Zwift Team Time Trial, Thursday

Hi everyone. Teams are entered for this week.
2 laps of Harrogate Reverse, 27km.

Enter category A here: https://www.zwift.com/events/view/1293909

I am in – horrible direction with that climb by the bend though!

But – apart from that wall – it’s a better course for a TTT backwards than forwards I think.

that climb by the bend though

Which one? The climbs in reverse should all start with a bend!

The wall as Adam aptly describes it after you go over the bridge!

Hello anyone who came here from @robbo1234biking’s post in the race thread.

You’d be very welcome to join us. The basics
– every Thursday evening at 7.40
– usually 2 teams of up to 8 riders, both teams a mix of B and C category riders, although we ride with whoever wants to join in.
– emphasis on getting the whole team round

This week it’s 2 laps of Harrogate Reverse. We have eight riders signed up so far, so room for more still. To enter, join category A here https://www.zwift.com/events/view/1293909 (join A whatever category you usually ride, the system works differently for this event). Once you are in we organise it here in the thread. Any questions, just ask and they’ll be answered pretty quickly usually…

Regrettably I’m not able to join you tomorrow folks as I’ve to be out of the house before 7pm.

That said given my lack of legs yesterday I’m not sure that’s a bad thing for you lot!

I totally understand the format of the way we structure our teams, but I didn’t really enjoy last week. Personally I don’t see the point in trying to do ‘well’ in Latte. I’d much rather go for our fastest team without giving any consideration for which coffee class we’re in and trying to better our team working in terms of drafting and lead outs. Phil is a great drill sergeant and would be great at Captaining any fast team. After watching Nixies team perform last week I’d prefer to field riders where we can attempt a slick operation and better our overall time. I’m not suggesting we go changing things, just seeing what others thoughts are. Adam does a great job with team selection, and regardless of teams it’s still a fun event.

I think this week is mainly Bs in any case. We can always have practice sessions using the meet-up function so there aren’t any other teams in the way and practice the actual drafting and riding in a line. Nixies team last week didn’t panic when they got in a line and there were 3 to 4 m gaps but they are a lot stronger and can put in the short digs when needed. Are you thinking that we should be doing more turns on the front each and being more organised rather than you setting the pace and then a blob behind?

Depends why people are doing it I guess – you could aim for the champs in a years time and look to build to that and using each week to learn but accepting that performance might not be as good and mistakes will happen.

I always try to match the team selection with people’s preferences for how we run things. But they pull in different directions sometimes!

There is a clash though between “going fast” and “targeting the champs” – because the mixed-ability thing is hardwired into the rules of the event. To aim to “win” you need to conform to the category rules, so 3 of one category and 5 from the cat below (so e.g @nixie’s team has 3x cat A riders in it and to compete at the pointy end in frappe that’s necessary). To “win”, our best bet is latte. To “go fast” our best bet would always be to ride (but technically quite badly!) in frappe. That’s just a consequence of our primarily B/C makeup as a group. But, as @paino says, that can be fun, sometimes damn the rules.

In @phil56 we have a really brilliant latte road captain, and our group of C’s (when they stay C @yanboss…) are also excellent latte riders – clustered near the top of C, with the knack for following Phil’s pace with just enough left in the tank to really pull their weight etc. Better drilled, we’d be realistically aiming for PL most weeks in latte (assuming extra seriousness didn’t lead to a breakdown in the group, change motivations etc). But that – well drilled in latte – isn’t what @paino is after here… It goes round in circles a bit. I’ve always thought the mix of objectives mean the best community outcome is just seeing what happens from week to week. And I quite like the mix and the unpredictability. I’m conscious that only I can sometimes see the rationale for my choices, I aim to hope that in the long run people enjoy it enough to keep coming back.

I really don’t normally fixate on the category – although if on any week’s entries I see the opportunity to aim to do well in latte (without ballsing up the other team) I do try to take it from time to time. But generally I just try to put out lineups which suit people. Most recently, that has meant a clearly faster STW than MoreSTW, with some B’s moving between the teams (but changing responsibility levels accordingly). More and more B’s is making latte harder without really focussing on keeping one team to 3Bs. I admit I did fixate on the category last week. I thought it was worth it for the worlds. I’m sorry you didn’t enjoy it paino.

