Zwift, my journey, my weight and my fitness.

Do you have sandbags under the Lynskey for when in inevitably snaps in half? 👺

I’m using my commuter which is an old 29er hardtail, I’m running a 36 48 on an xt double with a road block and its ample for 95% of zwift, can come up short on sprints when I reach the top of my cadence but to be honest even then I’m not often hitting that.
I do sit in 48:11 most of the time so 50 or 52 might encourage me to push a bit harder but equally I might just not use the top gear then.

Bearing in mind I can’t stay with you in the sprints that should be fine.

Ill go check my drivetrain, see what I can get away with. Definitely would need some chainrings and likely a front mech. Hmmm.

I swapped to my cross bike on the turbo which has a 38 oval single ring and it’s been fine – surprised me, although I am down the block pretty much all the time.

Can spin up a decent sprint on it – it’s a bit too small to be putting up heroic numbers on a group ride, but for racing it is more than fine. I just do the short races and they’re at such a high pace, and the sprint wound up from way out, that you never get to sit in easy and unleash hell in a 10 sec sprint.
It’s way more sustained than that – at least that’s my experience, perhaps if you’re at the top of your cat you would be able to thrown down a very sharp effort and would want a big ring.

Do you have sandbags under the Lynskey for when in inevitably snaps in half? 👺

😯

No, i found the trainer walked across the room when I was sprinting or pulling up a hill. Turns out 50kg of left over sand fixed it, which was nice as I had no idea what else to do with it.

Which case I’m going to follow suit and “join” folks outside.

no worries, we can skip the TTT this week then and resume normal service next week post-heatwave!

Don’t forget you can change the trainer difficulty as well. it is really virtual gearing so if you increase it to 100% if you only have a small cog on the front it should help stop you from spinning out (it doenst make it easier or harder as you still have to output the wattage).

I’m 66kg and on the turbo last time I tried I could hold 264 watts for an hr.

With those numbers you might struggle in a crit but you should be putting out more on a 20 minute race than an hour and even then it’s not impossible to compete in crits at that.

At 264 in a decent length race, anything with a hill, you should do reasonably well in B.

Looking at my last few races…

36 minute race on volcano climb. I was 311w and 9th. 8th put out 265w average, 279 in 7th and 284 for 4th.

6 people in that race were over 300W, 2 of those were a little over cat limit.

Bologna TT I was 21st @324w in an E race, 2 people ahead of me in that race had <260w, 10 to 20 finishers below 300w.

8 lap crit city I was 9th at 318.1st and third both a touch under 300w. 6 to 20s under 270w.

Previous crit I was 32nd at 306w. 3 finishers ahead of me at <270 including 2nd at 268w.

I doubt I’ll TTT tonight, just too hot for Turbo 🥵

Ok, decision made: TTT IS OFF TONIGHT.

Enjoy the sunshine. See you next week for Volcano Flat.

See you next week for Volcano Flat.

Sounds hot!

Would have been appropriate this week

@tpbiker

Not sure who you are looking at but I’ve never won a race

This would appear to be your profile on ZP but you haven’t registered.
https://www.zwiftpower.com/profile.php?z=25412
What results are you looking at.
As said quite a few times if they are Zwift results from the APP they are utter rubbish.

You’ve been DQed on ZP for being in the wrong category but your time is in the filtered tab.
Put those on the race cat you entered and you won one of the races as suggested.

In Crit City you have to go very very hard to hold onto the front group in any category.

I wasn’t suggesting you were cruising just 3minutes behind on a long race isn’t much and putting in more effort earlier to stick with people would have paid off with a chance with a higher placed group.

Hadn’t spotted the Alpe race on that profile.
You won the C cat by 5.5 minutes
You’d have been 13th in B cat out of 35 proper B cat racers.

Hmm, I’ll set it up as it is and work from there.

Might plug a few things into a gear calculator too.

Well, I at least have a functioning road bike.

And a 1×10 29er of questionable assembly quality

Well, this instead of TTT

Cheers all 👍😀😀🍺🍺

View this post on Instagram

Pub!!!!

A post shared by Matt RV (@fantasticmrmatt) on Jun 25, 2020 at 1:30pm PDT

Got out for a faff about in the woods on my mtb which was good.

