Zwift, my journey, my weight and my fitness.

So I did the HERD Crit City points race this evening, might be my new favourite racing format it went so well.

Format is 50pts for crossing the start/finish line first, 49pts for second and so on down to 1pt for 50th and the race was over 18 laps – most pts at the end wins and there was unconfirmed talk of double points for the last lap.

The various cats start separately and get points for their position in relation to their category but everyone ends up on course together so there’s always other riders around you.

The racing isn’t quite as hard as a normal zwift crit and there def seems to be more tactics involved. It’d actually be a really good event to enter an an STW team – working together picking of individuals and racking the points up.

I’ve no idea how many points I actually got but I was 3rd on ZP so happy with that. On a side note the reverse crit course seems a lot easier than the standard loop.

Did anyone do the Deeside crit I’m the end? Pretty sure I saw at least one STW in the results.

I was well rested for this. Not done any zwift since Monday week as feeling rough. Only rides have been low intensity. Been ages since a iTT or FTP test as well. I pushed my zwift FTP up to 345W (from 332W) with a 4.7wkg AVG 😀. Very happy with that. With a few TTs I may just be able to sneak A+ soon.

I swerved it in the end – going to do the TTT tomorrow now I know where it’s going, and tbh wasn’t feeling up to a game-ending effort today.
Congrats on the ride, sounds very rapid. What time did you get – must have been sub 23 at those numbers?

Thanks, no where near 23 though. Shows me at 26:25 on ZP. Gavin Dempster won in 24:45 at well over 5wpkg.

https://www.zwiftpower.com/events.php?zid=869998

Oh right was thinking of the tempus course I’ve done on the Newbury TTs which is 17ish km I think. Great ride for 20K – large numbers at the sharp end there.

I threw my 12yo off CoD today and onto a tempus fugit D-ride – worked surprisingly well, he rode at 50-60 watts all round and was with other riders for most of it (main gp was a bit faster), seemed to enjoy it.
It’s a delicate one – my lad, like me, is physically lazy. Cycling is the one sport he actually shows some enthusiasm for so the turbo seems like a good way of killing that. But perhaps zwift can play a positive role.

Yeah I did it

27:18 pb on power for me. Highlights why I need to lose weight……

353 ave power.

The last loop caught me out…..saw the line coming up and thought that’s it…..and still had another 1800m to go round the loop brutal

Nice power @trail_rat.

I’ve done that course as a TT so knew about the extra loop. It caught me out the first time! Doesn’t help that the segment times disappear as you go under the arch.

Well that’s it I often do the zwift fast Friday ITT on that course. Not once has it done the end loop.

Was able to keep the hammer down had not emptied the tank clearly.

Anyone coming racing with DIRT at 11.40 ?

How did it go weeksy? You got any legs left for a TTT later?

Im out for the ttt my legs are brutalised after last night it was a deep dig.

OK, TTT info is here for this evening….

Our start time is +9.5 minutes. So in the pen for 18:30, then once it says “GO!” we don’t go until 18:39:30. Phil will handle the stopwatch and shout go. (is that OK Phil?).

There are still places in the team. Enter category A here https://www.zwift.com/events/view/868219 and append (STW) to you Rider Name in Zwift Power.

There are five of us on the start sheet at the moment:
ljarch
dangeourbrain
phil56
zilog6128
savoyad

See you in the pen.

How did it go weeksy? You got any legs left for a TTT later?

Posted 6 minutes ago

Not terrible not great. I’ve lost form at the moment for sure. Started off not going nuts and letting the A/B split away and sitting in with the mid Bs and fast C’s. But when the pace kicked on near the end I didn’t have the legs/lungs/desire and fell off the group.
I think part of it is the fact I’m racing more for mid table mediocrity rather than battling for a podium, just doesn’t give the same levels to push on to. But I’m way down on my average and max HR at the moment and a chunk down on power too.

Just feeling all a bit meh about the indoor stuff at the moment. Tues I was out with the boys and set 3 Kom and had tonnes in the legs, power was there, form was there, but indoors, I’ve just lost it all.

I’ll do the stopwatch – everyone make sure to be on the Discord channel, or you won’t hear the ‘GO’!

I’ll do the stopwatch

Are you going to stop pedaling though 😂

well you can be in charge of the ‘Shout to stop pedaling’ – at my age I struggle with multi-tasking!

