Well done that man! You might have finished last in the field but you’re way ahead of me today.

I signed up to the 6am, 8am and the 4pm TdW rides and haven’t made any of them!

Well done PScoop ! Top man !

This is getting ridiculous… Of course, in a good way… but it’s still ridiculous. Just been sorting out my summer shorts and out of 15 pairs of shorts, only 4 fit me anything like acceptable. Most have 2 arms and more of space in there, but the rest are just absolutely useless to me. My cycling shorts (baggies) are falling down when i go out now and some are max adjusted, so they’ll need replacing too. I’m dreading taking my t-shirts out at the weekend and seeing what fits/not !

I did Warriors racing league this morning. One lap of the figure 8. Entered C with 8 others. I ended up in a group of five after the start which splintered after 5k on the first hill.  From there I TT’d the last 25k on my own. Finished about a minute twenty down on the guy ahead of me and three minutes ahead of the next group.

Probably didn’t go off hard enough at the start although judging by the results the only decent group was about 5 min ahead of me so I wouldn’t have kept up anyway.

Finished sixth out of seven in C and managed to average 3w/kg so pretty happy with that. It is bloody hard on your own.

Weeksy – that is a good problem to have and better than all your kit being too small!!

poopscoop – well done that man. You didnt finish last as you were ahead of all the cyclists that were sat on the sofa 😉

jk – its pretty grim when you are on your own, its like being back on a dumb trainer pre zwift.

Your right there Blader. Thankfully I never did the dumb trainer thing.

Also I forgot to say cheers Scaredy for the ride on!

Back on it tomorrow after 15 days off the bike (and Zwift)

Gonna do AdZ – Carb’ed up to the max.

I discovered that there appears to be a reverse – ie: descent – ADZ jersey the other day, Banged down the thing only to find myself riding round the jungle in a spotted top. Turns out I was also KOM on the official Zwift Insider wotnot descent segment, though I didn’t realise until someone beat me. It was all slightly surreal. I’m a lot slower down the real thing thanks to self preservation instincts and the need to actually slow down for the bends…

Another TdW Stage 4 ride here. What everyone else up there said about turning yourself inside out.

Decided to see what the pointy end of the race was like, so set off with the fast guys. Was jockeying for 1st for the first 8km, then any talent I may have started to run out. It’s horrible to see a group ride away from you slowly, when there is bugger all you can do about it.

Settled in to a small group of following riders and happily* maintaining 380w for the rest of the ride. Little sprint at the end to grab 19th. I was putting out around 1000w from 250m to go, but two others just rode past me.

Took quite a while to recover from that one. Also recovering from a head cold. Just wish the gunge would go away and I could stop blowing my nose.

Final time was 41:39

ZP says I had the highest average power for the event at 397w. At least I’m now down to a steady 93kg.

*really struggled

397w average ! Fooook ! That’s just …. Impressive.

^^ what he said. Wow! If you can ‘just’ manage that for 6 hours you’d win Paris Roubaix.

By the way, my Facebook feed is showing bits of a Frank Schleck led ride up AdZ. He’s putting out 230w with a heart rate in the 70’s!

He’s putting out 230w with a heart rate in the 70

The TdF year that Garmin put out live rider data was real eye opener to how fit these guys are.

Chris Anker Sorensen’s SRM Data from Stage 19

• Weight- 64kg
• Functional Threshold Power- 400w
• Total Time = 3:27
• TSS = 254
• KJ = 3499
• Average Power = 282 Watts. Avg Normalized Power* = 322 Watts
• Avg HR = 148 bpm
• Max HR = 171 bpm
• Mean Maximal 1-minute power = 518 w
• Mean Max 5-minute power = 442 w
• Mean Maximal 20-minute power = 393 w
• Avg Cadence =  82 rpm
• Avg Speed =  19.5 mph

Enjoying the Tour of Watopia, it’s given me a bit of extra training motivation.

The next 3 stages look a bit “samey” though!  Up to the radio tower in all 3.  Still… it’s good training and having done 4 stages I feel obliged to finish it off.

I have found it really enjoyable and even though some of the stages are going up the same climbs I have discovered how stuck in my ways I was with my normal morning routine of hitting the Road to Ruins route before work as it felt like a good balance of climbing and sitting at a decent wattage.

