Zwift Team Time Trial, Thursday

Very happy with that, especially now I realise Martin and I were the C’s in a B sandwich, and everyone else was pulling us around !.

I stopped putting in turns on the front after the first 14k I think, just was conserving power as best I could.

Martin lost power to laptop, and I was starting to cramp up in the last 5 or 6 K’s with the dreaded twinges of doom, so was in limp-home mode, think we could have shaved a few more secs off otherwise.

I think we passed 3 teams at least, nearly lost Martin on the last one.

Thanks for the ride.

Enjoyed that one. Managed to get a few turns on the front and we stayed really tight. The couple of passes we had went really well. Wasn’t a lot that went wrong really! I even managed to say 800km still to go on the way to the line!

Replaced the battery on my HRM and my head rate seemed lower tonight. Wonder if it has been playing up as the effort was still high. NP was 278w so def put in a good shift but felt quite fresh!

Thanks all, my legs are still cooked after Tuesday. By lap 2 I was just trying to cling on to the back. Maybe it’s time for one of those rest weeks people with training plans talk about…

There’s no such thing as a feeble pull. And I’m glad both teams rode together tightly. @haloric 14km of turns in that group is definitely pulling your weight. How far out did @mbs disappear? Laptop battery is a sudden way to go (it happened to me recently…).

@yanboss you’ve been flying (I remember you saved my race in the Tuesday night figure of 8 by cruising across a gap on the reverse KOM while I grovelled on your wheel). I’m not surprised it’s catching up with you – robbo’s race series is pretty intense.

And @robbo1234biking in @phil56’s absence, the 800km to go call was the most important job that needed picking up. @dangeourbrain does it make it harder with the turbo misbehaving?

I enjoyed watching that on zwiftpower live anyway. But you only really find out what happened on here…

I had another false start tonight – while standing next to the bike !

Seemed like my avatar got pulled out of the pen by the draft of another group. Was doing a bit of last minute prep (filling water bottle, putting away a box that was in the way of one of my pedals) and when I looked up I was “in” a team group, doing zero watts but about half a minute up the course. My fella was right at the front in the pen and I wonder if they’d come past as a fastish blob and just pulled me out with them.

Anyway, I went to shit shortly after that. Nothing to offer the team (sorry chaps) after Tuesday’s race and then 2.5 hours chasing some bigger boys round the new forest last night. I’m buggered. Our team worked really well and kept very tight. I got sucked into one group that we overtook and had to sprint a bit to escape and then something similar happened to Martin.

Great ride the whole group but esp from Woodster – seems he accidentally put the e-bike on the trainer and did some really long stints

does it make it harder with the turbo misbehaving?

Sort of. London is flat though so less of an issue.

I’d normally expect to sit around 65-70rpm in 48:10 pulling about 300W on the flat. For me that’s a comfy cadence and gear, I’m a masher not a spinner.

Round London loop there are no real hills so I’d expect to pull that gear and cadence the whole way, against the extra resistance on a hill that means a decent bump in power on those short climbs.

Making the same power with the dodgy turbo needs 85-90rpm in the same gear on the flat, that’s not comfy for me. Pulling needed 90 ish to make 320 or so which I kept up for about the first 10 minutes then started to flag a bit and had to drop to short pulls and longer rests. 70rpm kept me about 250w.
The big problem was every time we hit a slope the 0 additional resistance meant I had to spin faster to keep up so ended up at 95-100rpm every time there was a bit of a gradient to keep in touch. As I say, lucky London is flat as a witches tit, tons anything with hills I’d have fallen off.

It just doesn’t suit my riding style to be spinning that fast even on a flat course. On anything with hills I just can’t keep up. Long term it’ll do me good learning to spin better I’m sure but I’m the interim it’s very hard to get used to!

I had the same round Richmond on race 5, the first sprint and was at about 130rpm and barely over 500w. (137rpm for 602w on the sprint on lap 2) I just disappeared off the group at that point, once we hit the climbs it was obvious I was going backwards (100rpm average up the climbs for 350w).

Compare that with the last TT I did and I averaged 64rpm and 304w, same gearing, pancake flat.

My cadence averaged 100 and maxed out at 128 last night!

2 laps of Sand and Sequioas next week so very different! Prob my last one before Xmas unless anyone wants to ride the 10.15 slot on Xmas eve.

Yeah, average 100 cadence would kill me. If also have to change gear, and I don’t like change.

