Zwift, my journey, my weight and my fitness.

thinking about having a crack at one of the races tonight. is the KISS europe race a stupid place to start?

Perfect place to start, I have done 4 or 5 of these. Tonight’s races have different starts for each cat. Make sure you enter the correct Cat as if you exceed the cat limits you will be DQed

Be prepared to put a serious effort in from the off, the pace will settle down a bit after a couple of minutes.

Hob Nob – Member

….so thought I would crack on with the FTP test for a baseline

I’ve had a sore throat for the last 10 days or so & the glands in my neck have been up, so I’ve put off doing it but I think I’ll do one of these ftp tests in the next few days now I seem to be back to normal….
Not really looking forward to it, if I’m honest but figure it has to be done!!! 😆

KISS race is perfect, generally about an hour or so in time, so you can keep up a decent chunk of your FTP speed/power.

I did an hour this morning so i’m not playing tonight.

!!! how hard is that test??

As hard as you make it, but essentially if you are doing it to train and improve it should be everything you have for the actual 20min stint.

There is a bit of an art to doing them though – basically you need to be as consistent and solid as you can all the way, no point in blowing up in the first 5-10 mins and limping home with a low result.

If you can, start strong & slowly ramp it up all the way to the end. in short.

I’ve had a sore throat for the last 10 days or so & the glands in my neck have been up, so I’ve put off doing it but I think I’ll do one of these ftp tests in the next few days now I seem to be back to normal….
Not really looking forward to it, if I’m honest but figure it has to be done!!!

They are no fun at all – I had a serious chest infection about 6 weeks ago, so have only just started doing anything remotely tough since, it was nasty work today 🙂

Persuaded Mrs A to let me have my xmas prezzie early, so I’m off to Halfords over the weekend to get involved.

It’s probably sad that I’m so excited about it. Been feeling fat and lazy of late, so I’m expecting pain. Last time I went out my legs felt like wet noodles 😐

Don’t forget guys, if your smart trainer has Bluetooth, you don’t strictly need a dongle to get going if you have a mobile device as you can pair through the Zwift App.

I was going to ask to see if anyone uses just Bluetooth? My laptop has Bluetooth but I wasn’t sure how reliable it would be, compared to Ant+.

Should be spot on.

Mmm..I’ve heard otherwise but never tried it myself.

I have done sessions on Bluetooth to try it out through the app and they worked perfectly. No good for Ant+ HRM and Cadrnce or I would use it all the time.

Also, my wifi isn’t great. My laptop is ethernet cabled in for group rides and races. I wouldn’t trust my iphone or iPad wifi signal not to drop out.

i was struggling with wifi in the shed on my phone but have an powerline ethernet adaptor in there. discovered earlier that I can set my laptop up at as a wifi hotspot and linked my phone to that. worked perfectly.

first race hurt. waiting for the final results now…

bugger it. just over the cat D limit (2.65) so disqualified, but it would seem so were 16 out of the 36 entered. i was trying to hold onto them.

is there somewhere it shows you your W/kg figure for the race?

http://www.zwiftpower.com/v2/race.php?id=1752

Zwiftpower is your friend 🙂

i meant during the race.

Yes, Zwiftpower runs live.

(Or just run average power on your Garmin etc)

that seems complicated.

edit: not the garmin bit, don’t have one. got a kinetic inride powermeter on bluetooth.

Easier just to race in C 😉

probably will next time. just suprised me the pace of the Cat D race and then everyone I was burying myself chasing get disqualified…

jam bo – Member

probably will next time. just suprised me the pace of the Cat D race and then everyone I was burying myself chasing get disqualified…

Yup, it’s proper crazy but not uncommon, i had about the same number in a race DQ’d… hence i won… with a 2.53 average.

If you’ve got the legs there’s a race tnoight, both me and Crosshair are racing in C. (my first time in C and expect to be last). 7pm. Friday Criterium series.

Big qn is though Jam, did you enjoy it ?

I might do the crit race tonight, just to see what it’s all about.

How does it work? Do you just sign in before & join the event? get going once it starts?

