Zwift, my journey, my weight and my fitness.

Dangourbrain, not sure if it helps but with different circumstances I’m also tired and your race sounds very much like my attempt at 2 x sweet spot up Ven Top in a 33 degree mancave last night.   I think the heat is more fatiguing that you reliase sometimes, I just couldn’t get the power out.

Didn’t ride this morning, felt too tired at 5-30am so went back to sleep. Will probably do it this evening after work.

Sometimes you just need a lie in 🙂

Sometimes you just need a lie in 🙂

Fairly often in my case it seems!

not sure if it helps

It does a bit – roughly how long does Venn top take? Thinking I’m going to do that as a Sunday hills this week if anyone fancies joining me?

how long does Venn top take

I gave up before I reached the top.  It depends on pace of course.  Its 20km and I was averaging 11kmh yesterday.

It is relentless though, the KM’s tick along very slowly.

So if I pitch for 2-2.5 I should be good. That might mean an earlier start than I’d like then to be finished on time this Sunday. Hmmmm.

Your ride yesterday has everything @dangeourbrain. Not the best day to start a tough ride overdressed without a fan.

how long does Venn top take

It took me 1:36 of which 1:31 was the strava climb segment at a (robotic) 3.2w/kg. That was in the never ending peloton of the etape though, so it would have been slower without the megadraft. I said afterwards I see no reason to ever ride that route again, and I still think that. I like zwift because it relieves the relentless of indoor riding. Ven-top does not exactly have that virtue.

I said afterwards I see no reason to ever ride that route again, and I still think that. I like zwift because it relieves the relentless of indoor riding. Ven-top does not exactly have that virtue.

I can certainly understand that one, mainly I’d like to get it ticked off and I guess, what with it being the first weekend of France being open to the masses, it should be a bit busier than normal so hopefully stand a chance of hooking onto a group for a bit of a shared workload.

It is relentless, I did it at around 2 to 2.5KW and it took me 1hr 46mins if I remember correctly. The worst part is from 6km to 12km, as the gradient is at its worst constantly, from 10% to 12%. It’s tough and as it just goes on and on it’s more of a mind game. I’ve done it once as a full route and the La Reine route also which goes within about 5km of the summit.

If I’m about on Sunday I’ll join you, I may do an outdoors ride, but I’ll be just cruising up.

You will easily do that in under 2 hours brian. I did it in 1 hour 53 and you are a lot quicker than me. I enjoyed the bit after chalet raynard more. It was more interesting the first bit is quite monotonous and boring.

Looks like I could finally be setting up the turbo rather than donating £13 to poor Zwift millionaires, my operation wound is healing nicely now, but the weekend thunderstorms have started. 🙁

Guess it means I can finally try the new France routes and maybe pootle stage 2 of the Tarmac SL7 event.

savoyad
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I said afterwards I see no reason to ever ride that route again, and I still think that.

My thoughts exactly, I did it on my kickr with a climb with the gradient set at 100% realism – it was the worst day on the turbo I’ve ever had and I’ve done a 6hr Zwift imperial century on the hilly route back when that was the only Watopia option.

It’s so much harder than the Alpe, mentally more than physically I think, as it’s just a constant slog with no live performance indicators such as segment average etc. Plus if you do it as part of a Chalet Reynard ride your distance to go marker stops at Chalet Reynard so you’ve no real idea of far you’ve left to go unless you know the distance from CR to the finish.

Oooooo that was a hot one! Stage 2 of Tarmac this evening, it was hot in the pain cave, managed to get into a small group fairly quick and kept with some of them all the way round the 2 laps.

The hills broke up the group abit but it didn’t feel too bad overall. 55:45 for the race, came in 48th out of 117, 41 on ZP. Average of 240w.

La Reine on Saturday will be a challenge.

Yeah I reckon Le Reine is harder than Ven-Top and I like those sort of rides on Zwift!

I agree, I found La Reine much harder than Ven-Top. It must be that lead in and the petit KOM taking it out of you before the main climb.

You lot really aren’t selling me on getting up that hill!

Good effort on stage 2 Craig, I really did not enjoy that one, night have been a boy better if I knew the course but barring the really obvious ones the hills all took me by surprise, somehow on lap couldn’t actually remember them from lap 1 even.

https://www.zwiftpower.com/events.php?zid=1006244

Bit confused today, I think my HR monitor was reading low, entered a short flat race, playing to my strengths. Off the start the C’s were 5s ahead and I was leading them out, as a few As and Bs caught us I jumped on and were ended as a group of about 20, with 6 of us being C riders, over the next 15 mins, 3 of the C’s were shelled out.
With 1.1km to go a pair of As split us with 8w/kg and I ignored them, concentrating only in holding the group.
300m to go it all went nuts and I held my own but didn’t set the world alight.

