Well done Tiger. I decided to rest and spanner the bikes instead. Back to Z2 tomorrow and 5-2 diet day to see if we can keep the lard at bay.

Jeez.   Moved to the WBR hilly instead due to lack of riders in the other.   Came 26 of 31 in B, 59 of 161 overall average 3.3w/kg.   Not really what I’d hoped but then I have done 4 2×20’s and 1 x 1:10 TT over the week, so perhaps a little tired.

Started OK, felt a bit sick at about 40th place after 5 mins.  Hung in with the A’s for 20 mins then got dropped.  Rode along at 250w for a few minutes then got caught and stayed with a group swapping around 50th for the rest of the race, working well together with a few small attacks on the hill shelling a few riders.

I don’t know the circuit and suffered from that as about 4k from the end everyone kicked on what turned out to be the final hill.   I missed it assuming it wast just people coming to the front again, couldn’t get back, ended up 15 secs back.  I started working solo with a group 15 secs behind me and tried to defend my then 50th place.  I pulled out 4 seconds on them, then suffered TT’ing to the end to defend yet they came past me about 30s from the end.

Ah well, I got a good workout!

That’s how it goes sometimes, you work like a crazy and the reward just isn’t there. But be happy you worked damn hard.

The thing about Zwift racing unlike most real/MTB racing is that you are on the power for the whole hour, there’s no let up and that takes a bit of adjustment if you’re not used to it.

I’m not complaining though, as with all racing I hated it and now a bit later I loved it 🙂

That’s very very true. Some races you get a minor easing, but your HR is only getting a few BPM back, out on trails on DH sections you can recover 15-20 easy.

Enjoying reading the reports of ftp increases, getting set for a good summer.

I decided to enter the 19:15 wbr 4 lapper of the volcano and see what i could chuck out after not being able to ride yesterday or today. Set out far too quick and held with the A’s until the first proper kick up where a bunch of A’s and 2 B’s got out of sight. Not much else to report other than I thought I was going to get dropped each lap on the rise but somehow hung in each lap. I then missed the kick on the last lap and got gapped slightly but managed to grind it back to 6th in the group amd 8th overall in B. Really happy with an FTP increase from 261w to 271w as I hadnt raced for a month but have been trying to chuck in a vo2 session and an sst medium session once a week along with outdoor club rides. I don’t think ive got any weight i can shift without looking unwell so need to keep grinding it out and try to hit the magic 300w. I am wondering though if i should sign up to trainer road to get a bit more structure and hopefully faster results.

4.25 W/kg. Exactly as expected. Went off like a novice on their first ten, and tried to hold on (to my dinner). That’s 293 Watts in real money, and pretty much where I was last summer. Need 305-310 Watts to be sub 22 minutes at Hillingdon 10. Think better pacing and an empty stomach will get me to 300. Beyond that looks like hard intervals.

No m25 Ride today due to snow  might go for a virtual half tomorrow. KICKR really is a great machine. Now have some Assiomas to try as well on the rollers.

Waited all day to do a big workout this evening only to find back tyre flat. It is so cold and snow blown into the workshop that I CBA to go out and fix it! So I ate my dinner instead. Not a good end to a shite day TBF

Snow day from school for my 9 year old today, so jumped on an earlyish WBR 3 lap flat. Greater LOndon. Long one for at more than 40km… but what the heck.

Entered C group as that’s where i sit now i’m training on the 29er. Off we went and group1 of the Cs were GONE ! Sheesh… insane speed. Me and 1 guy split from group 2 but it was short lived, even though he was putting out 3.5w/kg average the group of about 10 caught us… Trust the blob… always trust the Blob. They caught us just over the start line of warmup, so 5km …. The next 20km we didn’t split a person either out the front or the back.

I did have a minor disaster/issue though, my seatpost was dropping. clunk clunk, mm by mm, suddenly i’m sitting like i’m on my lads bike…. As we came to the underpass i caught a Draft PU and jumped off, lifted it and managed to hang the bunch, perfect. It was short lived though as it still wasn’t tight enough and was slipping down… slower this time… But still a bit.