Stage 5 will be a Saturday effort for me around a route that although I have ridden all the parts I have not in that order, looking forward to it.

Forget that idea…. it’s Spring this weekend ! I’m heading out in the big wide world… It may be only road and a few select trails at the moment, but give it another week and they’ll be dry trails too !

Wow! If you can ‘just’ manage that for 6 hours you’d win Paris Roubaix.

Doesn’t help that I’m 20kg heavier than the pros. I’d say that I was quicker, or had the potential to be, when I was in my twenties. Being clueless about training, and having found alcohol and girls at uni RUINED IT ALL!!!!…………

If someone could just get on with developing rejuvenation technology I could live my dream, instead of facing 50 in a few short years and a downhill spiral ;-P

Well if it stays dry between now and Sunday I’ll be a Swinley early for a lap 🙂

It needs to be dry for about a fortnight here before anything gets dry. Kids are back at school next week so i am definately hoping to improve on my 40 miles of outdoor riding this year. My FS bike thinks its in a retirement home as its not been out this year!

back to zwift, i forgot to mention that yet again during stage 4 of the tour i only got 2 PU’S and the rest were points. Is anyone else getting such high level of points rather than PU?

I had 1 PU that I started the event with and 1 at the end however I think that is becasue I didn’t use the one I started with until the final mile.  Can’t even remember where the others should have been dished out, top of the 2 climbs maybe?

68:18!

Done for

Built for cuddles not climbs

Well done Tiger..

Also did the AdZ climb this evening as part of the WBR Climbing training. Was confident I could slash my time from my first attempt but was a lot closer than I thought. In the end I took 63.40 which is just under 3 minutes quicker than my first attempt (66:31). Getting a time under an hour looks like it could turn into a real challenge.

Mind you. I have lost a couple more pounds and haven’t updated my weight for a while. I think I am entitled to drop 2 kgs on Zwift, which of course I should have done before I went up again! Ah well, next time.

tentative first attempt up the alpe today after 3 weeks of illness, 71:33 on the spinny wheel, 71:11 on the strava segment, only 224w, so power is someway down, its decent though, a longer session than i would normally do so thats something, will try again when im not so time cruched

Also had my first attempt this evening, managed 56.31.

I think I was with ‘thetallpaul’ at the beginning – who seemed to be doing intervals up it!!!

Phil, I most certainly was: PRL100 wk2 Day 4 workout. 1min on at 450w and 1:15 off at 215w, I think. Ten times! Almost lost the will with that one.

Workout finished at turn 4, so carried on to the top and gained the wheels. Always finish a climb + 50m at effort I was once told by a bloke who used to destroy me in my youth.

Day off Zwift today for my birthday meal (46). Pretzel on Saturday at some point for ToW.

Btw nice time Phil.

Tricky one today… All the RRRRRRRs

Road ride

Race

Recovery

Rest

Undecided at the moment. I was planning a rest day as there’s a nice window of opportunity for tomorrow for riding. But sadly the weather change hasn’t quite kicked in yet here as hoped, so won’t be the glorious sunny warm day i was hoping for. But i still have the option for 3-4 hours out riding.

There’s a A/C race around the Volcano later, which means i don’t have to mix it with the pesky B bunch 🙂 So that’s an interesting idea… I’m not feeling a Zwift recovery ride at all today.. it takes a certain mindset to cruise round Zwift and i don’t have that today…

Decisions Decisions.

Did ToW stage 5, the three sisters. 174 in it.

Started well and was 72nd at the bottom of the first hill but was up to 52nd at the top in what turned out to be my 3rd best time ever. Got into a group of 9 and we stayed together until the start of the epic Kom. By the time we got to the village I was up to 46th. Stayed there until the radio tower. Got to the top of the epic Kom in my second best time ever. Started the radio tower and was up to 38th by the top.

By this time I was really thinking this is going well. Started the downhill and was pretty much solo to the volcano turn off. With about 10k to go all of a sudden I really started to feel it. By the time I got to the volcano climb I was on fumes. My son poked his head in the garage and I sent him off the find me sugar as I was really struggling.