End if race I got an FTP increase to 298w and a DQ from race.
I’ve now been put into B for the race and I hope not for the next 90 days lol.

Fun race and tough effort

I have entered the MAAP Stage 2 race tomorrow at 11 if anyone is about. I am on holiday this week but we have stayed at home and no plans for tomorrow so will be a good warm up before the TTT on Thursday as I have not ridden for 5 days! Longest break from the bike this year.

I think I will be doing the 7am one which is still Stage 1, but might just go for the group ride, not really sure which to do yet but I’m edging towards the Rising Empire ride as I’ve not done it yet.

What’s the course like Robbo ?

2 options Weeksy for Stage 2. Long ride is Magnificent 8, shorter is Douche France, both flatish for the sprinters.

Flatish, there’s no such thing. There’s flat and not flat. Richmond, crit city, everything else

Douce France would likely be a good course for you I think Weeksy. A few bumps and one very short climb. Nothing like the climbs on the full Richmond circuit.

https://zwiftinsider.com/route/douce-france/

Douche would be no worse than Watopia flat really for slight rises here and there, but not pancake flat.

Douce France is proper witches tit.

LOL @ flat…

2%, -2%, 4%, -2%, 3%..0…3%

So not flat in my world.

I went off with the fast Cs… I held in there until 15.1km…. i then lost it… well, i kinda soft pedalled/quit…. then jumped on the next group who i sat with until 19km…. then again, got shelled.. It was then a fight with Robbos group…I don’t know how many were in his group, i think 5-6…. but i had about a minute on them and 4km to go.
With 1.5km to go i had 24s…. So i’d lost 35-40s in the last 2km… it wasn’t looking good for me.

With 700m to go i had 15s…. So i tried, i mean really tried !!! i crossed the line 2s ahead of Robbos group. !

Disappointed, well a bit… I should be holding onto a C race.. But it wasn’t exactly a course that suits me… some of the 3% stuff puts me in the deep dark area.

It was pretty tough. No where to really get a breather on that course. For some reason I was a struggling to keep up on the slight downhill sections. I was in the second group on the road and not doing to bad but lost them in the downhill from the aqueduct. I settled into the next group which was about 60th and about 10-12 strong and stayed with them until the end of the line. Didn’t realise I was so close to you weeksy until the end and saw the results! Good recon for the TTT on Thursday. 35 mins for the course.

That’s the problem I have, breathing, it’s flat out all the way on that loop and the similar Casse-Pattes with the hill addition, you just have to find a group and hang on…I quite like it for that!!

I’m probably going to have a go in the morning.

For some reason I was a struggling to keep up on the slight downhill sections

This is not unusual – turn your trainer difficulty down and you go faster down hills as it’s much easier to maintain power without spinning out. It also smooths out the transition between 0% & whatever where, on higher difficulties your trainer adjusting tends to suck a few W for a second or so causing you to drop off the folks in front without the same transition. In a big group that’s sometimes enough to shell you irretrievably if you’re towards the back anyway. (the reverse is also true which is why you often see a momentary spike in your power as you hit a slope before your trainer kicks up the resistance. The sticky draft though tends to mean it has no effect on the shape of the group.)

Oooooo that felt harder than it should have. MAAP stage 2 this morning. There was no race stage for some reason, just the group ride so I did that…its still a race!
Did my usual, off too hard and ended in one of the front groups where I felt a little uncomfortable and pushing hard. Managed to stay with them until the aqueduct where I got left for dead. Stayed with a couple of others who had the same and got to the sprint in the village before another group caught us.
Stayed with then until about 5km out where I got spat our the back again and couldn’t get back on. My error of going off too hard in the beginning hadn’t helped.
So it was TT for me until the next group came through with about 3km to go and they took me to the line.
A 35:46 which wasn’t too bad but I reckon I had more in me if I can learn to pace better and not burn myself out too early.
That france course is pretty brutal, its power on all the way with no downhill to get your breath back.

Need to keep practising.

Got a couple of race reports to update.

I tried to do the 11am MAAP Stage 3 Race yesterday morning. 20 seconds before the start it crashed out so that was the end of that. The timings of that stage later in the day didn’t work out so I decided to do the 4pm Downton Dolphin 12 Lap Crit Race.