Looks like we’ve got 5 signed up for the TTT tonight!

Good luck lads!!!!

6 now, tiger6791 has joined us.

cool 😎

I have a tt tonight which I’m dreading. In the faint hope that outdoor tts may be allowed in the not too distant future I’m using the tt bike exclusively on the turbo at the moment.

10% power lost, with probably 20% extra effort required, so my expectations around performance are minimal

Has anyone got a link to the discord for the ttt cheers

https://discord.gg/rHgm8c

Cheers for this evening folks, I needed that more than I realised.

Yeah thanks lads had to go pretty deep to hang in there but really enjoyed it. Still getting used to discord though

Great ride that, don’t think I’ve ever worked so hard on zwift!! Thanks to those on the front for dragging me round 😀 cried a little inside though each time we closed on a team as it meant another kick was coming 😂

We were 11th in Latte on the provisional results at one point, seem to have disappeared completely off the page now?

Really enjoyed that, great effort from everyone.
Thanks for organising Savoyad, appreciated.

Yep, thanks all was great fun tonight, first 5km was tough but after that everything clicked I was working hard but really enjoying it, even managed a few turns on the front!

The hour just flys by 👍😀 and it’s great seeing us close in on other team’s.

Av power for me this week was 301W

By the time we hit the finish I was done though.

301! Wow. Top job mate. Back on form

Entered with our club.  I was a bit hesitant as it was last minute thing after I did a 1:40 Z3 interval last night.

Anyway, had a strong ride averaging 3.6wkg and like before, very much enjoyed the event.  Strangely the hill felt worse on the second lap than it did on the third!

TT time 43:10, Zwift power total time (B, Mocha) 54:14.   My mancave looks like someone had a shower in it after I forgot to take my hayfever meds on top of the normal sweat and dribble!

301! Wow. Top job mate. Back on form

Ha! No still a fat **** 😀😂

Takes that much power just to shift the carcass

We were 11th in Latte on the provisional results at one point, seem to have disappeared completely off the page now?

‘Reckon they’ve worked out Phil’s a pro and disqualified us 😀😂😂

Had a good ride on our TTT, rolled round in 41.45 – I’ve put up some wretched performances on hills recently but felt solid this evening. Think swerving the crits for a couple of weeks has done me some good.

Some insane speeds up on the results atm – top frappe team 26 min at 63kph? Surely not and must be some errors being dealt with there.

Very impressive result last night guys – our time of 42.41 placed us 13th out of 159 teams in Latte.
254th overall out of 582 teams
That’s pretty solid for a team of enthusiastic novices!

We had a great result for the team I ride for. Rolled over the line with 38:52. We’re a mixture of A’s and B’s and had a full compliment of riders at the start (8) that makes a big difference. A couple dropped off near the end but it wasn’t a problem, they’d buried themselves and done their job to make sure enough of us crossed the line to make a time. That course suits our team well with its rolling roads. We have a couple of lightweight climbers for the hills and some big old Diesel engines (like me 😜) to drag everyone along on the flats. Put a good shift in, averaged 334w, 346NP.

That’s pretty solid for a team of enthusiastic novices!

Great result. Well done all.

Got to wonder who is enthusiastic though!

TT time 43:10

not too shabby, almost ready for the STW dream team 😀

Got to wonder who is enthusiastic though!

I am!! (Pre-race lol) highlight of my zwifting week at the moment!

Pre-race

Ah, that explains it. I was thinking by 7pm most of us didn’t sound too enthusiastic

No wonder I unhitched on the last lap. That was our best result yet. Great ride.

The entry is in for next week.

6.30 on Thursday. Enter category A here: https://www.zwift.com/events/view/889027

The website always goes haywire at this time of the week – at the moment in different places it says Watopia Hilly Reverse and/or Tick Tock – but I think it might actually be Watopia’s Waistband when the dust settles.

I’ll post this again with concrete news on the route early next week.

The entry is in for next week.

nice one @savoyad. I’m in 😎

Thanks @savoyad – I’m in too.

See – that’s enthusiasm!

Beat us by 2 seconds last night.
Down to 4 though. Our 5th rider crashed out in the pens and would have also seen us in Latte and might have snuck us into the PL spot.
I had to drop off on the last climb as was done in. Not many places to hide in a 4 man team.