I might do the early one Xmas eve. Will see.

I really enjoyed that, despite misgivings after Tueday, I actually felt quite a bit better tonight, thankfully. Tried to keep a pattern of 30 seconds effort on the front followed by 2 minutes in the pack, which worked quite well for me, just enough rest to make the effort doable, hopefully that didn’t mess it up for anyone else on the team, We kept together pretty well I thought. I’ll be back again for next week, but I’m not doing christmas eve. Cheers guys and good work team.

but I’m not doing christmas eve.

You see I reckon we should do Christmas eve with a [insert seasonal beverage of choice] and when ever you’re not pulling on the front you have to drink.

I’d be up for that, I only said I wouldn’t do it was cos it’s my birthday 🙂

Great idea DB – will need to wear a kids pelican bib as I’m bound to 🤮
But that does seem like a good idea…..goes off to look in the Craft Beer too expensive thread to decide what to drink…..

goes off to look in the Craft Beer too expensive thread to decide what to drink…..

I’d suggest at least 0.05% ABV for every W of FTP that way its a little less punishing for those who may struggle to make the front…

Sounds like it time to get some Hop House 13 or Stella in then!

Just something I have seen on the WTRL Facebook group – if teams register and don’t turn up the automatic allocation of start times will start to push them into the later starting slots. Hopefully will mean that we might get some slightly better waiting times!

2 teams are entered this week, for 2 laps of sand and sequoias. Thur 7.40pm.

Everyone interested, sign up to category A here: https://www.zwift.com/events/view/1356634

This is a good course to try a team of Bs and a team of Cs this week, but let’s see how signups go…

Cheers Savoyad I am in. Happy to go with a team of Bs and Cs if that is the plan. Happy to road captain the Cs (I.e start the timer) as I managed it last week without cocking it up!

I’ll enter this week’s ttt. I might have a last minute work/life clash which might prevent me joining in but hopefully it won’t be the case.
Slow team please 😁

@savoyad – if we end up with a C/D team this week will it be automatically changed over to Mocha in the results?

Yes, it automatically reclassifies teams (other than in the platinum league) into the correct category for the results.

D’s are very welcome to join us.

Some of you may have seen that this week’s TTT is running as a fundraiser for World Bicycle Relief.

In fact they are offering teams time reductions (1 minute) for every Buffalo Bike (£120) donated.

It’s a good cause, but as we aren’t particularly results driven, our community has an existing effort to raise money for WBR, and I don’t want to administer a new one, I thought it made more sense to just use this occasion as a prompt to draw all your attention to the existing link…

The Singletrack/WBR page is here: https://worldbicyclereliefuk.enthuse.com/cf/singletrack-supporting-world-bicycle-relief.

If anyone is inspired to donate, I suggest that you just do so there. No time deductions are available but the money goes to the same place in the end.

@savoyad – my usual Thursday night MTB partner is not around this week so I thought I’d give the TTT a go.

Other than signing up on the link you gave, what else do I need to know? There seems to be a lot of details around participating in this, such as use of Discord, protocols for arrival times at the start, how does the team start and form up, what bike to use (I assume not a TT bike), are we in A/B/C teams based just on our Zwiftpower W/kg, what is Mocha vs Latte?

Is there a quick guide to all this without reading all 31 pages of the thread?

Hi @j-r. Excellent news. And I’m not surprised it feels a bit like that. It makes sense once you’ve done it once though.

Yes, first sign up to category A here: https://www.zwift.com/events/view/1356634

I’ll post teams tomorrow, and at that point I’ll add all the practical info you need. In the meantime
– getting a zwiftpower account is the main hassle first time round, but that’s not an issue for you. You’ll need to tag yourself with the team name before the race (tag tbc and how-to tomorrow!)
– we communicate on discord. join the STW server here https://discord.gg/CccHswgX and you’ll see voice channels for each TTT team. It’s used for counting down the start etc. It’s possible to participate without, but much better with (especially first time).
– the start process is a bodge. the organisers publish “start delays” tonight, and we have to sit still (i.e. not pedalling) AFTER it says go until our start delay has elapsed. This spreads the teams out on the road, and the results system adjusts for the delay. So you “go” at the end of that delay, and blob up with your teammates in the first few hundred metres.
– the rules assume mixed ability teams, and the coffee labels are for different mixes. we normally end up in “latte” (max Bs and rest Cs) or “frappe” (more than 3 Bs). Don’t worry about it. It doesn’t really matter. I allocate people to two teams based on everyone’s (sometimes contradictory!) preferences each week. Your normal race categories A/B/C/D/E are not used for signup in the normal way. We generally start in A.
– bike choice. yes, road bike. The draft is essential. (BUT I think this week we might be forced on to buffalo bikes as a tie in with the WBR fundraiser)
– strategy – 4th rider across the line counts for the results. But we generally ride to get everyone to the line together. Our on road strategy is not particularly organised. I think there’s support for a move towards greater organisation. We’re heading that way. But that will be clear in advance of the start!

