scaredypants – Member
Interesting – but I’m oot, for now at least

(I thought you were a cat4 CH ??)

On here: http://zwiftrankings.com

He’s a cat 2.

I’m still down as an Elite, ha that’s not going to last long.

ah, I see

on there I’m a 2, inactive, 4, 4 – work that out

Somewhere up there ^ I linked to the league that CVR are launching.

sounds interesting, I might have to give that a go. Would be good to give some structure to the racing, plus being up against the same people each week would lead to some interesting dynamics/rivalries I’m sure!

Edit: guess I’ll be bringing up the rear in B as that’s what they reckon I am 😯 7pm for me

OK, we’ll give it a whirl potentially. 4pm for me.

[url=https://flic.kr/p/DTA4Bs]hilltervals[/url] by Steve Weeks, on Flickr

Hilltervals !

aww, imagine how proud CH is going to be !

Good work weeksy – interesting HR recovery “drift” between sprints.

interesting HR recovery “drift” between sprints.

Depended on who was around me after finishing sprint etc, sometimes I went harder than others, I was also texting a mate a fair few times.

So KISS are now running the Zwift official EU/USA ECrit series (like they did for the Australian one) after the Zwift one imploded just before the finale. The exact reasoning isn’t clear but a lot of the guys and gals who committed to racing it were pretty pee’d off!

Anyway, the new incarnation is as follows:
Starts 7th December, 10 races, Thursdays, 8pm, mass start, no cats, best 7 races to count for points, top ten men and top ten women to race at a live final.

All quite exciting really, it’s CVR v KISS in a way. Although I’m sure some guys will race both.

https://m.facebook.com/groups/644249712382917

Did the WBR 4 lapper last night. Think I’m getting the hang of it now as managed to stay with the front group fairly consistently. In fact it felt fairly pedestrian so managed to have a bit of fun by launching a couple of sustained attacks. Didn’t stay away but also didn’t get dropped so fairly content. Didn’t have the legs for the final sprint but that’s not a suprise as I’ve never been a sprinter.

mass start, no cats,

is that not just gonna balls up Zwift again?! Or have they upgraded the infrastructure?

dazh – Member
Did the WBR 4 lapper last night. Think I’m getting the hang of it now as managed to stay with the front group fairly consistently. In fact it felt fairly pedestrian so managed to have a bit of fun by launching a couple of sustained attacks. Didn’t stay away but also didn’t get dropped so fairly content. Didn’t have the legs for the final sprint but that’s not a suprise as I’ve never been a sprinter.

It’s nice when you can have a bit of a play, although 99.5% of them i’m not able to do that.

Apologies for not posting for a while, been a bit ill for the last month, seem to better now…

I did my first KISS 100, suffered, and then I was under the weather at the same time as Zwift kept going offline and ZP went down, a strange coincidence. My first proper return ride was the World event last Saturday and I got dropped on the first hill but then warmed up and stayed with the chasers to finish 71st.

Checking CVR today shows that I have not done much lately but I am now in the Elite category so the challenge is now to stay there. I may do some of the CVR & KISS series, just for training, the initial pace is always too much for me. In the World event, which was 120km, I set new PR’s for every segment from the start until I got dropped.

I have kept up with everyone else’s progress on here recently, Zwift does make a big difference once you get the hang of it.

Today I will try FulGaz for a bit of variety for a recovery ride and then may be the KISS 100 at the weekend.

I don’t think the numbers for a weekly series will be quite as big as the one off events that cause the real problem.
Zwift are anticipating 12000 concurrent users this winter by all accounts. I saw 4500 the other day.

What’s the most you guys have seen?

Thanks for all the advice and pointers on PC setup etc. I’ve now got a refurbished tower PC on its way and also ordered a good budget graphics card, so will hopefully get it all working by next week.

Tried the WBR Cat C last night, and held the lead group for nearly a lap until the lag became too weird to keep pace. I think most of that is the slow internet connection here, rather than the my current PC (work laptop).

Good race all the same, and looking at the other results in that category, I’m not that far off the pace, so hoping that once I get an improved setup working, I should be able to focus on pace and stamina, rather than cursing the kit!

Gavinb – it wont matter if you have the greatest kit in the world coz if you are anything like me then any losses/bad performances are always the kits fault as i am too awesome a rider to come second. 😀

Haha – that did occur to me too! Once I have this new setup working, the excuses bucket is looking pretty empty.

Use mine…

” I was 14th, but all the others should be DQ’d for breaking cat limits”

I like that one 🙂

Well, I’m finally on it and have done just a couple or rides so far. Going to sign up to pay this weekend a the trial ends. Great so far, but holy moly, aren’t there any other fatties on there? Everyone seems to power away up every hill. I suspect I’m going to loose a lot of weight soon to enable me to keep up!
It’s astonishing how hard I’m prepared to ride as well, genuinely flat out, sweaty smelly mess and want to do it again. I bloody hate turbos, this is good fun.
Another few weeks and I’ll start entering a few events.

What weight are you mate ? I’m at 95 or so, there’s others on here in the 3 figures….

But yes, there are plenty of light ones on Zwift !

I’m 93kg but the power output is pants! Doesn’t help that 10kg of that is lard….