As it happens, my days of riding in these are numbered (for STW anyway, I really struggle with Thursday evenings and tomorrow might well be my last. A confession: I’m just sorting out a ride on another team in the morning time slot). I don’t mind administering still unless someone else wants to step in. It’s nice to be involved.

And to be honest I’d prefer to see people expressing their preferences so I can try to be responsive (even if it’s like herding cats…)

First – I’m REALLY grateful to anyone who organises any of these things (Robbo, Adam, anyone else who’d done stuff on the admin side and Phil/Adam/… on the road-captaining side). Pretty sure all the people who ride feel the same on that.

On winning shit, the sharp-end races are just like the individual races really; if you’re all at the top end of your respective categories you can be a really competitive team. I think that’s the only way to actually “win”.
I’m OK but not a top-end B cat so I’ll likely never win an event outright (Paino, if you’re still a ZP B, you certainly could be part of a really fast team).

I don’t mind how my team rides at all – I’m happy hanging on for grim death OR doing a biggish share on the front, depending on who’s in the group. Couldn’t give a bugger about wins, just good hard rides to get me fitter.

I do enjoy the through & off in a matched group, just because it seems “right” though after conversations over the last week or so I think I’ve not quite been doing it right on zwift (battering through from somewhere further back than p2 seems to be faster from what I heard and I’ve not tried that). That said, it would require much better overall skillz’n’co-ordination and the team knowing what you’re up to or else the risk is just blasting ahead, losing the bunch and then getting passed & dropped if you ease off.

Shame that you won’t be able to ride anymore @savoyad but I would certainly appreciate it if you could continue to administer the team and do the team picks etc!

Why not give it a go tomorrow night and pick the fastest team of riders on one team then? At the moment I think I will be the slowest out of the riders currently signed up due to the hills (especially the wall) but happy to ride however people want.

especially the wall

If I told you that’s much worse in real life would you believe me?

@scaredypants, you put it much better than I did! The through and off in a matched group is what makes it fun, and for me, the addictive part of TTT’ing. To be fair, last week I was my own worst enemy, by taking turns on the front then not giving myself a proper breather in the pack before giving it another go. Also conscious that MoreSTW were catching and that was motivation in itself to do too much! In essence I feel like I’m making a mess of it and probably not benefiting the team.

I played around with Discord yesterday so hopefully shouldn’t be too much interference now. I’ve changed the transmit setting to push to talk so hopefully it helps. Can’t get the discord box to minimise small enough though!

I did suggest trying this in the very early days of the TTT, although no-one was keen so I dropped it! I don’t know if it’ll be the best/most fun way to ride, and certainly needs a lot more planning/co-ordination; I’d definitely like to try it though just to see what it’s like and see if it adds a different dynamic. It’d have to be the B Team if I were going to take any meaningful turns on the front 😂

10 of us so far for tonight. Still room for a few more. Category A here: https://www.zwift.com/events/view/1293909

I’ll give it a few hours for people to join in, then sort some teams around lunchtime.

I’m unable to join in tonight. I do read with interest about working better as a team and I’d like to think I could help out during a race.

I signed up for the event.

I’d like to sign up for this but am feeling pretty wiped out at the moment so will give it a miss. Tuesdays race and a 12 hour day yesterday replacing floorboards has emptied the tank good and proper. Will Probably join my daughter for a leisurely tour of of one of the flatter routes in Watopia instead. Have a good race all.

I’ve signed up, no idea what I’m doing but I’ll try not to make too much of a mess of it. How do you find your team?

@mahowlett just need to wait for the team manager (@savoyad) to announce the teams which he will do shortly! If you look at this link it will explain the process
singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/zwift-team-time-trial-thursday/page/24/#post-11487514

if you can join Discord with this link
https://discord.gg/4ECruWxQ
and sort out a bluetooth headset with a (decent!) mic that would be really helpful for co-ordinating everything!!