Hope everyone enjoyed the weather. Indoors in this would have been awful

I got owned tonight On the TTT.  Due to people dropping out I entered our A team as a Sub, which includes a County TT champ.  I was way out of my league, and everyone knew but I was making up the numbers in a team of 4. Also my man cave was 37 degrees

Halfway through with an average 3.9wkg and some pulls at 5.5wkg I couldn’t take it any more, stopped, had a couple of minutes rest and completed the course doing solo one on, one off Z5 intervals.    Kudos to the guys, they finished strong.

Im not discouraged, I was clearly above my station and did average my highest 10 mins at 4.2wkg and matched my ftp, All of which is at my weakest point of my power curve.

My God. The fans, they do nothing!

That felt like the hardest TTT I’ve done, hot as balls. Didn’t feel like I went over the climb especially hard but was absolutely under water after it for around 10 mins.
Managed to hang on as we were 7 deep this evening, and the legs slowly perked up so finished it OK. 42.38 for us at the line.

Sounds like a strong effort Kryton in a fast 4 – need to go very deep to hang in a small group like that.

^^^^^

The STW squad?

Hadn’t spotted the Alpe race on that profile.
You won the C cat by 5.5 minutes
You’d have been 13th in B cat out of 35 proper B cat racers.

I have No idea what you are looking at, if there are some alternative results out there I don’t know about them and don’t use zwift power to check retrospectively.

All I know is I’ve done the alp race and came 5th in the Cs (just checked). No idea why is be showing as first anywhere. I assume because they aren’t registered on zwift power maybe?

You say the zwift results don’t count, but given they are the only ones I look at that’s what I take my results from. I like racing the folks during the game, I don’t care if I get a win on zwift power later because half the field hasn’t registered.

You say the zwift results don’t count, but given they are the only ones I look at that’s what I take my results from. I like racing the folks during the game, I don’t care if I get a win on zwift power later because half the field hasn’t registered.

BUt that’s the whole point of Zwiftpower mate. In Zwft races you’re racing against people who finish a C race with an average of 5w/kg. They’re not Cs, they’re As racing out of Cat. You’re equating it to real-life, but if you turned up at a Cat 4 and were soundly beaten up a hill by a Cat A, you wouldn’t say “oh well, that’s racing”, you’d complain they were allowed to race.

Well Zwift doesn’t stop people racing, but Zwiftpower retrospectively kicks them out of the ‘true’ results. They’re not necessarily kicked out on Zwiftpower because they’re not registered, but because they’re racing in the wrong Cat.

I had a long post typed, realised it feels a lot like we’re picking on TP so moving swiftly along…

On a related subject, anyone fancy the 17.45 crit city this evening?

It’ll be very warm…

They’re not necessarily kicked out on Zwiftpower because they’re not registered, but because they’re racing in the wrong Cat.

But Tom says I came first in a c race once on zwift power. Zwift says I came 5th. Surely I’d be disqualified like the 4 guys in front of me?

Either way I just had a look and can’t see any of my historical results in zwift power.

You did.
You have to dig about as you are DQed on ZP. I’ve explained it all up there.

I know it’s utterly ridiculous that you have to look at a separate website not officially associated with Zwift but that is where the results are that actually put you against people you should be racing. Race your heart out against the people on the road but to pick a category use the one ZP give you and your FTP leads you towards and accept that you will probably never “win” on Zwift as there’ll be someone pulling 5+ wkg on a dum trainer.

You will get so much more out of the racing, espeically bunch races, if you register on ZP and do a bit of reading of the rules.

One day Zwift might enforce category selection with the data they have.
Yes WKG is a flawed system but you are actually competitive in B races against the actual B racers. Not the sandbaggers who enter the wrong category.

I can relate to TP.  I’ve won C’s, then I’ve been off the podium by rider doing 90 minute at 5wkg in C.  I’m racing to top 10-15 B in the longer races, but you can still see A’s and A+ entering for the podium.

They are cheating themselves, I prefer to take the moral high ground and focus on my performance markers for my training purposes, after all I’m an MTB endurance racer not a Zwift crit champion.

