Zwift, my journey, my weight and my fitness.

Lol no magic here, if I had the answers I’d have stayed in the big boy group today.
You boys are all working like beasts!!!

Be magic if I could lose 10kg

However based on the wine & beer I have just consumed after & justified by that short effort says it’s unlikely

😂😂😂😂

Pizza chips and beer, I may be in C again soon at 105kg

Bloody Trophy hunters!    I’ve just scoped the Newbury RR which I’m riding in an hour, to find that the C cat has only 7 entries, 4 of which are A or A+, and one is a B.

I’ve entered B this week (usually C) to see how I fare.  In W/KG I line up mid pack so a lot depends on being smart and fit to the end.

An A+ in C cat? Thanks loopy, dropping a single cat I could maybe forgive but thats just cheeky

Jeeeez.   I’m sitting here with my head spinning.  Shaved 2 mins off my course PB to come 10th in B, 1:43 / 3.4wkg average and 6 mins faster than the C Gold.

Thats cemented me as a Cat B rider, so says Zwiftpower :D. Need Coffee….

Anyone on the Alpe at 3.35? Going to be lumbering up and try to tick the hour off.

Let us know how you get on Garry.

I missed the hour by 35 seconds this morning 😆

Did our club century this morning
Possibly the last as our lockdown gets relaxed .

We tagged onto the 7.30 3r on the waistband

Good ride but the pace got a bit wild from about 75k on. Mixed up with some big old sprints through fuegoflats.

Alpe on Tuesday.deeside Apr on Wednesday (if zwift get their act together and put us on critcity as requested)

Considering ticking off the final TFA tonight after jnrs in bed but we will see as legs are tired.

Trust you have seen this Gary
W/kg to get the time on the alpe. Pace your self is key. The alpe exposes burnt match sticks near the top exponentially.

2 w/kg: 90 minutes
2.5 w/kg 75 minutes
3 w/kg: 62 minutes
3.5 w/kg: 55 minutes
4 w/kg: 49 minutes
4.5 w/kg: 44 minutes
5 w/kg: 40 minutes
5.5 w/kg: 37 minutes
6 w/kg: 35 minutes
6.5 w/kg: 32 minutes

Yep Garry, I’ll be there! I’ll be K.Newman [STW/WKG]

Good luck on getting under the hour, you’ll smash it, there’s always a wheel to chase down which helps. In two minds whether to ride it as normal and try and shave a little of my best time or try and bury myself in the first twenty minutes of the climb in an attempt to up my FTP.

In fairness I’ll probably cock-up both

Thks Trail_rat not seen that before – should be comfy with that but have to see what the legs are doing.
Will look out for you Kelvin (in the first 2 mins at least!)

Looks like you did the whole route in under and hour Garry so reckon you must have done the Alpe in 50-55?

Nice work!

Well mixed blessing for me.

Got a new FTP over 300 so nearly creeping me into A+ but had a major turbo overheating fail. Kept getting ten second drop outs and about 25 minutes in so had to turn it off and let it cool down. Which obviously screwed the race overall!

I think I might have to admit defeat and upgrade my turbo, I’m on the most basic Tacx Flow, without wanting to go mad spending cash am I better getting a cheap direct drive with an external power meter (pedals/crank) or going for a Kickr/Neo?

Accuracy and being able to handle climbs more important to me than loudness as in an insulated detached garage.

Also hoping mines not over-reading too dramatically! Would pointing a fan directly at the turbo help?

Id go Elite route again. Their direct drive units consistently get good reviews – I have had my Direto a couple seasons now and its been faultless.

Expect a big difference to your existing unit.

Yeah fully expecting a big drop!

Youd be mental to buy anything that isn’t erg if your spending wheel off money.

Not seeing the attraction of a seperate power meter these days. Times have changed..

– I have a 4iiii and never crossed my mind to use it in place of the kickr

A solid 56.28 for me on the Alpe – rode it steady and ground out 320 – 330W for each section, 324W overall average. Pleased with that – felt close to my limit, and was definitely having to dig deep last 15 mins, but possibly there’s a bit more there.

Good effort. What did the wheel of fortune bequith you with

Looking round feels like the chances of getting anything new from anywhere is pretty slim and plus lots of people trying to sell for new prices second hand. So I’ll have a go seeing if blasting air at it helps.

I know when I upgrade likely my numbers are going to go down and under no illusions the current number is “true” but I hope it’s at least accurate to itself, so I’m getting better compared to past me!

Kelvin,

If you can find a Kickr Core in stock anywhere, i can flog you a Snap for a reasonable price.

Now is not the time to buy a trainer – this lockdown, and good weather, has seen people get super bored and taken up cycling or jogging en mass🙄😳
Apparently bikes and indoor bike trainers are sold out most places .. or do the media is saying.

Yes – other people have commented on this thread previously about their power reading being different on a direct drive unit .. keep your fingers crossed it won’t be too big a drop.

Good effort. What did the wheel of fortune bequith you with?

