PR on AdZ on Saturday….annoyingly I still didnt break the hour.
After Richmond I could hardly walk but felt really quite fresh after Saturdays effort, clearly I wasnt pushing hard enough.

Hi All, I’m a ‘previous’ STW forum member from many years ago… I’ve been a Zwift user for 2 years now so I thought I’d come and say hi.
Anyone doing the Cape Epic training program on Zwift? I thought I’d do it as it’s billed as a mountain bike ‘specific’ thing. 6.30pm on Tuesdays and Thursdays.
I’m a KRT member but I’ll add stw to my name as well while riding the workout.
See you out on course!

HEllo…. wasn’t aware of that… I’ll go look it up 🙂

Stage 7.. flippin’ horrible!

30k TT in the 3R ultimate league last night. A lot of the regular riders seem to avoid these so a good opportunity to pick up a decent points score (league is best 5 of 7). Nice and ‘flat’ on road to ruins 😜. Went quite well though I can’t help thinking I could have gone a little harder at points. Started strongly then had a bit of a slump during the second half of the jungle loop. Pushed hard over the pass back out of the jungle then hung on for the last 5k. Equalled my best 95% again at 4.3 w/kg. No real high power bits so legs feel good this morning.

I must have a go at a TT, I hate the thought of them though. I find it difficult to time the effort right.

4.3wkg? Ouch

Must weigh about the same as a 12 year old girl!

Yeap 4.3wkg (managed 4.4 for 20mins as well). The winnera are well over 5 wkg though (ex pro in second).

TT is definitely different. Very little time to rest, even down hill is pushing. Strangely last night I was using uphill as a sort of rest by climbing at a higher power but lower cadence out of the saddle. Using the muscles in a different way for a short period helped with the next spinning section. I’d planned to try for 4.2 -4.3 average so had worked out the wattage to aim for and tried to keep it steady. I think I’m actually better at these sort of efforts than the push then coast of normal races. Looking at the extend stats today looks like I did leave a bit spare, peak and average HR was not that high.
https://www.zwiftpower.com/events.php?zid=137173 (I’m 30th).

Must weigh about the same as a 12 year old girl!

77kg at the moment but aiming for 75kg average (I tend to float up and down by around 2kg). The drop from low 80s to this has made a big difference to running speed.

Did anybody watch the Kiss Super league? There was some serious wattage on display, quite frightening how long and hard these guys can ride. I barely saw a wattage i could maintain for more than a minute. Conor Dunne avg over 500w for the first 11 mins of the race, that is crazy. Ian Bibby won the race with a near 1000w sprint at the top of the volcano climb. That is incredible considering the entire race was a slug fest with multiple attacks. I think it was 2 laps of volcano flat and then round to the volcano climb,total about 41km.

Yeah, I saw that (well, skimmed it on youtube)
I reckon by the end of the series the pros and their teams will have sussed it and things may go differently – the zwifters had about half a w/kg less than the pros over the race, and far less than some of them. Once they sort the tactics and the “double” draft I think it might be scary; my money’s on breakaways going off at ridiculous wattage, driven by entire teams creating a gap and then just holding it a bit like crosswind racing.

https://www.zwiftpower.com/events.php?zid=140694

That’s some list!

Another 100km tonight – laps of NYC. First hour on the rollers at 3.5 W/kg steady, second on KICKR at about the same, then last 40 minutes back on the rollers using a pyramid – so 3 W/kg then progressive 4.4 W/kg for 1,2,3,4,3,2,1 minutes with same recovery. Sadly the bike failed to drop down into the biggest gear on the way down the pyramid so I stopped after the 4 minutes. Must look odd if riding in a group, one minute a rider is cruisng and the next bam!. Anyway the rollers (3.5″ Kreitlers, no fan or flywheel) are fine to 340 Watts on Zwift now that Favero updated the Uno firmawre to provide single sided power. Also my iPad connected from road bike to Kickr bike, but not back again. Saved the two hour ride. Then disconnected bluetooth and then it found it again. Oh well, I already have one 100 km ride.

Must practice getting out of the saddle on the rollers a lot more!