Same place on lap 2 of 3 i did the same, again, just managed it, but as i had to hit the power up the other side of the underpass the bunch kicked on at the top.. It was 4+ from everyone and i simply didn’t have it… I lost the wheels, lost the bunch and i was toast.

Over the line i had 35s to the guy behind who was an A, but he was sticking out 3.3wkg, i was happy/lucky to be seeing 2.4 by this stage. I held him off for 1/2 a lap and tried to jump on his wheel when he passed but he was too quick. The seat had dropped a bit, but it was acceptable  🙂

Next guy behind wasn’t dropping below 3.1w/kg but i was 1min ahead so just a case of hanging in there to stay ahead of him. I managed it.

Not sure what lessons other than the seatpost there are to take away from today really, not actually sure i need to be taking lessons away in honesty though. It was an enjoyable if exceptionally hard race.

🙂

Screen scoreboard stated 35th out of 70

https://www.zwiftpower.com/events.php?zid=49143

I did have a minor disaster/issue though

Yesterday at the top of the 1st climb I lost 30 seconds as my laptop popped up with “Battery Low, your device will shortly go into standby…”.  I had to jump off and flick the switch…

Really annoying day on Zwift yesterday. Lined up a 1 lap WBR race and then could not get my iPad to log in, and when it finally did I was too late for the race. Pootled around for 15 mins then found another 1 lapper an hour later and decided to do that instead. Did that, all worked fine, finished top 10, happy days. Then went to save it and the ride has disappeared. Seems they had a good few server issues yesterday so I am not alone, bloody annoying though.

OUch, another -15CVR points LOL. All my hard work is turning to crap now i’m running the PArkwood 🙂

All my hard work is turning to crap now i’m running the Parkwood

And losing weight…. you are looking lean I must say but it’s noticably whacked your power during 2018 it seems….

Yeah possibly fella, possibly. This has always been about getting the weight under control though, (Not just because of the weight but things like blood pressure and other health benefits) but the secondary pleasure of the racing/Zwifting would have been nice to maintain. It seems to me like i have the power still, but certainly but over a much smaller window of time at the moment.

Kicks in power are what’s killing me the most though, every time i get near my limit and there’s a surge, then i’m immediately blown away. The results in Jan/Feb were still good…. Arguably some of my best of all time. But since hitting the Parkwood full time, it’s killed my results. Whether that’s because my HR is too high as i’m trying to make the same power, or whether i can’t make the same power on this bike, i don’t really know. But it’s clearly not where i was 3-4 weeks ago.

Looking at my profile though, it’s only the last 3 weeks that i’ve had a drop in power, which co-incides with swapping to the PArkwood full time.

https://www.zwiftpower.com/profile.php?z=164586

I can live with the downturn in performance though, whether real or bike related, because i can still get a cracking race on Zwift when i want to.

Another cheeky little race 🙂

WBR London loop (2 laps), went as a C this time, finished decidedly mid pack, found myself too slow and unable to catch the pack in front and the back behind a bit slow.

Good little race to end but found myself out tac-ticked and beaten to the line in a sprint

https://www.zwiftpower.com/events.php?zid=49173

Looking at those results you may not get upgraded but everyone above you should. You’re right on the limit though.

But it could also be that because i’m often sitting in Z2/3 that i’ve lost the ‘edge’ from doing more regular racing ? The ability to push myself that bit harder.  I did notice times today i was sitting at a fairly low HR and my average and max both show them being down on where i’d ordinarily be when racing.(161av, 172 max). Although i was conscious that today was in excess of 1 hour race time.

Another cheeky little race

WBR London loop (2 laps), went as a C this time, finished decidedly mid pack, found myself too slow and unable to catch the pack in front and the back behind a bit slow.

Good little race to end but found myself out tac-ticked and beaten to the line in a sprint

That’s still oodles of power there buddy… Impressive. My legs were tired before even starting today… Now they’re just boll**ed

Looking at those results you may not get upgraded but everyone above you should. You’re right on the limit though.

Shoved up to a B

That’s still oodles of power there buddy

I’ve just discover that my position is always half decent if I sort by average power instead of finishing time, damn those lbs of lard!!! One day Rodney, one day….

which co-incides with swapping to the PArkwood full time.

