It was me Scaredy. I had a good race for most of it – managed to somehow get into the first 4 at the top of the first climb and we had a decent gap. I tucked in and in the end about 15 riders in total eventually got back on.

I got dropped before the end of the first lap though – tried to draft an ‘A’-rider coming out of the tunnel but he was even more knackered than me. That said, then managed to solo it round the 2nd lap and not get caught which was pretty satisfying.

11am EVR Asia Race this morning, 2 laps of London Classique, why does it have to have a bleeding 7.5km lead in? is there a list of races with and without, it was already 47km anyway – anyway, lined up, sprinted off the line, went to change gear, nothing happened, assumed the Di2 battery was flat as i could still shift the front, was in a decent gear so carried on (rear mech was unplugged not a flat battery) was going to do 1 lap and bail, but towards the end of the first lap i was feeling ok so carried on, decent little group of 5 or 6, no one really working just all pushing on and trying to hold on, couple dropped behind on the rise around the bottom of box hill, left with 3, one managed to escape on the run to Buckingham Palace and get away, had an aero boost and used it to nick it on the line from the other rider, 1st in C on ZP though, so ill take that

bladder1611 was in it, but his group got a gap up northumberland road during the lead in and ended up a good 10 mins in front at the end

8 races in the last 7 days, legs feel cooked but its been fun, rain due all day tomorrow, think ill have an easy spin outdoors on Sunday

assumed the Di2 battery was flat as i could still shift the front

I think it’s the other way round – back stays working but front stops if the battery’s going

(I wonder if you knocked the mech and put it in crash mode (did you mount the bike on a direct trainer just before the ride or has it been on there for a while?))

well done eemy, that first climb was pretty hard; I thought I was on form up to that 🙄

I did the ZHR hares and hounds race, three laps of greater London flat. I nearly bailed before the start as didn’t think I’d be able to keep up with the pack and do a fair share of pulling. The start was so much nicer than normal with no huge rush off the line and a nice settling in period. Lap one was nice and steady with a reasonable pace. The time to the B group started to come down nicely and I still had the legs to do some pulling. Lap two it got harder, very nearly fell off the back a few times after pulling. Seemed to me the pace had gone up and I was in trouble. Around the end of the second lap one A moved away from the rest of us (.Ford), they were clearly faster and had no issue gapping us at all. He must have been the pace driver as after that the group pace slackened a bit and I was more comfortable. We were steadily reelling in the other groups now and there were only few left. With 5k to go there was just an improbable B who had latched onto .Ford’s wheel (much to his annoyance I think). I attacked lots in the last lap to try and drop the B’s who had attached themselves on the way past. Managed to drop a few but there for four left alone with four As for the sprint. This wound up as we turned into the mall. By 300m to go the As started to pull away. I was a bit behind but a final effort got me over the line in third.

https://www.zwiftpower.com/events.php?zid=92063

Its not moved off the trainer, i had taken the chain off to wax the previous evening so it was probably that

Dirtyrider i hadnt realised you were in the race. It was greatest london flat course so it is quite a long race that. The guy who won the race was incredible (Norm) he actually pulled time on us even though we were a good size bunch of A/B riders, i think he is one of the big hitters on zwift near the top of the leaderboard. I hung on for the bunch finish and ended up 7th overall and a bronze in B. I now have weekend off the bike as that last race had me at nearly 90 miles of zwift racing on just thurs and fri.

Gaaah what was I thinking?

10 laps of classique and I’m now on 300+km for the week and I’m supposed to be racing outside tomorrow.

Ended up second but there were weird drop outs happening all through the race. The winner seemed to be holding 6.5w/kg for over 10k at the end yet zp doesn’t show that, weird.

I have seen quite a lot glitches on zwift lately, i wonder if the increase in numbers is to blame.

Was wondering about that. Did a race Thursday evening and the graphics were quite jerky. Did an 8.30 race this morning (Jungle loop, 3 laps) when the game world was quieter. Graphics were smooth and flawless.

