Viewing 40 posts - 4,641 through 4,680 (of 15,383 total)
  • Zwift, my journey, my weight and my fitness.
  • weeksy
    Full Member

    jam bo – Member

    In this weather? You’re mad.

    I’ve got my boy and his mate for the day and night so can’t ride outdoors as they’re only 8 and playing in the pool

    (paddling pool, we don’t have a POOL ! )

    blader1611
    Free Member

    Weeksy i would get the kids to throw buckets of water over you while you pedal.

    weeksy
    Full Member

    Lol I got straight into the pool after riding. It was glorious!

    Fresh Goods Friday 696: The Middling Edition

    Fresh Goods Friday 696: The Middlin...
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    weeksy
    Full Member

    That was HOT !

    weeksy
    Full Member

    Well that’s nice… despite it being an E cat race, they’ve catagorised it afterwards and we got a nice C win 🙂

    Power has me at 3.12w/kg which i’m happy with, despite it being over optimistic IMO.

    weeksy
    Full Member

    Think i may jump on the 4.05pm WBR 4 lap flat today…. But depends to a great extent on how many others come to play, currently only 7 riders.

    I am also considering outside for a ride, but it’s just insanely hot out there, at least in the garage i have a modicum of control with a big fan and it being shaded, but outside i may just melt !

    blader1611
    Free Member

    I did the wbr ride at 10 this morning and was in the lead group going nicely with just 5km to go when zwift crashed. I though i might have just had a network dropout so waited to be reconnected. Then got a message to say zwift has crashed and we could not resume your activity!!! Looked at the results afterwards and it looks like it only affected a few of us from what i can tell. I was less than impressed and i had nothing to save to strava as it had all gone. British guy in the lead using zpower was knocking out 5.5 w/kg from the start to the finish was getting some friendly fire texts from us lot but he didnt seem to care that we were ridiculing him (in a friendly way).
    Tomorrow morning i will be doing one of the London 8 races with a view to breaking the 7 minute barrier for box hill.

    crosshair
    Free Member

    Blader- the .fit file (or whatever it’s called lol) should be saved locally on your device in your Zwiftlog folder.

    weeksy
    Full Member

    EEEEK ! My plan was eventually changed to do the WBR 1 lap then the WBR 4 lap an hour later.

    However i went off HARD ! on the Classique and was hanging with 2 Asians who were way way quicker than me, as usual on lap 1.5 i got nailed on Horseguards, well, techincally not as i hung with 1 guy there and we just about dropped guy 2, but they powered on in the next flat before hairpin and i was dropped, but i kept on chugging along and finished in a respectable position/time.

    Results currently have me as Winning B cat…. but that can all change as results are fully applied later. I didn’t enter a cat, it just threw me in there.

    https://www.zwiftpower.com/race.php?id=8613

    blader1611
    Free Member

    Crosshair – i did it via ipad so no access to zwift folder.

    Nice one Weeksy, great result. I quite like the classique course as the hilly bits are just the right length for out of saddle sprints without burning your legs off.

    EDIT: just looked at your race weeksy and what is beginning to annoy me is just how many users claim to be around 50kg. Surely grown adults (this is assuming they are adults) dont weigh 8 stone!

    weeksy
    Full Member

    They have Chinese type names, so maybe? Lol

    weeksy
    Full Member

    Due to the change in weather i’m debating whether to do an outside ride or whether to do the 10.05am race. 4 lap Watopia flat, which is about my limit in distance/speed and a course i go fairly well on usually. Only thing holding me back at the moment is the size of the field which is pretty rubbish currently at 11 riders… That’s not giving me a lot of desire to play, especially as due to my speed i’ll end up somewhere behind the front 4-5 and ahead of the next 4-5 pretty early on, so could end up being a lonely race.
    Plan B is to jump on the PArkwood and do some outdoor stuff, it needs a clean anyway, so it getting muddy/dirty after the monsoon shower earlier wouldn’t be a disaster at all.

    Decisions Decisions.

    blader1611
    Free Member

    Can anyone figure this out for me?