You were first in C on this race.
https://www.zwiftpower.com/events.php?zid=896535
On the filtered tab your time is 1:31:27 1 second up on the official C winner.
You’d have been 13th in B.
IMO with the power you can hold for Bologna you could probably stick with the next B group who fnished 1:28:20 and were 2nd to 10th. Maybe you’d be cooked by the end and have come 10th but next time you might be a bit stronger or a better racer and be in the mix for 5th.
That 3 minute gap is not much over that length of race. Not one you’d be able to bridge but one you could possibly stick with early on before the groups split and you made sure you were on the right side of that split.

No-one fancying the crit this evening then?

I just tried the 16:00. I lasted only a few mins. Just way too hot in there I’m afraid

Sweet baby weeksy and the motorbikeicleists that was hard!

[edit] three pb laps[/edit] 16th on the road. Ftp increase which isn’t ideal so think I’ll be on for DQ and bump on zp. I was mixing with the front up to the final lap so misjudged that a bit, not enough left in the tank to pull with everyone on lap 8. Ended up too late with the surge at the end so only picked up a few places to the line.

[2nd edit] 9th on zp. Winner of B was 71kg @291/w, 8th was 280w and 70kg TP so it is do-able. That said there was a chap at 108kg pulling 421w average in 3rd…[/edit]

I wouldn’t be surprised if everyone under 20th got DQ’d. Lots and lots of big numbers all the way around there.

New update has dropped….new routes including France and Paris.
Unfortunately they are event only for now from the feedback I’ve seen, hopefully after the virtual TDF they will open to all.

I’ve heard there is meant to be a Mont Ventoux included

Be good to get to race on a few new courses at least. Though I imagine Paris will just be another crit course to all intents.

Zwift so needs to introduce something equivalent to RGT’s auto-power/speed brake on bends, so we have to accelerate back up to racing speed on anything but shallow corners.

So needs to introduce wind influence too.

Looks like I might have to set the road bike up on the turbo today after the ongoing overnight rain, can’t see the roads drying up… First time in over a week, making excellent use of a second consecutive monthly sub! 😆

I’m excited for Ventoux! IRL steeper than most trainers go right? Wonder if they’ll tweak it slightly?

Paris should be fun as well as short course like Crit City but even more flat, which should be bonkers, draft-and-sprint-tastic!

I’m not sure the Paris sprint course will be much flatter than the existing crit course, IRL it has a surprising amount of climbing in it.

Speaking of crits (shoehorn alert) I’ve just bagged a podium on the 1545hrs Crit City cat C. I’m honing my “do as little as possible for as long as possible then go for a surprise long sprint” technique quite well!

Well I’ve entered my first Cat A, the 18.00 ZHR hare and hounds for today. Two laps of tempus fugit so pancake flat which really isn’t my strength and it’s double draft so I’ll be dead in the water as soon as I lose the wheel in front. I think I shall be pleased just not to get lapped.

Wish me luck.

Or come along and laugh.

Unfortunately they are event only for now from the feedback I’ve seen, hopefully after the virtual TDF they will open to all.

Apparently 7 new courses have appeared in the badge section, which implies post-TDF they will be. Would be good to see some maps but I haven’t found any yet.

IRL steeper than most trainers go right? Wonder if they’ll tweak it slightly?

I thought the default setting for the perceived gradient was 50% of the actual though? (e.g. mine goes up to 12% which on default settings is in-game 24%)

I thought the default setting for the perceived gradient was 50% of the actual though? (e.g. mine goes up to 12% which on default settings is in-game 24%)

I’m really not sure about the difficulty thing, the default 50% certainly feels a lot steeper on shallow gradients than riding outside. That said the 15%+ sections are a lot easier. If I had to I’d guess it’s on a curve rather than a flat 50%.

(on the one occasion I set mine to full the incline out of the watopia tunnel felt like hitting a brick wall, I did seem to be having trouble with the turbo over the next few days though)

Normally have the gradient slider on max (although nudge it down for certain races so I can do the whole thing in the big ring), lots of higher end trainers e.g. Neo simulate up to 25% which is bloody steep. Really pumped for these new routes & the presumed vTDF!

dangeourbrain
Subscriber
Well I’ve entered my first Cat A, the 18.00 ZHR hare and hounds for today. Two laps of tempus fugit so pancake flat which really isn’t my strength and it’s double draft so I’ll be dead in the water as soon as I lose the wheel in front. I think I shall be pleased just not to get lapped.

Wish me luck.

Or come along and laugh.

I’ve just entered cat C so I’ll no doubt see you go flying past at some point.