Joining rides used to be chaos but recently theres been a new group ride function added details here..

https://support.zwift.com/hc/en-us/articles/210511106-Joining-an-Event

@ Jambo perhaps if you hadn’t got into a sprint finished you wouldn’t have bumped up a cat 😀

There is a 10 mile TT every Wednesday at 20:00 GMT, for a slightly easier race experience, but must be done on a virtual TT bike so there is no draft effect.

guilty…

how did you work that out?

Sprinting at the end probably won’t affect your w/kg on Zwiftpower. It is based on 95% of your best 20min effort during the race, which normally happens in the first 20minutes of the race.

I normally do the TFC race, but am currently away with work so giving it a misss tonight. There is normally a good turn out of C riders.

Joining a race. The earlier you join the higher on the grid you are placed at start. You then sit on a Virtual Turbo on the start line, which you don’t have to pedal. You get the option to ‘join event’ with 30 mins before race start on the screen. So sign in… ‘ride’ and then click so you get the menu button at 30 mins to go, you then get the join ride option.
I sign in, join and then go put my boy to bed usually as they’re 8pm starts.

Tonight I won’t massivley worry about grid position as i expect to do badly overall anyway, so where i start will have little bearing on where i finish. The trick though is to be hitting 4+ w/kg as the race start ticks down to 0.00 so you’re on a flier as soon as the race begins… get yourself a good start and latch onto a fast group.
Drafting will give you 0.5w/kg or more, so for me, i can sit quite easily on someones wheel doing 3w/kg whilst only doing 2.4 or 2.5 at the time.
I’m hoping to hook onto one of these groups of Cs until i die and then just see what i can do from there on my own or with whoever i find nearby

When you add yourself for the race, you log into Zwift and start riding… you’ll then see ‘join event’

That’s 30 mins before start time. If racing, the earlier you join the closer to start line you start.

You then end up on a Virtual Turbo on the start line, you can ride (with no logged distance) or just ignore and jump on with 5 mins to go for warmup etc…

how did you work that out?

It was me you were sprinting with!

@jason not in the D cat last night..the second lap was faster than the first and many of the group were over 3w/kg for the last 10k

I wonder if people are trying to be sandbaggers to an extent and entering race catagories they think they can win as they think “well i can put out 3.0 and the rest can only put out 2.49 so i should win”

OR if they simply don’t realise/understand the catagories or maybe they misjudged their potential expected output ?

Obviously as riders improve regulalry it can cloud the issue, but it’s not like you’re going to go from 2.3 average to 3.0 in an afternoon is it ?

It was me you were sprinting with!

ah…I’d been riding on my own since box hill, i was bored 😉

Theres probably a bit of that but more likely it just takes a few rides to work out whats best for you.

another question. are all the riders you see on course during the race, racing. or is it a race within the normal zwift world?

If you’re in a race, others will be not racing, if you’re in a ‘ride’ some will be racing.

However, if you’re in a ride, you see all riders who are ahead/behind with their distance, watts, times etc.

In a race, you only see the people you’re racing in the list for speeds, distances, time ahead/behind etc.

You can stil draft non-racers if racing.

Thanks for the info – will give it a pop tonight then.

I don’t quite understand all the A-D other than it being based on output levels – does Zwift automatically do this on your FTP, or do I need to choose when join?

Does it even matter as a separate point?

you have to pick based on what you think your w/kg is likely to be. I underestimated and went over the 2.5W/kg limit for Cat D and got disqualified.

in hindsight I went too hard on the first lap and that 20min power pushed me over. I think I’ll stick with Cat D for the next race and pace myself a little better. do some more drafting as well.

Some have different start times. 8.00, 8.02, 8.04 etc for the categories.

Some are group start and you category only goes in your name.

I sounds complex but in reality its just 30s planning pre race.

You select it e.g weeks kiss (d)

So based on me at 3.25w/kg do I have to do anything?

I’m kind of on the threshold of ‘B’ based on that criteria.

I’m not fussed about possibly ‘winning’ a virtual race, just want to make sure i’m doing it right & i’m going to be around people of a similar fitness so i’m not smoked in the first 10 minutes 🙂

Put the letter in your name and enter correct category if a split start.

Tonights criterium at 7pm is mass start.

Look at tonights evr race to see one with split starts for example

I see – thanks!

How does all this fit in with building a steady winter base 😉

mrblobby – Member

How does all this fit in with building a steady winter base

God knows, i don’t even know what that means…

I’m sure Friel could answer that though.