Great news @mbs, see you later. That makes sense @drew (do you ride in the same building/room as your daughter? or is it a remote thing?), hopefully see you back soon.

And welcome @mahowlett! I can see you in the entry system. There will be two teams today, I’ll post the info in a bit (including how to tag yourself as a member of one of them, and the weird start procedure). In the meantime sit tight – creating a zwiftpower account is usually the main first-time hassle, but you are already sorted for that.

I am in, @mbs is in and watching his start technique.

I am happy to ride, in either group, for any objective !.

I would like to be more efficient though, such as having a pre-determined ride order, trying to maintain an actual line, and pulling through either from the rear or 2nd place, whatever, with a road captain calling the shots. I’m more interested in improving that technique than the actual result or class we are in, perversely.

Bear in mind for those interested the ZRL is starting a new season in January, although it does clash with the Tuesday rides.

Bear in mind for those interested the ZRL is starting a new season in January, although it does clash with the Tuesday rides.

I’d definitely be up for ZRL however if Robbo is continuing his series and sticking with Tuesdays then that will take preference!

@nixie did a post recently, which I can’t find (I haven’t looked very hard I admit), explaining how they go about most efficiently getting to the front before they do a pull and back again afterwards. It was quite specific IIRC. What did you say nixie?

@savoyad thanks. At the moment we’re set up in the same room. Rebecca logs on on her phone and then I join her via the Apple TV. We started zwifting remotely back in March while I was up in Cumbria looking after my dad through until the beginning of July. Rebecca had expressed an interest in improving her fitness and it seemed a good way of keeping it going while I was away from home.

@savoyad, I remember posting something about that, might have been on the Tuesday race thread in relation to the repeated attacks from the back on London flat.

As far as taking a pull it is more efficient to start at the back on the line. So if say you are doing 30s pulls the next rider starts moving from the back at 20s. They obviously need to up their power to do this but it means that when they hit the front they have a speed advantage over the group. This slingshot helps build the pack pace. It is also easier (less tiring) to accelerate from the back and build this speed than it is to take the lead from second/third wheel (which requires a shorter bigger power spike). What the rest of the team needs to watch is that a gap to the new front rider can open easily, so either the old lead needs to keep the power up till the pack latches on (not always practical) or a third rider fills the gap between old lead and new lead as the new lead takes over. If you are using the line formation the old lead should drop back down the line to recover before sitting somewhere in the middle (last on the road should be the next to pull).

Those are mainly a flat section tactic, there are other things to do uphill and on downhills.

on the Tuesday race thread in relation to the repeated attacks from the back on London flat

That sounds right, but also explains why I couldn’t find it!

Tonight is not the ideal course for trying out ideas which are “mainly a flat section tactic” (unless we go in for a quick 30 seconds experiment every few minutes.)

There will be a new series starting in January. In fact the routes are already decided 🙂

Need to finish of this series first though! It will be on Tuesdays as it seems to work best with most people and the TTT is more popular than ZRL!

Need to finish of this series first though! It will be on Tuesdays as it seems to work best with most people and the TTT is more popular than ZRL!

The ZRL has 1,500+ teams of up to 8, live coverage etc, so its pretty popular..

I find the appeal of number of leagues of ranked riders, along with individual points and team points, promotion and relegation keeps me drawn in, much as I miss the Tuesday rides. It’s a real shame we can’t do both. Is there scope for a change-of-day poll ? or are we locked in

The ZRL has 1,500+ teams of up to 8, live coverage etc, so its pretty popular.

I expect he meant more popular on here – there was a ZRL thread, no-one was that fussed! (think the excessive bureaucracy put a lot of people off)

Yeh I should have clarified – I meant more popular on here.