    I did the KISS race up box hill this morning to try and break the 7 minute barrier. I was in the lead group but fought my racing instinct so slowed down before box hill to rest up. I then attacked it with everything i had. I went up in a bigger gear then ever before and didnt let the cadence drop below 90 and then did a full on sprint at the end…..net result was 6 seconds slower then before and a time of 7:09. THAT IS IMPOSSIBLE. Bigger gear,faster cadence,sprint finish and i was actually going for it so how can it be slower? I have always maintained that timings in zwift are strange and now i have confirmed it,not impressed.

    crosshair
    Free Member

    Poor Pacing? Drafting? Power ups? They’re the first three that spring to mind.

    scaredypants
    Full Member

    how reliable/consistent is your trainer’s output ? slipping tyre/poor tension or something robbing you of power or maybe over-reporting somehow last time (people talk about temperature variation now & then, for example)

    7.09 though – I’ll take it if it’s going spare

    blader1611
    Free Member

    No drafting on either as they were pretty much solo efforts, no power ups used. I simply cannot figure out how it would be possible to be slower given how much more effort, power/speed and desire i put in to today than i did on the previous attempt.

    crosshair
    Free Member

    A few seconds could be down to pacing. Going too hard on the flatter sections could cost you time overall. Not sure after that….

    weeksy
    Full Member

    I went outdoors for a ride, just under 2 hours but set about a gazillion PRs, despite not pushing particularly hard apart from one section. I even took my Garmin so i could do some HR data for CH to see for a change, but for some reason it didn’t import it into Strava, would it be because i exported as a GPX ?

    For info, my average HR was 127bpm and a max of 161bpm. Bit weird as i can average over that on a turbo/zwift session LOL.

    mrblobby
    Free Member

    Indoor and outdoor are rarely comparable 🙂

    weeksy
    Full Member

    Indoor and outdoor are rarely comparable

    Clearly, it does make you think though in some ways. On the last 10km i put in some effort and even though i was only hitting 145bpm or so i was trying, honest.
    I set 19PB’s i think it was, which was excellent. But makes you wonder if all the Zwifting is the key to making me as a rider faster/ better all-round ? Obviously the fact i’m hitting the very high HRs in Zwift racing may mean that when i’m riding outdoors i’m still way in my comfort zone ..

    Dunno, maybe i’m thinking too much. Just mindless ramblings really.

    mrblobby
    Free Member

    Surely grown adults (this is assuming they are adults) dont weigh 8 stone!

    🙂

    scaredypants
    Full Member

    Blobbers, that’s clearly a small child

    njee20
    Free Member

    No drafting on either as they were pretty much solo efforts, no power ups used. I simply cannot figure out how it would be possible to be slower given how much more effort, power/speed and desire i put in to today than i did on the previous attempt.

    You seem to overthink gearing, I assume you have a “dumb” trainer, but obviously bigger gear and higher cadence doesn’t necessarily mean more power. Look at your power output.

    Why not do a Strava comparison of the two rides, you’ll be able to see where you lost the time. I’m not sure Zwift is screwy, I suspect it’s how you rode it.

    blader1611
    Free Member

    Njee20 – i have a smart trainer and i am still 100% certain there is no way todays ride was slower. I have some key points on box hill that i take note of speed and cadence and the rest of the time i keep a close eye on it. Every single point i was faster and so was my cadence and it was in one gear higher. Previous ride was between 85-88rpm with the occassional (few seconds) high of 90. Today i never went under 90 with a high of 96 and this isnt including the sprint at the end as i was head down going for it. Its odd and i will probably never know the reason so i will just crack on and try again,its a good challenge.

    crosshair
    Free Member

    Have you checked your ‘difficulty’ slider?? If that had reset or moved then it would totally change your gearing on the same climb.

    njee20
    Free Member

    Ignore gearing, it’s irrelevant. You have power. Look at power.

    Look on Strava at the two efforts, look at the power.

    blader1611
    Free Member

    I dont even know where the difficulty slider is. I really should look more instead of just riding.

    I know what you are saying njee but you cant ignore the basic principle of gearing. Turning a bigger gear faster than a smaller gear can only mean you are going faster. Looking at strava only tells me where i was slower not why. I am not going to worry about it, i will try again tomorrow and will just have to try harder.

    njee20
    Free Member

    Seriously, forget about gearing, it’s a useless comparative tool here. Forget what gearing other people use, it’s pointless. Strava gives you power, look at your power, that tells you why you were slower. If your power is lower then other things influenced it – resistance of the turbo, slipping tyre, whatever.

    If your power is higher and your speed is lower then it’s likely to be an environmental factor – you were catching a draft off someone, your weight changed, you started the segment much faster.

