Just the lack of a HRM I think.

Since when did a HRM become obligatory on WBR races? I thought it was only A’s or those in the top 3 who needed them? All a bit daft really when if you want to cheat all you have to do is lie about your weight, and I’m sure many do.

@dazh I got DQ’ed for no HRM on a race which clearly said HRM not required so think they make up their own rules!

Did the KISS First Base race last night – 2 laps of Innsbruck Ring. Forgot how tough the little climb is! Still first lap went out hard and got into a decent group at the front all the way to the climb. The climb broke us up a bit and I think I was about 3/4 group on the road after that with 3 other riders. We caught another rider on the way to the finish line. Second lap I was feeling the effects of my first lap and managed to stick with the group until the cobbled section when they went away from me. Another rider caught me on the climb and I managed to stay within a few seconds of them until the final straight when they were able to pull out to about 10 seconds and I had nothing left in the tank.

The good news is that most of the other people above me got bumped to a C (and one A) so I actually finished 3rd of those classified as D so I prob couldn’t have gone much faster and stayed as a D anyway.

https://www.zwiftpower.com/events.php?zid=101213

I did a hilly one yesterday due to timings… I have no idea why i do hilly ones every now and again… I’m rubbish at hilly ones 🙂

I did set a PR up it though which was nice, but not nice enough i have to admit.

First race for a month at the weekend. 4 flat Watopia laps. 3Cs escaped with a big effort to latch onto the Bs. Never got the pens but I assume As and Bs get the 2 front pens then us slow ones the next 2. Too much of a gap before we got off the pier to catch the front group.

Decent group gaining time on those behind. It waned on lap 3 and I was sat doing under 200 watts with my heart rate dropping so went to the front and made people work again. Problem was I checked out the Cs pre registered and there were lots of heavyweights with 300w FTPs.

Big effort to hang near the front on the climb up after the sprint then went too late in the finish sprint and used the aero too late and I was picking up minor placings at the back of the group. Only one of the Cs up the road stayed a C.

https://www.zwiftpower.com/events.php?zid=100908

Anyone else in for the 10:45?

Office today… looking at whatver one is about 3pm that’s the 4 lap volcano CCW.

I did a Zwift academy ride yesterday as it was a group ride, advertised at 2-2.5w/kg… It was daft.  The first 10 mins even grou riding i averaged 264w… So best part of 3w/kg LOL…. Me being a big bloke that was me getting the advantage too of course, so some lighter guys would have been over 3.5wkg just to hang in. It settled down and i spent time going forward and back and dragging dropped riders into the bunch just for fun really… .But i still to this day wonder why people do group rides advertised as D and then destroy everyone. Go racing !

That’s the first time i’ve ever bailed on a race! ~10 mins in and halfway up box hill and just wasn’t feeling it at all. another 40 mins of being rubbish wasn’t really appealing :/

Scaled – i wondered what had happened to you, i assumed for a long time you were far ahead but i did wonder if you had dropped off. That was a fast race, i tore my legs off to get up box hill in 6:44 only to be still over 30s behind lead group. As it turns out i was in a very small group and we were the lead B so not all bad. I finished 2nd in the end although i didnt appear on the final report so i hope to god that wasnt in vain. ZP seems to be down so i cant check.

Anyone else noticed the cat boundaries listed on the ZP events page have changed again.

6:44 is mighty impressive. !!!

What’s changed Nixie and to what ? on the companion app i’m still seeing standard numbers for my race later.

Ah bugger, if i’d seen you Blader i’d have made more of an effort! 😀

On the ZP events page it’s gone back to 4Wkg for A, 3Wkg for B etc but there is now a once in 30day over limit allowance (B is 4.2Wkg for example).

When I looked the other day there was a much more complex set of rules listed.

The zwift categories haven’t changed.

I noticed it was saying something like 3.4 for B or 4w/kg for 5 mins AND 200watts for 5 mins.

Down for maintenance for me at the moment.

6.44 for box hill is nice work.

