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

LOL maybe for you ! I’m dying trying to hang on usually on the underpass or Horseguards on the final lap.

Easy is perhaps the wrong choice of words. It’s basically down to me not having a remotely competitive sprint so I use what I can muster earlier. Going there is way further out than most are comfortable with and I can normally hold a high enough power level afterwards to make it work and stay out of sprint range. Admittedly I’m using this at the back of the category. There is no way I could make it stick at the pointy end and if I’ve managed to hang on anywhere near the pointy end I’m too knackered to try it. It works especially well if you’ve got a feather.

My last 2 C races were 3.3 and 3.4 (won that one) then got upgraded after a TT at 3.4. I wasn’t budging out of C until ZP had forced me. Prior to that they were all 3.0 and 3.1.
Funny what a bit of structured training does ;0)

Structured training, wash your mouth out with soap 😉

https://www.zwiftpower.com/events.php?zid=140767

Stupidly hard race. Died several times out there and nearly puked trying to hold off the chasers. Can’t type and more lol

Thought I’d try a short CatC for fun. It wasn’t.

Thanks for the thumb on the top of Bh, weeksy 🙂

Did the KISS start your engines race tonight. Was a really good race. Started of well and kept in the front group until about 10 mins and then dropped back a bit as couldnt maintain that pace. Was sitting at about 8-10 I think until the bottom of box hill. Dropped about another 6 places on Box Hill but didnt drop back as quickly as a normally do. I was then able to catch a guy about 5 seconds in front down the hill and had a 5 second lead going up the hill in the underground. Tried @nixie tip to sprint it and ended up catching the guy in front. Rode with him until about the last 200 yards and beat him in a sprint so was actually a really fun race. Zwiftpower shows my best 5 minute time as 2.6 w/kg so overall a pretty good race.

Zwiftpower shows me as 4th out of 11 but I would think it was more about 20th out of 50 or so on the actual road.

https://www.zwiftpower.com/events.php?zid=140807

Been using the fitness and freshness app on Strava and it shows me as being the fittest I have ever been. Im not doing any commutes this week. They are moving the cycle shelters at work and constantly riding short distances in the cold didnt seem to be making any progress. Fingers crossed I get my new mtb before Sunday so that I can blast around Cannock!

Nice one Robbo 😁. Glad it worked for you.

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All ready for a zwift session!

A post shared by Rob Belsom (@robbo1234biking) on Jan 29, 2019 at 9:09am PST

The little man wanted a go on Zwift!

Not sure about the footwear but he’s showing willing!

Thats Tom Pidcock and i claim five pounds.

Well that was frustrating to say the least. Thought I would give myself a beasting on a TT around the jungle circuit, since the last time I did that I had an FTP boost 🙂 This time I was playing with the big boys in Cat B though. Crazy pace out of the pens and through the aquarium, but managed to hold on to the front runners very near until the hill began. Was able to not lose too much up to the pass and was probably in 3-4th going into the jungle. There than followed a game of cat and mouse with 5 of us taking and loosing position for the first lap, with no-one having a clear advantage. So all to play for on the final lap. Going up the long drag to the swing bridge, one rider got a few seconds ahead and me and another were side by side as we approached the bridge. Then for no reason at all, I found myself pedalling on the spot as people came past! Byt he time the damn thing got me moving again the rider I had been alongside had 26 seconds on me and another 3 riders had passed me 🙁 I kind of lost heart then for a bit until another rider caught me and we raced it out to he finish. I recken he was cheating though as he out-sprinted me with 13W/kg at the end and didn’t register on ZP. So I finished 6th in B, but only 20 seconds behind the rider who had 26 seconds on me at the top. 3rd was only 5 seconds ahead so I am left to wonder what might have been if only I had a reliable internet!

Thanks for the RIDE ON Weeksy 🙂 Appreciated

They still got me ranked to race in the A riders … so tough trying to stay up the sharp end.
Did the 18.55 Gladiators Race tonight; I had updated my weight to add the 1.8kg I’ve put on the last couple weeks!!

I dropped off back of the front A group about 10km in – and had to TT solo to stay away from chasing B cat riders … just about held them off with 20 seconds to spare.
Last A cat rider … but managed to stay away from chasers, so happy with the effort.