    You don’t need to know what gear you’re in for this.

    njee20
    Free Member

    Because I’m feeding my son and I’m bored I’ve just had a look, your PR was done at a higher cadence and a higher power output, so of course it was quicker. Why do you think you were faster yesterday? Did you use the same data capture device both times? The power profile on your PR here is very ‘lumpy’ compared to your effort yesterday here, and frankly both look a bit odd. I’d expect more fluctuations in power than the latter and fewer than the former. But according to that you pedalled harder and faster in January, so you went quicker. You don’t need to know anything about what gear you were in for that.

    If one is recorded via your turbo and one on a power meter (say) then it’s harder to draw comparisons, one source could read higher than the other.

    blader1611
    Free Member

    The rides in January were likely to be from the dumb trainer so those can be disregarded. My last two rides are the ones i am comparing. I think tyre slippage might be valid as its been a while since i stuck air in it and initially when i got on the turbo in a very low gear it did slip although this was sorted once i wasnt spinning at 140rpm!

    scaredypants
    Full Member

    more stravastalking:

    The last two were both in races as far as I can see, so drafting presumably is a (potentially variable) factor, as would be pace of the other riders

    The 7.02 began 4km into the race whereas the 7.09 was 8km in – maybe the pack has recovered from its rush of blood by then ?

    Strava thnks your overall power was essentially identcal for each but the slightly faster climb has a lump in the curve near the start (where it’s steepish) and a dip on the flatter top while the second one is flatter overall with highest power on the flat in yr sprint. I think a TTer might say “QED” or something at that point

    crosshair
    Free Member

    Blader-

    https://zwiftblog.com/using-the-trainer-difficulty-setting-in-zwift/

    It basically gears up or down the feel of the hills. It’s useful if you find yourself spinning out or if you want to ride the steep climbs on a bike without ‘enough’ gears.

    blader1611
    Free Member

    Cheers for the stravastalking, its good that somebody can at least understand my rides coz i sure as hell dont. There was no drafting in either race other than the odd second or two, first race i was being passed by many and second race i was passing everything. Just realised that its now switched to Watopia so i cant get to London now and i do it via ipad so no workaround, time for some hill training while i wait for London.

    crosshair
    Free Member

    I *think* you just have to change your iPad date….

    njee20
    Free Member

    Yeah the system date hack should work on iPad I’d have thought.

    Cheers for the stravastalking, its good that somebody can at least understand my rides coz i sure as hell dont

    You were faster on your previous ride, that’s about all you need to know! If you want to see where you’re in a better place to check, we can’t (I don’t think) so a side by side comparison of two of your rides, I can compare my PR to yours, but not more than that. Click “Compare” on one effort, then look at “my results” and drag the appropriate ones into the box, it’ll show you where you lost the time.

    If you’ve not realised (for some reason) the ‘official’ segment is a hidden one, so you need to expand the list at the bottom of the ride.

    You were going quicker into the segment last time and your power peaked differently, probably enough when you consider there’s less than 1% difference in power. Also if you were being overtaken last time there would have definitely been a drafting effect, Zwift has very “sticky drafting”, I guess because it’s far hard than IRL to actually sit close to someone, so you get the benefit from miles back. Anyone who passed you at a comparable speed would have given you a nice tow.

    crosshair
    Free Member

    TFC went up the mountain for their race this evening. I hit it hard and felt strong! A pb if not new FTP was on the cards! I was neck and neck with Timothy Termont from Vision who I met at CVR in real life. This added substantially to the motivation 🙂

    Then I got an awful stitch/cramp! I probably overdid the eating beforehand and it had only been 90minutes. And we went out for lunch too.

    I nearly quit but then remembered the penalty for a DNF in the rankings! So I gave it a minute or two and set off again in the middle of the C’s.

    It was quite good fun chasing people down.

    On the descent, a C and a B were chasing and gaining so I sat up at the bottom and let them catch. Cat and mouse followed to the 300m line when me and the B went Mano v Mano! I let him go first, then nearly couldn’t catch him! 1270w did the job however 😆

    A shame really, I never get stitches/cramp.

    njee20
    Free Member

    1270w! Chapeau.

    crosshair
    Free Member

    Sorry, only 1258 😉 😀

    njee20
    Free Member

    Still about 150 more than I’ve ever put out!

    crosshair
    Free Member

    I did 1470w versus NathB and Jesper at Hillingdon. I’ve had a few spikes way above that too which I’m not so sure I trust (1900w@133rpm at Thruxton the other week).

    When I only had the Kickr Snap I did wonder about accuracy but the Stages is very close.

    I’ve still never had a Zwift sprint jersey 😆

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