Basically, sign up, keep asking questions if you have any, and I’ll try to make sure that the detail you really need (some of it repeated from here) is in the lunchtime post tomorrow!

We’re on 12 riders for tomorrow (13 with @j-r, 14 if @mbs is joining us). So there’s still space for at least a couple more.

Anyone lurking tempted to join in? Category A here: https://www.zwift.com/events/view/1356634

Very tempted to give it a go again. Having the flu jab in the morning so not sure if an hours vigorous exercise is the best thing to be doing. Anybody have any knowledge or experience of this?

Put my name down anyway.

@savoyad – That’s me signed up. Just remember, I’m no Kirky or DrP.

@drew – I had the flu shot last week and apart from a mild arm ache had no effect at all. But my wife did feel a bit under the weather for a day, so you just have to see how it affects you personally.

Looks like we are all riding buffalo bikes tomorrow!

classic! Should be fun. Back in the day it was the fastest bike, not any more though. Explains why they were offering time bonuses for cash 😂

Is @mbs joining us? That will make two teams of 8 I think!

I had the flu shot last week and apart from a mild arm ache had no effect at all. But my wife did feel a bit under the weather for a day, s

I’m happy to stake my reputation on saying your wife feeling under the weather was in no way related to you having the flu jab. Unless you’re Johnny Depp it’s unlikely to be related to your mildly hurty arm either.

Alas no @mbs this week.

Looks like we’re in good shape – 15 riders signed up (two big teams) and reasonable start delays (4.5 and 6.5 mins).

Still one spot available. Category A here: https://www.zwift.com/events/view/1356634

I’ll post teams/tags etc at lunchtime.

Back in the day it was the fastest bike, not any more though.

The good ones are back.

Seems very low numbers in the Pens tonight (other than STW!) – people breaking up for Xmas already?!

Thanks for the reassurance J-R, just got back from having the vaccination so I’ll see how I feel later. Slightly concerned at the number of drop outs I had zwifting yesterday evening where everyone else disappeared. It must have been at least four in 40 minutes. It’s not normally a problem but happened during the first ttt I took part in so I was wondering if the time of day has anything to do with it.

Seems very low numbers in the Pens tonight (other than STW!) – people breaking up for Xmas already?!

Be just our bloody luck to make PL on Xmas eve at 7pm

Not sure how PL will work – if it includes the extra minutes that people have brought or just on pure time.

if it includes the extra minutes that people have brought or just on pure time.

Hmmmm – I wonder if i could divert that gofundme in the name of which ever stw team I’m not in and buy them all an Xmas eve PL spot. As a gift you know.

Teams for later. And I’m going to propose a structured (although still not OTT) approach, the same for both teams, which I’ll put in the next post.

Team MoreSTW delay +4.5mins so off at 19:44:30, tag (MoreSTW), Discord voice TTT (MoreSTW)

@phil56 (* road captain / comms) – change your tag

@paino – change your tag

@dangeourbrain – change your tag

@w00dster

@j-r – you need to append “(MoreSTW)” to your zwiftpower name. see below!

@mahowlett – tag your name

@scaredypants

Team STW delay +6.5 minutes so off at 19:46:30, tag (STW) Discord voice TTT (STW)

@munkeymadness (* road captain / comms)

@yanboss

@trolo1234 – change your tag

@zilog

@rick – change your tag

@drew –

@haloric

@robbo1234biking

The buffalo bikes are not a problem. In fact they are lovely to ride and look suitably weird. A bit like we will on our MTBs in robbo’s series. You CAN choose your wheels though, so if you are an equipment swapper (and/or esp if you usually ride a tron) think about that. I rode 808s this morning.

To change tags, go to the event page here https://www.zwiftpower.com/events.php?zid=1356634 choose Settings top right, and type the full name you want including the tag (not just the tag) into the My Name field.