Anyway we are derailing Adam’s TTT thread – should prob move this type of discussion to a What Tyre, Brexit or Coronavirus thread…

I expect he meant more popular on here – there was a ZRL thread, no-one was that fussed! (think the excessive bureaucracy put a lot of people off)

I know what he meant, I was deliberately being stupid/awks !- if there is no love for the ZRL that fine – I didn’t fully understand what it was when I started it, so maybe others didn’t – there has been a lot of press since then.

I’m not sure I understand the extra admin – as long as you have a ZP account, its basically the same as the TTT event. There is a magic link to enter the event as normal, and a nominal contact for the team. The only additional admin is that team members must ride in an equivalent team, so all B’s or C’s at the start of the season. It makes for very hard races. Unless you plan to win the A league, in which case there is videos in your pants to shoot…

OK, teams etc for this evening.

Everyone in the pen by 19:40. No late joins. Note lots of tag changes (=possible chaos) below. I’ll nag nearer race time if tag disorder persists.

Team MoreSTW, Start delay +3 minutes so off at 19:43:00, discord voice TTT (MoreSTW), riding in frappe

@paino – change your tag

@phil56 – change your tag

@munkeymadness

@savoyad – change your tag

@scaredypants

@mahowlett – see below for tags etc!

Team STW, Start delay +13.5 minutes so off at 19:53:30, discord voice TTT (STW), riding in latte

@trolo1234 – change your tag

@yanboss – change your tag

@mbs

@zilog6128

@robbo1234biking

@haloric – sort your tag

@w00dster might also join us.

@mahowlett you need to
– join the STW discord server for comms. click here https://discord.gg/CKcQBFsH Set it for Push to talk to hide your panting / taste in music from your teammates. It can work without but it’s much better with, in particular for….
– the start: the process is a bit weird. When the start banner on screen says “GO” you must be STOPPED. Stop pedalling with 30s or so to go to get to zero watts, and don’t go anywhere when it says go. Instead, wait for your team’s “start delay” and then you can go. Phil will count it down on discord.
– tag your Rider Name in zwiftpower. Append (MoreSTW) – including the brackets – to your rider name. Either permanently (zwiftpower –> zwift profile –> Settings –> Rider Name) or as a temporary measure for this one ride (go here https://www.zwiftpower.com/events.php?zid=1293909 –> Settings top right –> My Name). There’s no need to change anything in zwift itself.
– use a road bike NOT a TT bike. (in game)
– dress up as a bumblebee (in game)

I think that’s all. Any questions, just ask. Otherwise, see you all in the pen!

Thanks for sorting @savoyad – hope you have a good run out if this is your last ride for STW.

Team STW – I will sort the timer on the line unless anyone else wants to do it?!

CORRECTION!

MoreSTW are actually off at +3.5 minutes so 19:43:30. (Not what I said above.)

Sorry. Hopefully we can head off any confusion in the pen!

Team STW – I will sort the timer on the line unless anyone else wants to do it?!

nope 🤣 … well volunteered though 😃👍

STW… are we up for trying some kind of semi-organised pulls on the front..? Does everyone have discord?

Yeh happy to give it a go. Think everyone is on discord. Think we are all fairly similar power wise 240-280w but some heavier riders so will have to watch the very steep hills. I don’t think we have a sweeper as such either so working together will be pretty important. We have 13 mins to discuss before setting off

We have 13 mins to discuss before setting off

That’s enough time for a cuppa and a donut, awesome !. I’m happy to try anything, but I agree I suspect this course will be about not splitting up more than going faster.

Agreed, sticking together is the main aim… the key thing is to keep an eye on the rider behind, at all times but definitely on the hills. As soon as you see a gap of 1s or more, back off the power so they can catch up. Equally, if you become gapped by 2s or more to the rider in front, it’s better to shout “SLOW” over discord than let the gap get bigger (especially if you’re last as there’s no-one to help you get back on!)

What we definitely found last week was that attempting to have a conversation or explain anything over discord was nigh on impossible so it’s probably best to stick to single words! Obviously all the riders have to listen out & react when they hear something or it’s pointless.

Regarding turns on the front, it could just be as simple as moving forwards to the front when you feel like it, doing 30s or a minute or whatever and then easing off.