Zwift, my journey, my weight and my fitness.

@n0b0dy0ftheg0at VERY interesting reading on that ZI link re. the draft effect btw. As everyone probably suspected (although we totally failed to do it on the TTT last week, or the hare & hounds this week 😂) properly organised “chain drafting” or whatever you want to call it is way more efficient than “churning” at the front (which is what we do lol).

Basic overview is: the more riders in single file in front, the greater the draft. 4th rider in the chain can hold a wheel with approx 33% power reduction! That is massive and could potentially allow a C rider at the back to keep up with a strong B or A at the front. Or allow equal strength riders to ride more efficiently by resting at the back and taking organised turns on the front.

The 17 minute wait will start at 18:33. Pen D is just delayed slightly behind pen A (where we were the last couple of weeks).

The organisers’ site is showing our team for this evening as:

kelvinshuffle A
dknwhy B
phil56 B
savoyad C
zilog6128 C

Time would be on the 4th from 5.

Did anyone else plan to ride? I can’t see any bad tags or people in the wrong category. @mooman? (are your tech issues solved)

Can I join the TTT?

Is there anything special I need?

Would I be quick enough or just a hinderence?

VERY interesting reading on

I only realised [so went and googled] when it was mentioned up there about the tron bike having no visual cue that there’s any way to tell you’re in the draft on Zwift.

I just assumed it kicked in when you’re close enough and that’s that but it seems not. Now I’m wondering why I always seem to end up alongside rather than directly behind, suggesting I’m not actually drafting at all. That said I figured that my avatar sitting up/standing was directly linked to my power/cadence so I’ve probably been digging my self out of the draft every time thinking I’m slacking.

I reckon the more the merrier! Tiger what cat are you? Do you have a profile on Zwiftpower?

Would I be quick enough or just a hinderence?

Think of it this way: you might be a hinderence but in the same way putting on 4st will ruin your ability to fly unaided.

so I’ve probably been digging my self out of the draft every time thinking I’m slacking.

@dangeourbrain yup! Standing up is linked to cadence but sitting up is the draft cue (which you don’t get riding a Tron for some annoying reason)

The real trick with the draft effect is that it’s a range of values needed to hold wheel so you need to back off until you start to drift back, thus finding the lowest possible power output. This allows you to ride WAY more efficiently & conserver energy. Rather than everyone just surging forward at the front like a pack of racing greyhounds which is what we do at the moment 😂

Basic overview is: the more riders in single file in front, the greater the draft. 4th rider in the chain can hold a wheel with approx 33% power reduction! That is massive and could potentially allow a C rider at the back to keep up with a strong B or A at the front. Or allow equal strength riders to ride more efficiently by resting at the back and taking organised turns on the front.

We do/have tried it, but it’s not quite that simple compared to on a road, you can’t just ease off a tiny bit and stay directly behind.
Out of all our riders i think i’m arguably right up there in Zwift skills as i’ve done 350 races etc, but even for me it’s far from 100%

I assume we’ll be using the discord STW channel this evening? @Tiger6791 you need to download the discord app to your phone if you haven’t already and find the discord address further back in this thread

This should be the Discord link

https://discord.gg/5Vmsd9

Seems super hard to ride in a line on the TTTs, so easy to yoyo off the back doing this. The game engine seems to blob you together v easily.

Heard some strong espresso riders talk about taking your pull from the back being key to speed in the TTT – In an 8 it’s the back 2 who pull through the group for a short hard turn at the front. Better avoids the sticky draft of the front two peeling off and slowing you down as you come through. Obv you’d need to be pretty dialled in with your formation for this to work.

Here are the instructions for @tiger6791 (and anyone else tempted…):

– enter the event on zwift. It’s category D (you must enter D) here https://www.zwift.com/events/view/713952

– tag yourself in zwiftpower by adding (STW) to the end of your rider name (in zwiftpower – zwift profile – settings – rider name). This is how the TTT system picks you up as a member of the team

– follow dangerourbrain’s discord link above. there’s a text chat channel and a voice channel in there so we can hear each other panting.

– make sure you are in the pen by 18:30 (maybe 18:33 but to be on the safe side). Before the event says GO, you must stop pedalling completely (!) and we’ll spend 17 minutes sat there watching other teams set off one by one. Don’t pedal during those minutes or you’ll roll over the line (the workaround is to go to the pairing screen but get back out in time for the start if you do that)

– At our start time one of us will count us down to go. The rest is easy.

That’s all. See you later.

In an 8 it’s the back 2 who pull through the group for a short hard turn at the front.

that would seem the natural/obvious way to do it, given the way the game works (rather than say the 2nd rider taking the front place, or the lead rider just slowing down)

EDIT: although interesting that they are doing it in pairs, not singly

kelvinshuffle
Member

I reckon the more the merrier! Tiger what cat are you? Do you have a profile on Zwiftpower?

