Just saw that and laughed. Id rather go out in the rain than do 7 laps of that!

what, no prior 200km?

i wonder how many zwift times will beat the actual pros racing it times 🙂

https://www.zwiftpower.com/events.php?zid=225187

That has more potential.

~600 riders now signed up for that 0905 Yorkshire torture, albeit ~350 doing the 3 lap version, need to very quickly decide whether to ride (not race) the 3 lap version for the experience of so many riders and possibly so many server issues! 😆

Hi guys, I’m thinking about getting into Zwift this winter.

One noob question I have, which I have googled without success, is around chainring size. I plan to use an old MTB with a triple, biggest ring is 42T. My intention would be to get a direct drive trainer. Are they optimised around bigger road gearing, or will the trainer adjust to take the gearing into account?
Easiest way round that will be to pick up a cheap road crankset if need be.

Thanks, I’ll no doubt be back with more!

Zwift has a “trainer difficulty” setting (other apps often do too) that effectively changes your gearing for the inclines. The max gradient I’m aware of, albeit very brief, is 21% on the Yorkshire reverse circuit. A few routes top out at ~17%, but even “flat” routes often throw in short inclines that might hit ~8%, such as Innsbrookring.

Your speed is determined by power and weight (plus drafting if not on TT bike) in Zwift, so a rider putting out 4W/Kg at 100% trainer difficulty on a TT bike would get up a climb faster than another rider putting out say 3.5W/Kg at 75% trainer difficulty.

My rear derailleur cable recently snapped, so with the rear derailleur “high” screw, I’m stuck in the 16T sprocket of my 11-32 cassette to use with my 34/50 rings. I was happy to use 100% “trainer difficulty” on Volcano CCW yesterday, which pushed me close to my limits at ~500W up the incline towards the end of the lap (~5%), but I turned it down to ~40% for Innsbrookring for the race I joined ~20mins later and doing ~300W up that incline killed my legs off.

Each turbo model has a unique power range for each gear combo, depending upon cadence. For example, 34/18 at ~75rpm has a range of 84-484W IIRC.

Signed back up to Zwift today – entered a race this morning in the B category fully expecting a loss of fitness after the last few months not riding regularly or hard; I lasted 10 minutes with the front group .. and then had to quit!

Its going to be a painful journey (and hopefully not too long) back to A category.

Lol amen to that. Once you drop a little bit of form it’s incredibly tough to get back on the pace!

7 laps of Yorkshire UCI course tomorrow anyone? 😆

9 seconds under 3 hours 😆

https://www.zwiftpower.com/events.php?zid=223217

Lunacy! Absolute lunacy

wasn’t that bad, i didn’t race it obviously, just pottered round trying to keep a consistent pace, had the world champs on, 3 hours flew by, id have only sat on the sofa and watched it anyway, done it now, ill think ill file that course under never again

My google powers seem to have deserted me – I’m about to buy a Kickr Core to use with an iPad/Zwift, and I’d like cadence and heart rate – How do I go about it?

I guess I need the cadence sensor obviously, and I have a Garmin heart rate strap, but Ipads don’t pick up ANT+, and will the iPad connect to the Kickr and cadence sensor via bluetooth at the same time?

Or do you Zwifters feel that cadence isn’t necessary or useful?

I find cadence useful yes, but not essential… I’d much rather have it than not have it though.

Sadly i have no idea about iPads though.

I use an iPad for Zwift. I bought a £10 Bluetooth cadence sensor from Amazon (it has Ant+ too), and a £20 bt heart rate strap from Halfords. Both connect immediately to the iPad and seem to work with no issues.

Edit: they both connect at the same time as my Tacx trainer:

Brilliant, thanks – all ordered.

What’s the thinking on fasting rides? I did 2 laps of Harrogate yesterday and felt I couldn’t have gone much further. Second lap was 1 minute slower than the first lap even though it felt more difficult. I really put some effort into the KOM second time around but only matched my 1st lap time. Also, what to eat afterwards?

Over the years i’ve done plenty on Zwift, no difference in performance i’ve found. Usually 1 hour max though.

My google powers seem to have deserted me – I’m about to buy a Kickr Core to use with an iPad/Zwift, and I’d like cadence and heart rate – How do I go about it?

I think the latest firmware update for the Kickr Core means that it also provides cadence direct from the trainer, though I’d check that works with an iPad:

https://www.dcrainmaker.com/2019/09/wahoo-adds-cadence-support-multichannel-bluetooth-to-kickr-core-trainers-via-firmware-update.html

I find cadence quite useful for Sufferfest stuff which specifies cadence targets, less so on Zwift, but it’s not a bad thing to know.

And there’s now a tick list and leaderboard for all the routes and KOMs in Zwift.
https://veloviewer.com/zwift-insider
Not sure I’ll ever finish it as I don’t really fancy 10 times up Box Hill…
57 of 91 completed though.

Strewth! That was tough. 16 laps of the Duchy Estate course. It was quite a cool loop- reminded me of the hilly suburban USA crits you see on YouTube.

Soon got shelled from the lead group and then from a chase group too. Ended up in a small group of B’s. There were a few shenanigans but I was just hanging on mostly.

The lap had a tough drag at 6% or so which then levelled off to 2%. That was the hardest part! Then the rolling descent was easy with a little kicker thrown in for good measure.