I had a good start and managed to get into the lead group on the road. It was tough going but I managed to keep up for about the first 8 laps, however, each time through the bumps at the end would put me further behind which I would then try and catch up on the flat section and hill. I got dropped from the group and remembered something dangrourbrain had said about turning trainer difficulty down. I did this whilst still riding and found it a bit easier to keep the power down when the terrain undulates (although it felt quite unnatural). I ended up in a group of 4 competing for 11th place out of about 85. On the last lap one of them hit the climb bit hard and dropped a burrito and got away from us. I had a aero left so saved it until the last bend and managed to get up to about 700W and dropped the other 2 to finish in 13th overall on the Zwift Companion and 7th on Zwiftpower.

This morning I again attempted the 11am MAAP Stage 3 race and this time it worked. I hit the first climb really hard and stayed with the lead group all the way through the first lap. It was hard though and I hit a new high 20 min power of 284W for lap finishing it in just under 20 minutes. I then lost the group the second time up the climb and was sitting in about 25th in a group of 4. It went back and forth a bit over the rest of the lap but I managed to keep up with them and use an aero just before the last corner and beat them in the sprint. I also got a load of PB’s for power from about 15mins through to 30 mins. I came in 21st overall on the Zwift Companion and 16th on Zwift power (think there were about 80 in total).

Ive done 4 races this week and my heart rate has gradually come down as my power has gone up so been able to quickly undo my week and a bit off doing any structured training. Back to the structured training this week with a couple of races and commutes thrown in!

Pacer bots just gone live on Zwift. Can be found in watopia, 4 different speeds.

https://zwiftinsider.com/pace-partners/

Still trying to work out if my issues with Zwift are with the Ant+ dongle or my laptop. I think it’s more likely the dongle, but would be nice if i could narrow it down without spending money to find out. It’s almost like when i insert it i then have to wiggle it slighlty off angle to get it to register. The problem with that is that it’s not foolproof and not 100%. I sometimes get drop outs because of it. Last night on the TTT i’d just told the lads to ride without me and it started playing up… It wouldn’t have made the difference anyway as i couldn’t hold their pace uphill (but that’s a whole other Zwift discussion i need to have)

So do i replace the dongle (it’s my 2nd one) or do i get a Bluetooth HR strap and just use my phone instead for Zwifting. Screen size is a minor issue using the phone, but it’s not the end of the world. But then again, i don’t want to buy a bluetooth strap that doesn’t work with my phone.

I’ve tried the Ant+ add-ons for Android but i still can’t get the phone to see my Garmin HR strap.

Reason i need this is to race in Zwift you need a HR monitor to podium, if i’m racing, the odds are i’m somewhere near the pointy end in ZP so could do with it.

I’d be tempted to just get the dongle weeksy. For £10 with prime, if it doesn’t solve the issue you’d probably get a fiver back on ebay anyhow.

I found running zwift on my phone was a total PITA on the occasions I’ve had to.

I have a spare dongle you can have @weeksy. You should get it tomorrow if I can get it in the post today?

I’ve been off Zwift since April. Going to start again in a couple of weeks. Always good to come back to this thread. I was going to have a go at Ventoux but I think maybe I might work up to that.

Also anyone tempted by the new Elite Strerzo smart? I watched DC rainmaker vid and convinced myself it was worth a punt.

Ventoux is hard but not as bad as I expected tbh. For me the first bit to Chalet Reynard is harder than the second bit up to the top. It’s just relentless up up up at least near the top you get the iconic views you expect.

Seen quite a few reports of people having issues with sweat ingress causing problems with Sterzo, does look better in game that I expected though.

@weeksy is your laptop new enough to have Bluetooth? Worth trying that if it does to see if that solves the dropouts.

Do you plug the dongle straight in it via an extension cable. If cabled then try direct. If direct and you get a replacement then try cabled. Have you tried a different usb port on the laptop, could be that the port itself is damaged causing a poor connection.

It is possible to connect devices via the companion app (assuming your WiFi is strong in the zwift location). Though not sure you can connect the trainer that way and run the game on the laptop.

For a HR strap I’ve got one of the cheap decathlon ones that will connect by either ant+ or Bluetooth.

work laptop Nixie, BT disabled by policy. Get shot if we enable it

Robbo, don’t worry mate, keep it as spares.

I’m testing a laptop now i bought for the wife a few weeks ago.

That’s annoying. Strange they lock down Bluetooth but not usb.

Any scope for dual boot?

seems it’s deffo the ports on the laptop, i assume through being over-used/word/kicked about lol.

If i use a bit of tape to ensure the Ant+ dongle is not moving/loose then it hopefully seems consistent.

Weirdly, using the new HP laptop i can’t get a spanner for calibration on either the Ant+ or BT for the Snap, it sees it as FE-C but won’t give me a calibration spanner. Even if i disable BT and just use Ant+

So apart from knowing the ports on the laptop are a bit duff, i’m no further on yet.