Any day you’re an A is a good day imo. I’d like to be a bad B.!

Did TdZ stage 9 today, haven’t done any others, but the timing was convenient. I really don’t like New York at all, and I swear the perspective is weird, I kept putting a little dig in thinking we were about to go uphill and it would be a descent. Too undulating too.

Managed 192bpm for 57 minutes, so I won that on Zwift Power (small wins), some bugger beat me with a higher maximum though!

I did half of the TDZ today, my heart wasn’t in it, i’d done a 50 mins warm up and couldn’t be bothered…. was cruising round at a slow pace really.

Do they have the “double draft” I keep reading about? The pace in the groups certainly seemed high, but I found it easy enough to get back on when I got dropped a couple of times.

Yes they’re DD. Does keep the pace high.

https://www.zwiftpower.com/events.php?zid=145250

Big night tonight in Zwift land.

Pro team racing.

Canyon, Dimension Data, Team Wiggins, Tim Cartwright, Kim Little…. All the Superstars..

Streamed Live on the internet i believe… but i’ll be watching Liverpool Leicester.

Goods heads up! I hear the last event was pretty exciting so might have to try and watch this. Any idea where it’s streamed?

https://www.facebook.com/gozwiftlive/videos/2192185710849266/

Apparently.

I caught it on Youtbue the day after the last one, i’ll likely try the same again.

It was interesting although confusing while riding on Zwift with another screen streaming a race on Zwift.

Interesting as a lot of Pros really didn’t know what they were doing and got dropped PDQ. The seasoned Zwift races were all up there though Pro or not.

Not sure I’d call it exciting.

The little hill in Innsbruck should see more getting caught out especially over multiple laps.

Live on Facebook and Youtube and a gaming app. Youtube was working better than Facebook last week.

I did the 3R Road to Ruins last night. Well done to the STW’er who won the B race by the way.

I came second (of two:)) in the race but the winner put out 3.4w/kg average and I was 2.9w/kg. I had thought C’s were up to 3.1w/kg so how come the guy isn’t upgraded or dq’d? Not bothered about the colour of the cup just not sure on the rules.

Good work. Looking at the rules for the 3R race Zwiftpower category trumps W/KG, so guessing that rider hasn’t got the points for B at the mo.

As always Zwiftracing can be all over the place, more on the circuit than in the Zwiftpower App.

I raced on Tues, hanging on to 2 Ds both putting out 3.8w/kg+ on the flat for an hour LOL. I wonder if they know or it just happens by mistake or what… I just ignore the Cats and race whoever i end up next to.

Yup. I had a good race with a lad who isn’t on ZP so it’s not like that never happened. We were well matched and managed to work together to pass a couple of riders before I saw him off in the sprint. Some serious numbers higher up the leaderboard though. How do people put out 400w for 40 mins?

MrPottato,
that race will likely be live here:
https://www.twitch.tv/zwiftcommunitylive
(I had a look on facebook where it was also streamed but the sound was bloody dreadful (same feeds I think, though twitch started streaming just before the race))

I watched the pro race last week via youtube and it was quite good. It was interesting seeing people get dropped straight from the pen, they must have thought it started off with a parade. Ian Bibby won last weeks race with a finish that i can only dream of. It will be an even better race if some of the riders have learnt the mistakes from last week.

I guess as most real road races, even crits, tend to start quite leisurely it’s perhaps not that surprising that some weren’t expecting the pace off the bat!

I didn’t think many got dropped out of the start? I may well not have been paying attention.
They certainly got shelled on some of the short hills. Connor Dunn doing High Intensity Intervals off the front probably didn’t help those without any experience.

They’re beasts! 500w last lap average it looked! Sheesh.

Thanks for the links. Watched on Twitch with my lad – he was really getting into it by the end and wanted to start dishing out ride-ons.

I like the concept so interesting to see where they take it. Thinks there’s a bit of work to do with the camera angles and graphics to improve things.

I’d love to see the ability outside of the game to click on the rider you want to view etc, I know you can within the game if you can find them. But an easy way to do that would be ace.
Angles, I’d like to see less of the flyby shots and more overheads, but that’s being a bit picky.

Overall I enjoyed it, it’s a bit more real in a weird way as they’re people you can see out there day in day out rather than pros who you’ll never meet on the roads.