It’s astonishing how hard I’m prepared to ride as well, genuinely flat out, sweaty smelly mess and want to do it again

My experience exactly. I’m fairly fit (do endurance races) but have always struggled in the past to push it when training out on the road (intervals etc). I rarely come back from a road ride absolutely wasted, an hour on this though and I can barely walk.

an hour on this though and I can barely walk.

I nearly crashed my bike, on the turbo (final sprint in my first ever race).

Did a little warm down spin for about 15 mins after that then cramped up getting off the bike.

I managed to tip the bike and turbo nearly 45 degrees yesterday trying to get off it after a rather sprinty workout organised by mgcc left me quite wobbly and unstable. That being said i have done this before on the road but that was down to being clipless and incompetent.

My bike came completely out of the turbo (Kinetic Road Machine) racing the other day! I grabbed my pedestal fan off to the side, smashed that on the way down and ended up on the floor!

It was well clamped in when I started but the clamping bar unscrewed over the length of the 4-lap race I was in. I contacted Kinetic and they are sending me the upgrade parts. Must be a known problem with older Kinetic turbos as they only have a lock ring on the non-drive side whereas the newer ones have a lock ring both sides.

Extracated myself from the wreckage, put the bike back on the turbo and finished the race. It doesn’t get much more realistic than that! 😆

My chain snapping now firmly in perspective

Extracated myself from the wreckage, put the bike back on the turbo and finished the race.

That is very admirable. I’d like to think I would have done the same, but 99% sure I would have sat on the floor and sulked instead.

Eemy i would have done the same but rightly claimed that i had the race in the bag before the crash happened.

I’d already covered just over three laps at the point of the crash and was toast anyway. I figured I’d put all that effort in I might as well finish (last in group C). Zwift is getting a little too realistic for my liking!

The worst thing was finishing the last lap without a fan. I’ve got a nice, new, high-powered, gym fan now though. 8)

You know those idiots that turn up on a group ride then blast of miles ahead of the beacon.

I just did that, on the plus side I gained an extra 4 watts on my FTP trying to stay with faster riders.

It’s nowhere near as bad as the condescending patronising dribble the ride leaders come out with whilst trying not to blow their tops 😆

If you fancy it, crack on I say 🙂

All signed up for the 5 / C’s (I think) in the CVR 7.00 slot, ideal as the little one is at Cubs.

Will be interesting to see a proper competitive league. Would love to do the Thursday night Kiss one as well but thats night-ride night.

Assume that rankings are taken at the time of registration? or am I able to register a load of DNF’s and get me back down into D?

Winter is very much upon us though that’s for sure. Cold, damp, rainy, muddy and chalky! Sounds about right for winter in West Berks.
It was nice to be out and its nice when its all leafy etc, but I can’t say most of the trails are great right now.
We cut the ride a little short as it was just getting too wet. The fine misty stuff that drowns you but doesn’t feel it at first.

2017-12-02_02-55-07 by Steve Weeks – Flickr2BBcode LITE

2017-12-02_02-55-17 by Steve Weeks – Flickr2BBcode LITE

100km ride tomorrow….

…outside…on actual roads!

Wonder how well those 100km Zwift rides have prepared me for the Moray roads?

Anyone fancy the 20:05 KISS race tonight? I’m all signed up but currently drinking a nice Belgian beer while I cook a roast dinner.

Might need a pre race nap

Maybe scaled, although it off by the layout which suits me 0%

Depend what times I get home from keeper coaching in Ascot.

Sod it, I’m in. Will be a disaster on this course. But wanted a session

Well i’m not sure what happened there on several levels !

I thought it was the full ruins lap back down to the bottom, I went off steady, sitting in a decent bunch and letting them work mostly…. We hit the hill and they disappeared ! oh… hold on…. No they never ! WTF, i was climbing like a BEAST ! Well, a beast in comparitive terms for ME ! I was sitting in a hard gear on a 4%-5% incline and pushing 3.5-3.8-4.0w/kg ! Which for me is unheard of. The HR was sitting at 169/170, which i’m happy with.

We’re then picking guys off and i’m powering the straights ! powering, 3.5 again, then resting at 1.9.. then 3.5 to power on…. I’m telling the bunch of 6 of us what the gaps are… 10s, 6s, we got him too….

Then i looked at the distance bar… 2.8km.. Errrrrrm HELLO !

It showed 0.3 then and i pinned it… overtook 3…. then noticed the line was another 300m ! So rested for a few secs and pinned it again.

God knows if that was the actual end, but i don’t care… That was the most involving and fun race in over 6 months for me…. I was happy, comfortable and reasonably powerful ! Where has that been !

Strava shows me as 282w weighted average, which i don’t see in anything other than a 20mins sprint race.. So to hit that for a longer race is astounding for me !

BOOM ! !

The Hilltervals worked 😆

you’ve turned into a monster !

must be those hill intervals the other day 😀

Bah, would’ve gotten away with it, if it wasn’t for that pesky crosshair

Slightly more serious answer- obviously it’s too soon physiologically to be seeing the effects of the intervals but the other aspect is confidence. In a race, you know you have to pace to the finish so you hold a little back. In a training session you can actually go harder in a funny way as there’s no consequences for having to ease off.
By exposing yourself to those harder efforts, you have more faith in doing one without bonking.

That said- the power trace is still crazily flat for such a hilly race!!! You must have the slider set pretty low?