Thks, got some gloves for my efforts😂

Didn’t expect to want to do it again (done it twice, steady last week and hard today), but it is a brilliantly rendered route. Best I’ve seen on zwift, so think I will persevere to get the wheels.

Did the Alpe this afternoon – dropped down from B to C, following my poor STW hare and hounds effort the other day. I subsequently realised that my power curve has dipped quite a bit from pre-lockdown.

Did it in 63mins, with 3 w/kg average. Surprisingly got silver in Cs on Zwiftpower.

Felt heavy legged and a bit 5h1t, so can only improve. 4w/kg seems a long way off though.

I’m thinking Crit at 14:35 tomorrow in B. Usual 8 laps of fun and pain. Git a small ride in morning with my boy so will be a decent workout. Will be back on the Parkwood which may hinder/help accordingly

Kelvin, I’ve just upgraded from a tacx flow to a wahoo refurbished kickr core on Friday. I wasn’t looking for refurbished but I’d been keeping my eye on all direct drive turbos particularly the elite direto x and the core. Obviously there’s been slim pickings for weeks and couldn’t believe it when one was showing in stock on the wahoo site. So far massively impressed it’s like night and day to the tacx. As for power loss I’ve not seen anything different in terms of numbers, in fact I just got 2nd(ZP) in the 17.05 3R tick tock flat race. So if you can get hold of one go for it I’m really glad I did.

That’s reassuring Ljarch, gonna give the Flow another tilt at the Alpe today with a fan pointed at it and see if that helps.

Def gonna upgrade at some stage just a question of how urgently.

Looking into it more think I’m prob going to plump for the Core/Flow/Suito mid level though rather than Kickr/Flux high end

Morning Zwifters – i am just starting week 6 of the FTP Builder. I have quite enjoyed the structure of having to do certain sessions by fixed dates but I am not sure if my performance has noticeable improved. Can anyone recommend what I should do next? Ideally I would like to go on a nice long bikepacking adventure but that can’t happen so should i look at another Zwift training programme, go for a long / short road ride (the countryside is rammed with people round here so off road is not much fun), do another FTP test (how long should i rest beforehand) joint a Zwift race, if so which one (Weeksy’s are too fast for me) or try Sufferfest for some more training. Finally how do I get to the gravel courses on Zwift? many thanks

Kelvin – I’d definitely recommend a direct drive as first choice though; the Elite Suito looks a very good choice.

I swapped out my Tacx Vortex for a Saris H3 about 3 weeks ago. It’s night and day in terms of performance – makes the whole Zwift experience so much less frustrating when you’re not feeling like you’re fighting the trainer’s limitations, particularly on climbs and low cadence training sessions.

Jamin, we’ll race in whatever Cat you fancy if you want company. All we get is a DQ from results, but who cares.

thanks Weeksy. I was finding on the flat empty sprint circuits once I fell off the back (after about 5 mins!) There was no one else around so it was a boring lonely ride. at least chasing the training numbers gave me something to aim for! it will be interesting to see if after the FTP builder i can keep up for 10 mins now!

entering 09:45 instead, not convinced my legs are in it

lol 35s i lasted and knew my legs didn’t have it… so no point flogging myself 🙂

Jaminb unless you were already in pretty decent condition before starting if you’ve done six weeks of 3/4 structured sessions I’d be surprised if you haven’t seen a decent jump.

The question is how’d you wanna test it?

Did you do a test at the start, the fairest way is to test in the same way.

If you didn’t do a test at the start you’ve got a few different options.

Ramp Test – this is quick if a little brutal, if you’ve not done one before you’ll prob underperform as there’s def a knack to them.

There’s the long test, I wouldn’t bother as a you can do the same in a group ride or race.

I’d go for a race, enter in Cat D try as hard as you can for twenty minutes and then see if you’ve got anything left after that. A bunch of different routes to choose but I’d just chose the event with the biggest number of entrants so there’s plenty of wheels to chase to keep the motivation up

Oh and in terms of rest a day off b4 will be plenty and unless you’re feeling knackered do it today. If the numbers aren’t great you can’t use tiredness as a justification!

Anyone played about much with Intervals.Icu to analyse your Strava and Zwift performance?

I’d been using Elevate which does a lot of similar things about training load, but Intervals has a really nice “how does your power profile compare to others” feature that’s interesting.

Really shows I do not have a sprint even in the slightest!

Can anyone suggest any Zwift workouts or other options that will help improve my general riding speed? I find I usually just freeride more or less at the same pace, I’d like to improve it but realize my 88kg weight will have an effect with W/KG.

I’m not looking at sprint improvement, just overall speed so that I can ride at around 3 W/KG, right now i’m more in the 2.5 bracket.
Is it the FTP workouts or are there better alternatives which will help?

Cheers!

https://whatsonzwift.com/workouts/tt-tuneup/ seemed a good, generalised improver for me when I started it in early Jan.

I’ve lost pretty much most of the benefits now, but that’s another story!

Great…thanks for that n0b0dy0ftheg0at, did you manage to complete all 9 weeks? Did you start at the beginning or jump into it a few weeks in?