3R Volcano Flat yesterday morning, tried to hang onto the A group as long as possible, got dropped at the end of Lap 1 coming out the volcano, left in a group of 3 for best part of a lap and a half, big group was 1 minute 50s behind and they got caught with 5.8km to go, tried to hang onto that group splintered a bit, left in a group of 5, won the sprint to the line for bottom pack mediocrity 11/13 in B with the next 4 riders 10 seconds up, just couldn’t hold on,

powers down and HR is still up, guess ive got no base, not got the time for any big (or any) outdoor rides at the minute seen my FTP creep back over 300, but its very quickly fallen away,

update released, choice of 2 preset worlds

https://zwiftinsider.com/guest-world-launched/

Due to surgery i’ve been off the bike a fair bit…. which is depressing… I’m planning on jumping on the 12:05 6 laps CCW to try and recapture some form….. I’m just hoping not to finish last !

2 STWers currently going head to head in B and next to eachother on the road it seems…. was chekcing for an event and noticed them both riding…

https://www.zwiftpower.com/events.php?zid=138941

Looks like they finished on exactly the same time ! Nice.

Cheers for the ride on Weeksy! Was Blader1611 and me, decent little group of 4 got joined by another group of 5ish, rode really well as a bunch then a good honest sprint at the end, I got Blader by a nose, and hit 204bpm in the process, and he was only on a recovery ride while I buried myself, so not sure it counts!

Must get fit again, ouch! 191bpm average.

191 average ! Jeeez boy that’s bloody bonkers, but you’ve always seen high HRs from what i recall… .but that’s a BIG number that. Sadly i only watched it via the Web page, would have been cool to see it in full flow.

Yep, always been on the high side! I did average 198 once for a crit in real life – the Guildford Town Centre race.

That was good to be with a fellow stw member,very rarely happens. It was meant to be a recovery ride as i have raced everyday this week on all the hilly courses and my thighs were feeling it. I Realised once we had gone through the aquarium and turned left that this wasnt the flat route i was expecting so i dropped off the front group and was going to just pootle up the hill. I then glimpsed stw on a name so decided to speed back up again to find out who it was and after a brief conversation it was njee. So we rode together and it was a nice comfortable tempo although he did tell me his hr and i nearly fell off my bike (196bpm!!!). I was keeping mine at about 155 so a nice steady tempo. We rode in a nice group so we just sucked on wheels but had no idea of the course. I tried a sprint at the end but i got the finish line place all wrong and njee cruised past with the aero. I am still not sure where that finish line was! Well done njee on the race and well done for keeping your heart in your chest. Most of that race was at a nice comfortable tempo but certainly not the recovery ride i had planned.

Speaking of heart rate, I just realised last night that clicking on riders names around you on the rider list, you can look and see their current watts and heart rate. I had great fun in the kiss race last night upping the pace and watching others heart rates to see who was on the limit. I guess that balances out being able to watch body language of other riders in real life.

Only down side was that one Spanish rider in the group I was in was sitting with a heart rate 20bpm under mine. Predictably enough he disappeared up the road and nobody in the wee bunch I was in could hold on to him.

I’ll have great fun with that feature.

Was that in the companion app or game proper?

In the game, on my iPad.

Yeah but then you get freaks like me who can ride along chatting at 190!

I’d never ridden the jungle either, I actually quite liked it, draggy climb, steady descent. Job done. Long way to get there though.

That hr was eye popping when you told me, i thought it might have been a typo. It is a nice course but you are right in that its a bit of a climb to get there. I hadnt realised we were towards the front of the B group, i let a lot of people go ahead when i realised it wasnt the flat route. I guess there were quite a few who were not ZP registered.

Yeah I didn’t notice, I dropped out of the lead group on that zig-zag climb at the bottom of the Epic KOM, never really pay attention to which categories people are, just race who’s there!

bleugh! that was horrendous, did the 21:05 Road to Ruins 2 lap, smidge over 59km, was never in my head to “race” it, just to get a longer ride in, first 5km, in with the lead pack, then we hit the climb to the Jungle, get dropped, in with a small group of 5/6 down into the jungle, get dropped on the climb back out, this point i decide to just ride the rest, i don’t think id have done a ride as long if i was just free riding, but i don’t like to quit a race, makes sense i guess, ride 30 odd km more or less solo, get passed occasionally,

had a gel on standby as didn’t have any carby drinks to hand, some random thing the mrs picked up years ago, had March 2015 as a date on, been in the box of gels for years, was either that or Apple so it won the choice BUT i opened it and the overpowering stench of red bull emanated out its foil wrapper, chucked it to one side, was definitely running on fumes for the last 10km easy, power was abysmal, was pedalling squares, couldn’t even hold 200w, awful

Results

Did the Tour De Zwift Stage 8 race earlier.