I hung with the same guys most of the race. A flat iPhone meant I got dropped once by accident trying to fire up the iPad but managed to sprint back on on the descent.

Finally they dropped me but they were B’s so it didn’t matter really.

A tough workout- 1h19 at 298np!

yeah but another convincing win ! So you got to be please and picked up some ranking points too.

Yeah it was okay. Top 1/3 of the whole race.

Another couple of lbs lost and I’ll be back to mid-B obscurity 🙁

Power wise, it was pretty similar to a Tuesday night chaingsng actually.

Another couple of lbs lost and I’ll be back to mid-B obscurity

Yes but then you’ll be back to top 5s in B after a few lbs more than that off. I think you’ve got a while though with your 96kg… you’ve still got plenty of scope.

WKG Category C 73 races
95% of 20min 278watts / 2.84wkg
95% of 20min 272watts / 2.83wkg
95% of 20min 271watts / 2.83wkg
Average 274watts / 2.83wkg

Yeah but Zwiftpower knows your ftp. That’s how it decides which Cat to rank you in after an E cat race.

I’d say you shouldn’t get anywhere near your FTP/KG during anything other than a flat TT.

(My normalised Power was bang on at 3.1w/kg)
But because it’s a bunch race with attacks etc, you should either be drafting at way under threshold or climbing/attacking at way over.

If your average power and NP are very close then you need to learn some race craft 😉 😀

Typical race this morning. Went out on a shortish flat one, stayed happily in the A/B group with fellow STWer who was punishing us all from the front position. It was all going so well until some smart ar** decided to lob in a watt bomb, someone followed, then someone else, next thing you know it had all blown apart and as usual i was on the wrong side of the split !!!!! ARRRGHHHH.

2 others had just missed it also and they went after them so i jumped and kicked after them putting out 400w for about a minute, but i couldn’t make the bridge with them. So i sat and looked behind, 4-5s to the group of 6 behind me… I waited.. jumped on their group and we cruised until 1.5km out, when a B kicked…. It felt like a good chance to split so i went with them, but the group hung with me and we closed it back.
With 750m to go 2 went for it and gapped us… i couldn’t kick, so waited till 250m and beat the other 4 in the sprint for the line.

2nd in C… Grrrrr.

Nice well done.

Actually, I see Zwiftpower has an option now for mixed cat races. You choose which one to be ranked in or let it decide. I wonder what it does use to decide?
When I legit get back to B I’ll tick the box I think.

that was me in the race, i only just got on with about 90 seconds to spare, couldn’t find my hrm,

no idea why they did that with 12km to go, seemed like such and odd thing to do at that point, i assumed that race would have a very large blob for the whole race, i managed to make it across, but i was up above 450w for 40 seconds though to bridge, then it all blobbed up again, fast moving group and it was hard to hang on, had a couple of dark moments, with about 8.5km to go where i didn’t think id hang on, then with about 2km it slowed down, i was sat at the front doing 260w then it just ramped up and ramped up, how the hell you meant to sprint at the end of that! last 2 km my hr crept from 180 to 191bpm just to hold onto the bunch, had nothing for the sprint so just maintained through the line

6th in B and a FTP bump of 3w

nothing wrong with a 2nd! well done on that

steering has been released`

what do i need for my bars/phone ?

Just a holder of some kind and the companion app I think.

We couldn’t catch a break tonight. 3 silver cups for STW riders today!
Dirt series again for me so C only. Fast but not ridiculous start around one Richmond lap and I had the boy running the power ups for me. Comfortable with the large front group to Libby. A little bit too far back as it ramped up but a PR and aero over the line and I was on the front 6 or 7. Another big effort and another aero before the line and group still together.
Last climb to finish and there was a big hit out to the line by the first 4 got away and I was with one other. Distanced him over the top but not making inroads into the 4th rider who was dropped.
“winner” was 4wkg and bumped up to 2nd with 2 others stripped from results. Slightly annoying as without the out of cat riders the 1st place might not have got pulled away up the last hill.
Still I’m leading the league now after 2 races :0)
PRs all round too by decent margins too.
https://www.zwiftpower.com/events.php?zid=227054

I reckon we need to arrange a race over the weekend with a bunch of forum riders.
Flatter the better for me.

Just managed silver in the Hare and Hounds ZHR – should have tried a bit harder and would have been gold – squeezed out by o.5s. Spun around in the group occasionally pushing it up to 350ish W, but most of the time at around 260. Caught all the D’s, never saw a B or an A. Sprint up the Mall, did not go too soon. Couple of guys sprang off – thought I had them both caught but just missed one on the line.

I’m up for it but can’t guarentee participation at any time. Shout up a time and a race and I’ll see what I can do.
I’ll vote for something with a 2 minute hill in it ;0)

So 4 silvers today all in C

First outdoor ride since broken collarbone planned for Sunday but would potentially be up for some Zwift on Saturday, another vote for a flat one.

I’m looking forward to getting into this. Had a Wattbike Atom delivered yesterday and downloaded the Zwift app.

Without reading through all 290 pages, anything I need to consider? Any tips? Do’s/don’t etc?

When you think you’re going to die… you’re probably not 🙂

Prob going to have a go at the steering tonight. I already have a phone holder on the turbo bike (for doing workouts whilst watching something) so nothing for me to do really other than put something slippy under the front wheel.

Trouble is I have already done a TR workout this morning, getting my haircut after work and then doing the Zwift would mean 3 showers today! First world problems!