Could it also be that a mountain bike just doesn’t feel as fast?

Could it also be that a mountain bike just doesn’t feel as fast?

Feel in the context of actual power, the Turbo doesn’t know what bike i’m on.

But i’m running obviously a massivley different riding position on the Parkwood than the Road bike, along with a 32mm tyre instead of a 23. So all these little bits may be playing a factor and giving what i think and hope is a false indication of my actual fitness/performances.

But there’s little point in me training on the Isaac when i’m not planning on riding it outdoors again, so training on that is just daft IMO. The Parkwood is the bike that’s planned on being the longer distance XC event bike, so i’m taking the logic that it makes more sense to use it.

I think there are still gremlins in zwift today. Just as i was about to “join event” from my warm up riders started disappearing and when it eventually put me in the pen i was the only rider. Logged out and logged back in with 8 secs left and then went hell for leather at the start. I then noticed that the rider nearby list only had 2 riders in it, nobody was replying to my messages either. I did 8 miles of unrelenting pace and decided something wasnt right so i abandoned.

I quickly got on to 3 lap classique but i was at 150hr and breathing hard in the pen so i knew this had the makings of a disaster. Anyway i managed to hang on to the front group on the lead in lap but started lap 1 blowing hard with 176hr (max is 183). I was hanging with this A group but every ramp was torture. To cut a long story short i managed to hang on until about 1.5miles out when i could take no more. Rolled over the line 6th in B and was actually only 30secs behind the A group winner so cant complain. I reckon i would have been in the bunch sprint finish if i had gone in to the race fresh.

6th in B is nothing to grumble about. Top job fella.

But it could also be that because i’m often sitting in Z2/3 that i’ve lost the ‘edge’ from doing more regular racing ? The ability to push myself that bit harder.  I did notice times today i was sitting at a fairly low HR and my average and max both show them being down on where i’d ordinarily be when racing.(161av, 172 max). Although i was conscious that today was in excess of 1 hour race time.

Possibly Weeksy. I’ve been training for 4 months for Marathons, specifically the last 2 months on 8, 15, 20, 30 and 1hr long efforts.  Yesterday I found the “punchy” parts of the race difficult to keep up with – the 30secs bridges and attacks, but once sitting in or driving on the front/up hills I was fine, I’ve become a Diesel designed to chug up hills / TT the flats rather than the crit/XCO on/off efforts.

I have a very hilly sportive in a couple of months with some vicious 25% gradients so i am switching to hill training now. I suspect my very average flat speed is about to get even worse if thats at all possible. I am quite intrigued to see how bad it gets.

Hmmmm, fitted a quarq yesterday,

Started the 1815 jungle 3 lap yesterday, hung with the front group for the first 6km then i just hit the wall and abandoned, couldnt even hold 200w, 186bpm average for 13 minutes! slipped from the front 20 to 80th within minutes  – assumed something was setup wrong – reset everything, zero’d the quarq and did a steady hilly loop – recorded the neo on the garmin & the quarq on zwift, ran them through the DCR tool, neo reading 5-10w lower than the quarq – will try again tomorrow, hopefully just one of those days

So I have a thought in my mind and I wanted to get my FTP to 300w while at the same time losing weight.

I think I’m close to that FTP but I’ll do a proper 1 hour test on Wednesday.

At the moment I’m just randomly riding as and when with no structure.

I’m half thinking about Trainerroad and would probably try and run it through Zwift.

My questions are this

Is it worth adding structure?

Do I really need another £10 a month subscription?

Should I just try the Zwift training? (I’m no athlete so Zwift might be bob on)

Anybody tried any/all/some of the above?

Yes you should add structure. A longer term objective will help. You should also add rest, recovery and periodisation. A big goal, to train for, followed by a break.

Ramp up volume (hours) and intensity (average power for an hour), over the course of the next eight weeks. Plenty of examples about, including TrainerRoad. But the best training plan is the one that suits you.

since you enjoy the racing, I’d focus on intensity, whilst keeping volume roughly constant. But for ftp gains, google sweetspot, which basically means riding a lot at the border of zones 3 and 4 for up to an hour.