I’d say I was a Cat D now (maybe C? hard to know)

Zwift profile here, take it with a pinch of salt though, the person in that profile with trophies against B races was a different version of me 🙂 (and on a much quieter version of Zwift)

https://www.zwiftpower.com/profile.php?z=288273

I think you’d kill D if you didn’t go out too hard.. I’d say you’re a decent C…. not quite a race winning C at the moment, but up the sharp end i think

In an 8 it’s the back 2 who pull through the group for a short hard turn at the front. Better avoids the sticky draft of the front two peeling off and slowing you down as you come through

Makes a lot of sense looking at the article. If rider 2 pulls slightly out of sync with the rest your group would be ruined. Rider 3 is relying on sticking to 2s draft 4 to 3 and so on so any break in the line sees the riders behind spat out very quickly. Taking turns off the back completely gets rid of that risk.

EDIT: although interesting that they are doing it in pairs, not singly

Yes this was for a 4×2 formation, rather than an 8×1 set up – with pairs taking turns, don’t know if this is a standard thing with the experienced teams. 8×1 sounds like it would be almost impossible to keep in order on zwift.

Plenty to experiment with in any case! Good luck with your race – Expecting a hard sesh this evening. Course record in frappe is just under an hour so it will be the longest one I’ve done, plus a decent climb in the mix.

Fwiw by the way I’m signed on for the event still. If I’m home in time I’ll join you but it’s unlikely.

I know, now I’ve to choose between going the long way and enjoying the (currently unusual) ride sans Mrs brain a bit longer or the shorter way and riding zwift too.

Trying to pick up the couple of pedally strava segments I’m in spitting distance of topping on the way back or having slightly better legs for zwift.

Daddy or chips.

It’s all too much I tell ya.

Discord ✅
Name change ✅
Event entered ✅

Couple of quick Qs ??

Kit? Do we Bumblebee?
Bike? TT bike or is this a draft ride?

@Tiger6791

Bees. No TT bikes, would kinda defeat the point 😂

On the bike/wheel choice I reckon for most of the crew weight > aero right?

No TT bikes, would kinda defeat the point

Ssssssshhhh man. You’re no fun.

Just did a 1hr TT in my man cave.  Started at 27 degrees went up to 31. 🙁

Started at 27 degrees went up to 31.

That’s steep!! You’re supposed to do TTs on the flat really

Apologies guys but I’m dropping out tonight. Been one of those days and I need to get out of the house for a ride in the sunshine. Good luck.

think that still leaves 4, or 5 if @Tiger6791 is in? We still on?

There’s the chance of Mooman and Dangeour right?

I’ve started back up racing in zwift, I’m doing the British Cycling South East championship – it’s bloody killing me! I only restarted cycling from running Mid march, naturally the first thing I did was hit a ramp test and got an FTP result of 301w, then mid April I started this series and my FTP quickly jumped to 336w. I did a TT race a couple of weeks ago racing Alex Dowsett where my FTP rocketed to 352w (and I beat him (but he’s at altitude) https://www.zwiftpower.com/events.php?zid=376569 )!! This naturally is completely unsustainable as I have no base for it so I’ve got some serious DOMs I’m stuggling to shift ha.

Anyway, the reason I’m posting is that next week (thursday evening) we are doing a TTT as part of this. What are your top tips for it?

I’m still in 🙂

Although I may have just done something a little silly…..

Curiosity got the better of me while setting up for the TTT and I thought I’d try a quick race….. been a few years…

Didn’t go all out but tank is definitely less full

Also some comical results…

They guy who was fastest C is….

180cm & 58KG & can put out 6.2w/kg

https://www.zwiftpower.com/events.php?zid=712679

Sadly that’s very typical of racing at the moment and part of the reason I’m not bothering

Good luck fellas! I’ll be there in spirit, but in reality I’m just back from 2 hours in the woods and drinking Hobgoblin

@Tiger6791 Tour For All races don’t use conventional categories, C is 3.2-5W/Kg, it’s what I entered on Tuesday. 😉

https://www.zwiftpower.com/events.php?zid=712643

If you want to do the short race and you normally stay under 3.2W/Kg average, you enter D.

Good luck to those of you TTTing shortly, I might offer my hinderence next week, ~60mins sustained effort might kill me at the mo (especially after yesterday’s ~25&15min TT/races).

Our club smashing it! Finished at 27th so far pulling some serious watts

Well done all! Phil is a wind eating machine

Well that was fun 🙂

Pace felt okay despite having being silly earlier, hills kill me, flats I can power through…

Glad it all went well folks, sounds like you did better without me!

Sorry I didn’t make it but at least I enjoyed my ride in the sunshine

1.07 which looks like a pretty respectable Frappe time, really good Latte time and amazing Mocha – which reckon for an ABCCD team top notch result.

Yeah that was great, not quite as tough as I’d feared it would be on the hills (although probably couldn’t have gone much harder lol). Almost splintered a couple of times but we managed to keep it together! They weren’t so steep so the draft effect was still pretty strong I thought.