You’d think someone would tell the riders, 750w as the countdown hits 0:00

I’ve watched a few of the races (for a few minutes) that they stream on Facebook, and it is surprisingly compelling. I watched some of the F1 Esports too, which was also good. Ultimately there’s no reason that watching Esports shouldn’t be just as compelling as watching ‘real’ sport, just a different facet of it. Hence it being a $1 billion dollar industry!

Had a really good race last night. Was a bit of a rush as the little guy had football, so got home, got him bathed and the mrs cooked mine and hers tea. Didn’t eat tea until 7.20 with the race starting at 8.20 so thought I might end up feeling rough and pulling up after a bit.

First lap didn’t feel great but I managed to keep competitive in a group of mainly B’s and C’s and a couple of D’s. I lost a bit of momentum, dropped from that group and was caught by a group of 2 D’s and a C. We then had a great battle through the next 2 laps with little attacks. On the last lap we caught another 2 D’s and 2 more C’s caught us so there was a group of about 8. I managed to hold on through the hills having to put in 400W sprints up some of the little hills to maintain the pace but felt pretty strong. It was my first mass bunch sprint finish. I did run out of steam a bit maybe 50 yards before the line but came in on the same time as 4 other riders.

https://www.zwiftpower.com/events.php?zid=142700

Good thing was that I felt a lot stronger throughout the race and was able to keep a good pace and close down attacks with little 300-400W bursts when needed so my fitness is definatley improving. I didn’t hit any highs on my stats on ZP but it was easily my longest race and I felt strong throughout.

And a little silver trophy for your trouble 🙂 nice one.

Due to snow i think i’ll be stuck at home all day… So a longish slowish one or the 10:32am Richmond flat… Hmmmm.

So who’s coming racing then in C ? 10:30 race… .A or C only… so hopefully C will be a good battle.

Chapeau to you racers. I’m a fat old knacker who usually pushes out around 200W and can drag my sorry ass up Epic KOM to a rank of 180k out of 203k. Anyway, I’m getting realy sore hips so any advice for stretching, bike setup etc to try and ease it off?

The epic KOM is hard work, to get up it all is a decent achievement (I hurt for 3 days after my first go). No pointers on relieving pain other than to try shifitign around. I think one of the issues can be sitting in the same position for ages. I try to get out of the saddle for short periods regularly.

With last nights IRL ride being snowed off I did the BRT crit race. 5 laps of Grand Central station!!! That is a brutal course. After the 3R race on Tuesday and a 7 mile run pushing my daughter in the buggy on Wednesday my legs weren’t in the best shape. I did an longer than normal warm up to try and get them going but they were struggling with the higher power bits for the first lap. I lost the lead A group on the opening trip up the reverse KOM and ended up in no mans land between them and the lead Bs. With double draft enabled this group (or around 10ish) caught me by the end of the descent. We stuck together for most of the remaining laps losing one or two each time we went up the climb. We also manage to collect a fer riders who had dropped off the lead group. By the last climb there were 6 left, this was 4 by half way up and just 3 by the summit. I kept the power on down the hill to prevent the fourth rejoining (they were only 4s back). Despite the tiredness I just managed to out sprint the last two riders to finish in 10th. Was a really good work out though with Elevate giving it a very high stress score and big jump in my fatigue (which I can feel today). Rest day for me today as 100th Parkrun on Saturday and I’m going after a PB.

https://www.zwiftpower.com/events.php?zid=142687

Why are so few riders in Zwift power lol.

https://www.zwiftpower.com/events.php?zid=143134

That was an epic race, I should have won. Group of 16 of us on Richmond flat, I got Aeros on the first 2 laps and tried to split the bunch with 450w efforts using it. But only managed to shell a couple each time.

Into the final lap, 2 riders kicked on and held 4.4+ for the lap, we ignored them as they’re auto DQ with that power. Final 2km it started getting all cat and mouse, I had a feather and was saving it for the final 300m.
Then 900m out 1 gut went, boom 6w/kg. Sod it, I was in! But the feather and went. Oh, errrrm, no good. Couldn’t catch him. Others were 1s behind so j eased slightly, jumped on a wheel at 350w. Holding. Then 300m to go I went 500w but 1 guy had 700 and did me.

Really should have won that.