I did the KISS 8 laps volcano CCW with full draft last night. Plenty of other BRT riders on. Pace was brutal. Clocked two PBs for the lap in the first three laps (20s faster than previous best). FoudlCou keep it up though and got dropped along with another BRT rider on lap four.

Post drop I found it easier to settle and got into a nice rhythm. We circulated together till lap 7 when the B group caught up. I then hid a little in the pack hoping the help the team B riders on the sprint. Didn’t quite work out that way though as I’d burnt way too many matches early on.

Finished off with three extra laps at 3Wkg to cool down, practise maintaing spin up hill transition and to hit 50km. After a few days rest my power levels have recovered and my A cat is back (had been demoted on 30 day results).

@tomlevell yeah that’s what it showed yesterday, but not today.

bit of a break from racing, went up the KOM climb on Sunday, just spun up and got a PR, dead comfy, 2 13 hours shifts Monday/Tuesday, so thought id have a decent go up it tonight, 317w for 20 minutes, giving me a new FTP of 301 happy days!! knocked 2:35 of my PR from Sunday, which is again another 2 minutes on top quicker than i was in February

Am half way through week 2 of the 6 week ftp builder, thurd session in a row today and feeling it.

I set the ftp at 210w which would put me about 2w/kg some of the numbers on here are stagering.

@bigdean  I wouldn’t worry (and I’m sure you don’t “worry”) about other peoples’ numbers as we’re all weight-doping anyway 😉

That 6wk programme really toughens up towards the end so watch yourself – I did it this time last year and had to sneak a few days off

Usual race for me yesterday, Volcano CCW 4 lapper.

Went off with group 1… stayed in there for a lap and a half, 35 of us ! massive group. Onto 2nd time up the kick to the finish the big A beasts left us for dead and we split… I settled into the next group with 4 others… we were then caught the lap after by a group of 4.. So i think 8-9 of us. Pace was hot and PR pace for me with mid 5:30s-5:40 laps of the CCW. Onto the final lap i knew i wasn’t beating ANY of my group up the hill, on the little kicks previously you can see who’s strugging and who isn’t and i knew i was suffering the most 🙂 So as we hit the last kick to finish i checked the list and had 1min plus on the rider behind, so i just spun it to the line…

Ended up with a 3rd after the shuffle… but a very weak 3rd IMO. The course with that kick up just hurts me…

Awesome work Dirtyrider 🙂 Well done.

Keep going Dean, it was only 18 months ago i thought getting out of 2.0w/kg would be impossible, now i cruise at more than that

If you’ve only just started you’ll probably see a good increase rapidly. Did you do an FTP test to get that figure?

ZP back up and I’m back to being right on the cusp of B again. Waiting for the official push to be upgraded this time though.

Category limits
A 4WKG with FTP over 250w

B 3.2WKG with FTP over 250w

C 2.5WKG with FTP over 250w

D Below

I’ll just correct that list as I forgot to change the wattage.

A 4WKG with FTP over 250w

B 3.2WKG with FTP over 210w

C 2.5WKG with FTP over 170w

D Below

@bigdean I wouldn’t worry (and I’m sure you don’t “worry”) about other peoples’ numbers as we’re all weight-doping anyway 😉

That 6wk programme really toughens up towards the end so watch yourself – I did it this time last year and had to sneak a few days off

I’ve had my arse handed to me today, forth day in a row and a tempo workout. 180w for 6mins was hell strangely 210w for a min was just bareable.

4WKG with FTP over 250w – that’s describing 2 very different real-world riders, unless they actually weigh just over 60kg

It has to be both and they’re just trying to stop pisstake weight-doping – is that it ?