One bugbear I do have is these races where the first lap is the warm-up or lead out. There’s no warning up or leading out! Everyone is out the blocks in 150% race mode and there’s no let-up and do it becomes a race of x laps + one extra.

There is no such thing as warm up or lead in in zwift world so once you know that then just ignore it.

Think you can beat me in a sprint????? Not today.

But yes, probably tomorrow and the day after……………….. not today though!

well Sundays easy spin outdoors didn’t happen, couldn’t really be bothered, weather was rancid all day yesterday, cold this morning, meant digging out some warmer gear, so had a lazy morning with the kids, mrs took them to a out this afternoon so decided to have a go up Alpe Du Zwift, first time since end of April, FTP increase from 267w to 282w, which was a surprise, 58:25 – could have saved some time changing the wheels and stuff, only noticed at the top i was still on 808’s and the Zwift Aero frame ha!

so the FTP increase puts me towards 3.5w/kg, so B for races, but i never see anything over 3.1w/kg in races, i guess i should just suck it up and enter B’s and hang on as best i can

Wasnt feeling  great today but figured I would give the Kiss First Base race a go. Windows 10 almost conspired to prevent me from competing and after finally getting Zwift to work I had 2 mins for a quick spin before the start. Went quuick out of the blocks and ended up in the second group on the road in a bunch of 8 riders. Kept with them most of the way around the first lap but I felt I was one of the stronger riders as I was pulling away a bit up the hills.

This course (Watopia Flat Forward) suited me better as there were some short hilly blasts which is more like the roads around here (Derbyshire). 2nd Lap I pulled away slightly with another rider but we were caught before the end. Sprint to the line started early and I came in just behind two other riders. Was a good 25 riders behind me (but most arent registered on Zwiftpower so dont show up) and was a competitive race so I really enjoyed it. Ended up having the highest power output in the race but my high weight doesnt aid me!

Well done Robbo… the weight is less of an issue on some more than other layouts as you’ve seen. Watopia flat, volcano flat etc, all suit us big boys a bit better. But yes, you’ll often have one of the higher power outputs for your Cat.

12:05 is looking prime candidate for me today. 6 laps of Volcano.. yeah.

I am doing the 11:15 race which is watopia flat in reverse. I dont mind the reverse way as it eliminates the climb up to the esses which is a race splitter, it just means there are a few drags each lap.

I saw that…. but 4 laps of the flat may be a bit long/hard for me.

I also realised, my car isn’t outside yet… It’s in the garage and may be finished today. So i’ll need a 30km ride over there to get it if done anyway.

Good job Robbo. Looks like from your ZP history you’ve a nice upward trend going on across the different power measurements :D.

Don’t think I’m going to make the wahooligan race tonight unfortunately. Wife is away and I’d need to put daughter to bed 20 mins into it. May try though and just accept a break in the middle or let her stay up for a bit.

Did the 1 lap road to ruins hilly race last night, legs were not feeling it and ended up in the rear group with 5/6 C/Ds and a similarly lowly finish.

3rd time lucky for the Wahooligan race tonight as the last two weeks they have messed up and set the races up as TTs, will bail if that happens again.

Been using zwift without a fan and have got fed up with the constant puddle under the bike so have bitten the bullet and bought a Wahoo fan, waiting on its arrival from Wiggle, it’ll make me faster right?

Dark at 6.30……must be Zwift season again!

Dug the turbo out of the shed and hopped on a steady group ride last night. Seems like I’ve got a long way to go to get me back where I want to be 🙁

Cheers all

@nixie – yes I do seem to be making progress. I am finding  ifeel a bit tired but I am still getting PB’s (on both Zwift and on the real roads) so I am making progress and not getting slow. Sometimes it feels really slow and ponderous though. Maybe I just need to reset my expectations as the results differ to what I think I am doing! In a good way 🙂

Is the wahooligan race at 7.40? Cant check at work as ZP website has topped working for some reason. If so I was planning on doing  that one.