At about this point a procession of the guys I had passed earlier started passing me again. After the first couple I was beyond caring. Within 5k I was down to 55th. I ended up riding with one guy who had caught me to the finish. I can only assume he was as shot to bits as me.

I crawled over the line. Despite totally losing the plot I still beat my pb by 3min although it was half an hour before I had the energy to move. Shattered.

Maybe doing this after racing yesterday was not one of my better ideas.

Any event that has either AdZ and or Radio Tower is just a NO for me… I’m not dragging my big arse up either of them 🙂

Yeah, i think i’ll save that one for tomorrow (or the end) I’m suffering with some sort of chest/shoulder/back pain thing at the moment that’s bloody murder if i take a deep breath. I managed to get stage 4 done last night (about the 6th event to do it that I was signed up to) but it wasn’t pleasant.

Ah sod it. I’m going to do the 10am at a fairly sedate pace. Outside isn’t looking appealing today, resting, meh, i’ll do that one day 🙂

Just a calibration ride for me. Wanted to compare KICKR power with my Assioma UNO. The UNO is single sided pedal, and in Bluetooth mode only sends half the power to Zwift iOS. So KICKR on the shiny new iPhone 8+ (well I thought I’d try it) and UNO on the Garmin. Can just about read the power on the phone, and nothing else!

An up and down to the radio mast, and a look at the stats. Power on the ride was close, but not perfect. But distributions were within 3W for 233 NP. Pleased with the accuracy.

I also calibrated the UNO on the TT bike at Hillingdon, and it reproduced bikecalculator values nicely. It also recorded an NP of 301 W in a race. A real race in which I worked very hard indeed for no rewards.

Id recommend the Assioma UNO to anyone, provided you run Zwift using ANT+ on a laptop, and not Bluetooth. At £400, and given the ease of swapping, trivial in fact, I’m delighted.

“Ah sod it. I’m going to do the 10am at a fairly sedate pace”

Ha ha that’s what I said…

Yeah, was i guess slightly sedate, but still hard. Up the climb to the mast i kept the HR below 160bpm which is pretty comfortable for me, but shockingly that saw me go from 247th up to 195th by the top. Down i rolled without pedalling and then on the flat i lost a couple of wheels as i wasn’t prepared to push as much at the other guys.

Think i finished 189th in 1hr 44mins.

Long and hard that.

Excellent stuff Weeksy.

I am Carbo loading (with beer).

jk that sounds like a bit of an effort, to say the least. I’m saving stage 5 as a treat for tomorrow morning.

A few hours grace then before you all destroy my time !

Not sure about that weeksy.

Legs are feeling tired today, but according to Stravistix I should be optimal freshness.

Still trying to negotiate a start time.

1:35.01 to beat here Paul which I can’t imagine will be much of a problem for you. Judging by other results it looks like I lost 3-4 min in the last 10k or so.

I had also lost 2.5kg when I got on the scales this morning.

<div>weeksy  Subscriber</div>
saw me go from 247th up to 195th by the top

skinny get !

did the alpe again. felt like i was working A LOT harder, 4 bloody watts difference, taking the strava segment, ive gone from 1:11:19 to 1:09:31 BUT i changed the bike from the Zwift Aero with 808s to the Trek Emonda with 202’s – zwift insider ran some tests, as did GPLama and obvs some setups are quicker,

full geek stuff below, might be useful for someone

ran a comparison on my Quarq v Neo again in the DCRainmaker tool – pic is 60 minute data (i couldn’t work out how to chop out the segment)

Run 1 Strava data

Run 2 Strava data

Run 1 Neo v Quarq

Run 2 Neo v Quarq

1:20:13 for stage 5 and 16th place I think. That one almost finished me. Went off too fast. Group in front was 1min ahead, and group behind the same time gap. TTed from the Radio Tower to the finish.

Looking forwards to Stage 6, Stage 7 not so much. It’s a long time in the saddle in the garage.

Going to eat everything in the house now. Nom, Nom!

Good grief.  All this time of uploading and downloading from Garmin and I never realised Todays Plan integrates with Zwift.   Just did a pre-race workout, I can now see the next weeks training sessions in the Workouts area and my completed session uploaded and synced with the workout seamlessly.  Nice.