Trainerroad is better than Zwift. Lots more options and plans that have some real info around them.

I run Zwift as a distraction and TR at the same time on the screen. TR minimised to the top of the monitor which gives you enough info and the text info comes up on the main screan. Need 2 ANT+ dongles to do this though. Alternatively my android phone can run TR with no hassles while the computer runs Zwift.

Don’t bother doing an hour to get your FTP do the FTP test on Zwift.

Or I can send you a TR free trial. Do their 8 or 20 minute test and then another day do the new ramp test which is a far more pleasant experience. The key would be a repeatable test where an hour isn’t really a controllable repeatable effort.

I have spent the last few weeks concentrating on slow and steady, less races just what would have been traditional winter base.

Yesterday I did my first 100km on the trainer, 2.5 hours that flew by, started in a group ride then just carried on, thoroughly enjoyed it.

Tonight I thought I’d have a little recovery ride so chose a 3 flat loop RCC Europe Social ride, right from the start absolute chaos, no group leader so the front went off at 3.5 + for the first lap and didn’t slow, group of 20 of us out the front giving it everything for an hour, lost a few but still a dozen together at the turn for the final sprint but I had nothing left, sat up and cruised to the line totally chuffed with my effort to hang on in there, very close to an uplift in FTP on what I was expecting would be a cruise round.

Rode the Pedal Power group ride after a warm up London lap. My first social Zwift Ride. Seemed more like a race. Sat near the front, dropped to the back to tow the fractured group, but the front seemed too keen to just gun it. Well obviously I couldn’t let them go, so up to the front, off for a Mall sprint or two, and dropped the hammer for the last quarter lap. Average of 3.0 W/kg. Seemed sociable enough, are they all like this?

LOL not usually… but often. Depends really, but you get people going off the front on about 90% of rides like this. How many is the only question, sometimes only a few.

Here’s an interesting one indeed…

https://support.wahoofitness.com/hc/en-us/articles/115000738484-Tire-Size-Chart

I’m guessing due to changing wheel size i should change something in Zwift/Wahoo. I don’t recall setting mine at the start 15 months ago, but i guess it defaulted to a certain figure. So i’m going to look tonight and see.
29″ x 2.1″ 2.288
700 x 23C 2.096

Whether that means i’ll now go slower or faster LOL i don’t know as maths isn’t my thing….

As I gather my 7 year old MacBook Air won’t have the grunt, wondering if the AppleTV interface works well?

My 7-year-old MacBook Pro works fine with Zwift – admittedly it has 16GB of RAM and a SSHD, but then the MacBook Air has half of that at least. I’d give it a go before you splurge on an Apple TV, unless, of course, you just want an excuse to buy one.

Mrs BWD’s MacBook Air seems to work fine also, though it’s newer than yours, so that’s probably of limited relevance.

.Hopefully then, re-configuring will get me a smidgen back 🙂 I’ll have a crack at it tonight.

It’s not the distance/etc i care about in many ways as we know, but if i can get myself a little bit more back into the groups i’m losing in a race just by re-configuring correctly, then that’s a win win all round.

the distances above are the circumference in M, so i guess it’s 19cm over the whole revolution ? That’s 192mm the difference between them.

My understanding Weeksy is that wheel size doesn’t make a difference with the SNAP- only the KICKR. The Wahoo App actually gives you a wheel circumference setting with a wheel-off KICKR but that option isn’t there when you pair a SNAP.

The wheel off Kickr has to replicate the inertia of the rear wheel in the algorithm whereas the wheel on one is basically like a rolling road- it doesn’t really matter how the roller is being spun up.

https://uk.wahoofitness.com/instructions/kickrsnap

If this is your first time pairing, take a moment to register your KICKR SNAP. This screen also allows you to customize your wheel size and other settings to match your bike for accurate readings.

If you watch at 1.08 in this vid- you’ll see the wheel circumference setting for the wheel off KICKR.

That option never appears for a SNAP even when paired as a new device.

I’ll have a look tonight, currently at the office so can’t see anything.

I’ve also emailed Wahoo to ask them.

My hunch is that whoever wrote the website just cut and paste that paragraph from the KICKR support text and added SNAP 🤣