WHAT A RACE! 4 lap flat reverse and all cats went seperately so you only had to worry about your own cat. Fast tempo right from the off and after the first lap i really couldnt see why i liked doing this in reverse. Also first 4 power ups were points but that another story. Pretty much hard tempo throughout which meant virtually no attacks other than a couple of times but it was only a few seconds. We hit the last lap and i reckon it was a group of at least 15 with quite a few recognised names. I was trying hard to conserve some energy but it was too fast for that. 2 miles to go and we are bunched up knowing its going to be a hard sprint. The last mile has 2 long drags which i knew was going to hurt. The first drag and people start ripping in to it so i go about 90% gas and i am hanging on to about 7th but its stretched out. We crested for a short flat section and i just about gave up but the next rise came and my legs were hurting but i was just about holding on to some sort of cadence. We were over that and it was 0.3m to the line but i noticed everybody had used a PU on the drags and i had creeped up to about 5th. I hit the aero straight away as i was starting to pedal in squares. I managed about 4 secs of sprint power but i was toast. I looked up to see there were just 2 guys left in front so i kept a reasonsble tempo but my legs were all over the place. I was just about to collapse when i looked at the screen to see that they had all blown up with 0.1 to go. I maintained the slowest sprint in the world only doing about (500w) and died about 50meters before the line but managed to freewheel over the line for the win, GOLD. Slumped on the bike for 2 mins heavy breathing. If you check out the result below it actually transpires i was the fastest rider in the entire race, beat the A winner by 5 secs.

https://www.zwiftpower.com/events.php?zid=93003

Haha… fantastic, well done sir !

Nicely done @blader1611

@robbo1234biking yes that’s the race I want to do. I noticed you in the start list along with Simon Copping in C.

I dont think it was that quick at the end of my race, it was just people going too early and gassing out. The last 2.5mins of the race (about 2km) i averaged only 415w.

Well that was a bit of a disaster. Went of really quick and kept up with the front group for the first 8 miles. Even led for some bits of it.Then we hit the hilly section. Not sure if it was an issue with Zwift for a bit but it seemed to go back to front with the gradients. When I was going up hill I was spinning like mad and going downhill was really hardwork. I assume there was some kind of bug. I was pushing at 45 rpm struggling going downhill at 41mph! This really threw me and I completed the first lap but had nothing left in the tank for the second lap.

When I look at the initial results on ZP though it gives quite good results but I just finished early. Feel kanckered but after the commute in tomorrow I wont be able to ride for about 5 days and my body prob needs a bit of a rest as I have been pushing it hard for 2 months or so.

Well that hill (or three hills) was a ****! I’ve never ridden the Richmond courses before and I never want to do them again. I’ll take that hill in Innsbruck over the three at the end of the Richmond UCI. Was all going well till we hit them on the first lap. I was with the lead group and feeling ok (dispite having to hit 800w+ at the start to stay in touch). All fell apart on the hill as the stronger riders pulled away. I managed to get into and stay with a group of five. We then caught another three in the flat.

Somehow we all stayed together through the hills on lap two but there was nothing left to sprint. I cruised over the line in 28th.

Richmond is pretty boring, glad that doesn’t come up much.

I need to work on my pulling. I can get onto the front of a group but never then seem to stay there very long.

https://www.zwiftpower.com/events.php?zid=93163

Glad that it wasn’t just me struggling on those hills then nixie. Worst bit seemed to be on the last one (I think) when there was a multi-storey car park or similar on your left. It just seemed to keep going but at that point I was already kanckered!

I am going to do the Zwift academy workouts now before I do any more races. Try and build a bit of fitness more suited to the racing.

Richmond Flat is like i think a Crit Race would be… suits us big boys perfectly.

Sadly, Mrs Weeksy came home late last night after too many cocktails, so i’ve got to cycle and get her car instead.

I like Richmond Hilly as it cuts out the boring flat bit. The last of the 3 hills is the worst up to the finish. I can generally hold my own on the middle one but I normally get dropped on the first one as it’s just a bit too long to hold on to the lightweights.