Wasn’t fit enough nor had the mental capacity to do 3x up box hill. I broke on the second one as I got a stitch 🙁 Ended up with an Italian chap and now stitch free we ended up picking off A’s that had blown up.

Ended up 15th, haven’t decided if I’m happy with that or not to be honest:
https://www.zwiftpower.com/events.php?zid=123086

Also adding into the mix I’m playing around with seat height as my leg muscles are really tight as my saddle was too low…

Going to try an incorporate a zwift race into the weekly training plan now so should see more of me (sorry!) 🙂

I skipped the Brass Monkeys today so rode the Vixen multi zone group workout in Surrey Hills instead, then after added an attempt up Fox Hill of which I smashed my PB by 50 secs. I do find a Smart Turbo & the Elastic a bit odd, but it did allow me to stay above 200w at the front and not drop into recovery which was good.

Getting really comfortable knowing my Zone/HR now and Zwift is a great opportunity to try it out.

Trying to rediscover fitness after 8 years of inconsistency (kids came along). January has been the first month in as long as I can remember where I’ve managed about three rides a week.

Did a short race tonight (1 lap of 3R Greater London) and averaged 2.6 w/kg – coming in 2nd (at least of those registered on ZP, and it was a tiny field so hardy impressive).

I’m a good way from feeling like I’d want to move from D to C, how does ZP calculate your cat?

By your power. 0-2.49w/it over a 20 mine average for example is So, 2.50-3.19 is C, 3.20-3.99 is B and 4+ is A.

Cat calc is listed in the front page of ZwiftPower. It’s basically AVG of best 3 races in last 30 or 90 days (depending on how much you’ve done). If I’m looking at the right profile that’s 2.6, 2.6 and 2.3 for you putting you right on the bubble of C. Suspect your next race will rank you up.

Simple as that. I thought it was something to do with ZPoints or something else. Thanks 🙂

I hope not Nixie. Although the effort looks poor I’m burying myself 😉

Doesn’t look poor. Given you’ve just started back I’d expect a fairly quick ramp up. Ranking up isn’t that scary. Just try and hang in there and you’ll find you can hang in for a bit longer each time. When your in the draft the required effort is less.

Did the 3R London Flat Race yesterday morning. Was a good race with a decent turnout (200 plus riders). I set of pretty well and for the first 30 mins or so I held my own at the front of the D’s and mixing with some C’s but I lost out on the hills the other side of the river and coming back up from the tube. Still I am close to reaching my maximums again so showing some improvement after a December dip!

You can def see after about 45 mins my power dropped of to just below 200 but my body isn’t used to longer rides so that is something to work on.

https://www.zwiftpower.com/events.php?zid=140253

Going to do the 8pm KISS race tonight which includes a bit of climbing so wont suit me but all good training and ultimately the goal is just to lose some weight!

Nice work Robbo… i do find you can end up struggling after a certain time/distance on Zwift more because it’s relentless, on the road/trails you have more time where you cruise downhill, whereas on Zwift it’s no respite, it’s power power power… then you go up and need MORE power, you’d think on the downs you’d get 20-30s rest, but no, the power stays, you just go faster.

I did a Greater London Flat race yestrday.
https://www.zwiftpower.com/events.php?zid=140268

Went off slightly hard but decided to sit with a couple of guys which then morphed into a nice little pack, only 9-10 of us, but enough to drag us along at a decent lick… We did split later on as we left the underpass and the 3% incline after, but i had a great little race overall with a good sprint finish to end it.

I still get stunned at the power people kick out on the inclines, as soon as it goes up, it’s 5w/kg, bam ! My problem is that at 90kg, that’s 460w ! which is a LOT of juice to be putting into the legs ! So i really struggle there and need a little recovery, it seems to affect them a LOT less as they don’t seem to need to recover in the same way.

Not sure why our winner is still in the list of C with 3.4w/kg… Irritates me slightly, but i won’t lose sleep over it.

@weeksy, that winner has no ZP profile so really strange. Think you can safely count that a s a silver :D.

RE the power on inclines I’ve found that if you do an almost full on sprint on the ramp out of the underground you can open a 5-15s gap quite easily. Even given that you then have to recover its normally possible to hold that for the last few km to the finish.