Awesome work Dirtyrider 🙂 Well done.

thanks, puts me 2 watts off my best – ill just carry on what I’m doing at the moment

did the WBR 1 Lap Volcano Climb Race this morning, only 24 rides on ZP was 58 in the race if i remember, anyway 4 out of 5 in B – group predictably split/i got dropped on any rise and left me with 2 others on the main climb, think one escaped and one caught us up, won the sprint for the wooden spoon, 2 days of New York now, Mrs is on Nights Friday/Saturday so might see whats going on late on

Tried something different tonight there was a WBR KOM Volcano race a 16:05. I finish work at 3 so rushed to get changed and jumped on my bike for the commute home. 6.7 miles later I was home swapped the rear tyre on the bike and was ready to go warmed up for the race. First 5 mins went well. Think I was in the leading c/d group. Then the laptop came up with low battery as I had forgot to plug it in. Had to jump off on an uphill section so lost about a minute. Carried on with the race and caught a few other riders but spent the rest of the time on my own. Still I enjoyed the race and felt better for a good warm up although I started to cramp at the end ( lack of fluids I was in a meeting 2 until 3 and then straight on the bike so didn’t drink for about 2 hours.

Finally out of neck brace and back brace only as needed. Can finally grip the handlebars. I might try one of the WBR races tomorrow. First ever zwift (or road) race. Thinking Cat B. Done two Cat C group rides last few days and found them fairly relaxed efforts so hoping I won’t be dropped of the back too quickly.

They’ll start at 400+W, I expect, so be ready for that and pedal hard at -5 seconds

After the 1st minute it’ll be calmer but a bit surgey and with some folk gunning it up any inclines

Have fun !

4WKG with FTP over 250w – that’s describing 2 very different real-world riders, unless they actually weigh just over 60kg

I read it as you are a CAT A if over 4wkg and your FTP is 250w or over. If you are under 250w you’ll be a B. Clearly in an event with a big hill the CAT B rider will really be a CAT A but most events don’t have enough hills to make this a major issue.

I thought a bit harder about it after posting and wondered if it was that either could be applied, so that having over 4w/kg could be applicable on climbs but over 250w on the flat (so that really light or really heavy riders might stay in a lower cat in a race where their “advantage” is minimised.  Clearly it should say “or” rather than “and” in that case but I think it could be applied quite well

Good luck stevego.

I missed the start of the 8pm KISS race last night and very nearly did nothing. Instead tried a sprint race on the volcano (https://www.zwiftpower.com/events.php?zid=101981). Legs were a bit tired from hard sprints in Wednesday’s training ride (finally pushed over 1000W again :D) so didn’t have the power for a proper finish. Was an interesting loop though. I felt OK at the end and had a bit more motivation so carried on pedalling and ended up going up the Alpe. Managed 50 minutes for the climb while staying strictly under 140BPM HR (Zone 3 for me I think). Apart from the last few minutes that is after I passed beacon one when the timer indicated I was in reach of the blue and black jersey :D. At that point I went for it and grabbed the jersey. Legs can feel the effort today but was a good long ride.

Won’t be able to hold high power for sprints, don’t want to stress the back too much yet and will be at the lower end of the power band. Haven’t done a FTP test since the accident but was around 300 ish before. Will try for either the 9.05  am or 10.15 am melbourne time ones and cruise it if I get dropped too quickly. I was going to do something this evening but pizza and a cold beer interfered.

Anyone wanting a direct drive trainer.. the Tacx Flux has just dropped to £399 at Halfords. Stack that with 10% off for BC/AA, 6%+ off for Zeek gift cards and 3% cashback (Quidco, plus another £2.50 if by midnight) and you can get it down to around £350.

Fast and flat in New York today

https://www.zwiftpower.com/events.php?zid=102402

Couldn’t hold the fast guys today… Slightly disappointed in that.. but tried hard.

Still a Gold though :D.

Just seen the Grandfather rights have gone and now it’s £13 a month! – So regrettably I’ve cancelled it 🙁

Just too much at that

boo! having said that, unless they’ve come up with an annual plan I’ll just sub 4-5 months per year rather than just leave it the whole year even though I’m not using it. Will probably work out cheaper over the year 🙂 !

A yearly subscription would be nice.

Just had my arse kicked by scaled and a few other grown-ups 🙁

(I’m sure I’ve asked this before, but who’s Dan Henderson ? – sorry guv, I’d have said hello at least if I’d seen the name before the end)

Scaled also did back to back races! Gold in the first.