Chop C race tonight. First in a while and inspired to get back to it by everyone else racing. Reasonable group of Cs but it became obvious we wern’t going to hold the Bs off so backed off and were caught on 3 laps to go. Bs went past with a surge but 3 of us got onto the group. As looked too far behind even with some STW powerhouse in there. Sat in with the Bs relatively easily although it left me with no real sprint. 2 Cs made it to the end and I came in second but 1st was above Cat limits so first C and 8 seconds down on the winner. Happy with that.

https://www.zwiftpower.com/events.php?zid=93394

I was in that Chop A group but had a load of drop outs, wasn’t really feeling it anyway and jumped onto the WBR 2w/kg ride.

<span style=”font-size: 0.8rem;”>Obviously not a race but i did manage my first (since the Direto) sub 10 second sprint on Wattopia flat reverse and set new 5,10 and 15 sec power records. </span>

Strava fitness and fatigue basically say’s i’m dead on my feet which ties up with how i’m feeling but i’m away october half term so i’ll see if i can keep tapping out some miles till then.

#smugface

@scaled, I did wonder what happened to you. Noticed you chatting about chamois cream after the race while I was cruising around.

I was also in the chop A group with a stw tag. Legs felt like crap from Richmond last night. There didn’t seem to be a huge willingness to pull and we couldn’t get the gap much under a minute till the sprint. Again nothing in the legs to sprint and I came home 13th.

@tomlevell it was obvious from about lap 5 that the lead group wasn’t going to get caught. Good job hanging onto the B’s.

I pushed the ride out to 50k after the finish. Think I need to up the distance and lower the pace a bit to make more progress. I’ve nearly hit my monthly target already which is nice :).

I struck GOLD again this morning in the Kona series race which also had Scaredypants in. It was the quickest first 5 mins i have ever seen in a race, i couldnt get near the first 10 or so riders and i was pulling big wattage,it felt like they started the race further down the course. Settled in to a high tempo trying to hang on to 2 A riders but i lost them on the climb. I had 20s over the next B so had to go deep on the descent and the last 2 miles flat section. I crossed the line and saw that i avgd 4w/kg and 310w and thought thats me dq’d. Turns out the B chasing me was upgraded to A and ended with 3.8w/kg and first by over a minute.

Haha, not sure I was actually “in” your race, blader, though we did share a start !

I tried to go off steady, since there was no drafting (and also at 80kg I didn’t want to be spent for the climb and have a load of 62kg riders blowing me away).  That part was largely a success but seems I came back very steady too, rather than smashing out 400w for the last 10k.  3.2/kg overall, about what I expected.

Well done on the win

I did the CHOP race on Volcano CCW.

We went off nicely, for the first 3 laps i was strong as an Ox…. Turns on the front, HR all fine… But then the leg fatigue came on, the legs were tired and the HR was climbing. We’d caught the Ds and were cruising along at a nice pace, 5:52-5:59 laps of CCW, which is good but not insane.

After the start of lap 4 of 6 it was apparent the Bs were going to catch us, so as we came to the start of lap 5 they managed it just before the climb up to the start finish and i pulled out there. Didn’t really care where i finished today, so bailing was OK with me…. Just wanted to work hard which i managed.

Yeah i did that climb a couple of weeks ago and i was 30s quicker then but that start this morning did my legs in a bit for the climb. In hindsight i should have taken it easier to save a bit for the climb. I am 79kg and trying to chase those racing snakes up that hill is impossible.

didn’t have much time last night, so did the Primal Time Trial at 18:30 – not much fun as time trials go, 3 minutes off the winner and 3/7 in C

been up the Alpe again today, tried to hammer the 1st 20 minutes then settle down was 2w off 20 minute best and 6mins to 16mins was all best power for the year so happy with that,

14:20 today for the 2 lap of greater london flat. It’s a course i like and favours my profile about as well as any apart from Richmond flat…  Decent distance for me, should be about a 45 min race…

Field starting to get up there with 50+ total now.

whats the fastest bike and wheel combo on flat races then guys ?

Depends what level your at. Zwift Aero with 808s for me.

https://zwiftinsider.com/5-fastest-bikes/