or ice.

If I’m on the trainer I’ll probably do tour of ice and fire as I’ve been up the alpe a fair few times but never got that badge, I also fancy breaking the hour. Like oop north I’ll try and join on Sunday and see how I feel as we hit the hills.

oopnorth Full Member
It takes around 100 mins for the London Pretzel…well it did for me and the previous times we have done it on a Sunday hills ride.

I thought I’d done it before. I’d be keen to do it again, or something similar if the weather’s rubbish. The snow has now turned to boilerplate ice outside so will see how quickly it melts, or if we get more snow. More snow = more splitboarding again 😀

Well this should raise a smile from a few of you:

Mrs brain has started doing the odd bit of zwift in the last week and jumped on this afternoon on her lunch break for a quick 20 minutes as her meeting finished a bit early.
Spotted Yorkshire on the world list, and picked tour of tewit well because it would be “a quick flat course round the stray” – which if you know where tewit well is makes perfect sense.

Suffice to say it was neither as quick nor as flat as she expected and I was greeted as I came in this evening, not with a cheery “hello” but “it’s Yorkshire today why does the tour of tewit well not go anywhere near the tewit well? It went to pennypot!” *

*pennypot is the roundabout where the squirrel is. there may be words missing from this sentence.

Re Sunday I think I might plan do the tdz Sunday since it’s going to be hilly anyhow (might work as a group of us and just chat through the discord server instead?) and maybe get outside for a ride Saturday.

Ouch!! I’m sure she enjoyed the steep leg snapper… 😉

Hmm…. OK so I’ve popped an invite out for Sunday… but…
I too need stage 3 (mount ven top) of the tour… which at the moment I’ve penciled in for 5am on Friday!

Brian… what group are you doing? Group A?

DrP

Looking at the choices yeah, it’ll be la reine (a) though it’s not a lovely ride!

Thinking probably the 8am? Though if I went for the 7am option I could try the champs elysee race afterwards…

ZHQ FutureWorks Circuit Race – Anti-sandbagging https://www.zwift.com/events/view/1521682

I’ve penciled [la reine] in for 5am on Friday!

You see it’s not just 2 laps of NY that makes me think you shouldn’t be in charge of things 😉

5am??? I thought we were crazy at 6-45am for the workouts…

I might try the Alpe again, I still need to get under the hour….that may not happen, but gotta keep trying. I found La Reine worse than the full Ventoux route, probably because I pushed too much at the beginning through the esses and on the petit KOM before hitting the main climb. One day I need to go up Ventoux again but I’m in no rush.

I tried RGT tonight, that’s a tedious game. The better drafting physics are kinda irrelevant when I only saw 2 riders going the same way in 17.5km of the Dirty Reiver route. A badly rendered avatar riding through badly rendered countryside with no idea where I was. Single loop so no chance of meeting anyone else, eugh.

Cheers @oopnorth and @stumpy01 for the ride this morning. Zwift crashed on me 40 mins in. I managed to extract some data to Strava so not all was lost. Not a good start though considering there was supposed to be a patch to fix crashes and that downloaded at the start.

Going to do the TdZ Mountain Route stage at some point tomorrow – probably at 2 or 3 depending on family stuff! Might see some of you on it.

Still not sure on Sunday morning yet but if anyone wants a group ride on Sunday Morning DrP has organised one so ping him for an invite if you haven’t got one already!

Jeez Robbo that was tough this morning…no wonder you left early 🤣🤣🤣
That last set…ouchy ouchy ouch ouch. Think that was the toughest one yet! Only just made it and my cadence was rubbish today.

I’m on the 9am mountain ride tomorrow…hoping to make sunday…at least for the flat section!

Have a good day all

Yeh I think that one needs a bit of adjustment – maybe slightly shorter sets – 3 sets of 10 might be more manageable. 1 min Vo2 max intervals next Friday! Cant wait! Lol

I was doing that this morning almost…was taking at least 10 seconds fof the power to come down between sections.

Looking forward to next week…not! Time to find an excuse! 🤣🤣

1 minute on, 1 minute off isn’t too bad. Don’t forget we are working up to 3 mins! haha

Think I’m gonna do the 11am Ventoux TDZ route tomorrow. Maybe see some of you on there…

oopnorth.. you doing the la reine route?
I skipped the 5am ride today as having a rest today… but going to hop on a TDZ Group A moutain ride tomorrow am (still doing the london loop with you lot on sunday..)

Might aim for a zone 2/3 effort in France, rather than push myself to FTP+…

Anyway..will either do 8am or 9am tomorrow…

DrP

@DrP no I’m just doing the short mountain route, the C group ride. Got lots to do tomorrow so I don’t want to muller myself on the Alpe or Ventoux and be useless the rest of the day.

OK..have fun, and I’ll pick a time that suits me tomorrow am…likely 8am..

DrP

Yeah, that was a toughie this morning! I was really struggling in the last set.

oopnorth

I was doing that this morning almost…was taking at least 10 seconds fof the power to come down between sections.

Do you drop your cadence at the end of the set? I find if I manage to keep pedalling, then the power seems to fall away faster. If I slow my cadence down to stop my legs shouting at me, it invariably seems to take longer to get to the recovery power.

I really wanna get out on the road this weekend, but if the weather stays as it is, I will try to join DrP’s Sunday London Pretzel ride.

The TdZ La Reine route is predictably painful (I had a go last night), but good luck to all of you doing it over the weekend. While the first 8km or so are flat, like many other TdZ rides the pace was pretty high and that hill goes on and on, partly because of the lack of noticeable features or the stats that are provided when doing AdZ.

Also note that if you continue onwards to the top of Ventoux, it won’t give you the badge as the starting points are different.

I read that on ZI..
It’s a pain because, y’know, badges are cool…
But this seems to be the only way of getting the ‘la reine’ route as it’s event only.

Maybe, just maybe, good ol’ DrP may suggest ven top as a Sunday Hills one day……

DrP

You can suggest it mate by all means…but maybe not everyone will do it 😉

To be honest I have thought about it before but it might be a problem keeping the group together.

Maybe, just maybe, good ol’ DrP may suggest ven top as a Sunday Hills one day

I’ve still got the badge to get for that. I’m not keen on doing two laps though.

To be honest I have thought about it before but it might be a problem keeping the group together.

Yeah, without laggy banding the big climb routes aren’t really conducive to a group ride.

Will it still give a TDZ completion if you carry on to Ven Top?

Will it still give a TDZ completion if you carry on to Ven Top?

Yeah, you get it a few 00 m climbing from the top.

Yeah, without laggy banding the big climb routes aren’t really conducive to a group ride.

Perfect for us gravity inspired riders!

Perfect for us gravity inspired riders!

Or racing DrP to the top…

Will it still give a TDZ completion if you carry on to Ven Top?

Just to clarify…you get the TdZ La Reine route completion about 5km from the top of Ventoux and the La Reine route badge. Then if you want you can carry onto the top, however you won’t get the Ventoux route badge as it has a different start point to La Reine as mentioned above.

Just thought best to make it clear to avoid disappointment 🙂

Actually, ven top WITH the elastic band would work well.. we all ride at our own efforts, but stay together???

I’ll read into how it works practically..do we go at the fastest pace, or the slowest?

DrP

Thanks @oopnorth

That’s fine. I’ll be doing it several times this year in training for the real thing.

Wait, Ven Top.

Whens that happening?

I’ll read into how it works practically..do we go at the fastest pace, or the slowest?

Iirc the pace of the organiser.