Category A this week. Enter here https://www.zwift.com/events/view/1042582

1 lap of Greatest London Flat, 31km.

All welcome. If you’re new to the team, post in here so I can add all the necessary info.

I am in!

Some info here:

https://zwiftinsider.com/wtrl-ttt-72/

Will stick to the Tron bike I think for this one. Assuming we are in Latte this week then 45 mins of pain…

Yep – maybe a little longer…last time there were 6 of us, riding in frappe, and our time was 46:17. Me and weeksy unhitched on the steep ramp up the stairs/escalator near the end and never got back on. zilog did a superb ride that day.

Provisionally in, not sure how long for but I should make the start line!

Can you guys hear me very well on the discord server?

I use these and push to talk but not sure how much fan noise gets picked up. My wife looks at me very confused like ‘we need to push here’ and relates it back to child birth I think!

back in this week after a brief break (moved house & some bits needed sorting. Still not got the new pain cave up & running yet though so will be in the office as usual 😂)

If there is a space I’d like to join – my usual team are spread far and wide this week.

I’ll try and register…

Ok, registered/entered – Ant Mitchell (ccxl) will change tag to STW.

My wife looks at me very confused like ‘we need to push here’ and relates it back to child birth I think!

I hope you told her it’s not as easy as that.

I won’t be out to play this week swim away with mrs brain but will be back next week.

not at the moment for me guys… i’m still recovering from the humiliation of the jungle loop last week.

Will there be a discord channel ? Last link I can see has expired.

Good morning all. Here are the details for this evening…

Our start delay is 11.5 minutes. So in the start pen by 18:30 and we’re off at 18:41:30.

The start sheet looks like this for now:
phil56
savoyad
twisty
zilog6128
robbo1234biking
haloric

I thought I’d find @ivandobski there. Sign up here Ivan, cat A: https://www.zwift.com/events/view/1042582

There is still space if anyone else wants to join. Same link.

@haloric – welcome! You’re an old hand at the event itself aren’t you? So you know the “stop pedalling at GO….wait for the start delay” routine? Here’s a working discord invite: https://discord.gg/zYqkBx we use the “STW Voice” channel in that server.

@weeksy no worries. there was nothing humiliating about the jungle though. even allowing for your aversion to hills, it was not a particularly normal ride last week. you’ve done this enough times to know that!

Thinking of giving this a go later if there’s room? Technically I’m on call for work so not a definite.
I’m a Cat B, so will I be out of my depth entering the A race?
Zwift name Paulo Paino (STW)-do I need to change the STW bit in Zwiftpower too?

I’m not yet sure if I can join in this evening, will be there if possible though.

There’s room @eat_more_cheese. Don’t worry, it’s not an A race. The TTT uses the categories in its own unique way Cat A is mainly for teams which are mixtures of B and C. Our current line up for this evening is BBBCCC. So you wont’ be out of your depth (in fact, if everyone rides you’ll even nudge us *up* a category – that isn’t something we pay any attention to but should put your worry in context).

Yes, you would need to append (STW) to your zwiftpower name (Settings, Rider Name) – the organisers use that and not in-game zwift names to match people with their teams.

Discord link is above.

Start procedure is odd: you STOP pedalling when the screen says GO, and wait there without moving for 11.5 minutes for our actual go – which will be shouted over discord or, failing that, just go at 18:41:30 with the rest of us.

@ivandobski – no probs. see you there if you make it!

Will be good to have a full team tonight on that course.

I’m a Cat B, so will I be out of my depth entering the A race?

as said, not an A race, plus we have a “house rule” that we go at the speed of the slowest rider – unless they’re done in & want to be dropped!! (which is discouraged 😂)

Great, pending a work call, I’m in! In on Zwift. ZP seems to be temporarily down so I’ll change the name later. See you guys later (Paino)

ZwiftPower appears to be well and truly borked today, is that going to affect the results?
I’m now tentative whether I’ll make it this evening due to other commitments, need to see if I have time for everything.

I’ve completed a time trial with the wrong tag and they have allocated it to the right one after a post race e-mail – they seem pretty laid back about it all.

I will try the discord server, but normally just end up transmitting my fan noise, so will keep my mike off when possible. I’m expecting a team leader/ responsible adult to shout a name to go on the front, either Ant or Haloric whichever comes to mind, unless there is some other system !.

As a larger lad I will suffer on any rises, but should be able to get back on.

Team kit ?.

ZP being down is possibly due to the seamless integration with Zwift coming in to play…

ZP is back up so should be able to get the tags sorted.

We use the bumblebee kit.

Someone will do the countdown on the discord server so you don’t need to worry

We aren’t that co-ordinated to take goes at pulling!

I’m in.

Somethings come up & I’ll have to bail out, apologies! Looks like they’ll be a good team for tonight though, definitely be back next week!!

That was a tough one tonight but good to have such a strong team. Set new PRs for 40 mins – that was right on the limit for me tonight. Cheers for the encouragement Phil – I could have easily given up. You weren’t a Rugby coach in the past were you?

Great effort all – we didn’t get passed and got past 4 or 5 teams and pretty much held together the whole way once I got back on!

Cheers guys, enjoyed that. First TTT, and first use of the discord so excuse my lack of muting!
Thought we held it together really well. Massive turns on the front by Phil. Chapeau.
One question though….Is there any way of warming up in the pen? Paino.

We were looking pretty good but when we hit that climb and the pace went from 350ish to 550ish I knew that was going to be the beginning of the yo-yo’ing end so just called it straight away.

Phil is our Stannard

There is a way of warming up in the pen – but its not for the faint of fingers:

See ‘keeping warm’ here:
https://wtrl.racing/ttt/TTT-Rules-and-Info.php

I’ve seen a number of riders coast through the start because they weren’t in the pairing screen somehow.

Personally I get off the bike and stretch/yoga like for a while.

Thanks for the ride – right on my limit I think.

—
Ant

@ivandobski – hills are the death of teamwork !.

I hope I didn’t contribute to the dropping out – for whatever reason I cannot hold a consistent pace up a hill, the technique that works for me on short hills is to hit them very hard at the bottom, hold it as long as I can, and then cruise at the top until we regroup, eg on the rise out of the tube line I was first over the top whilst being one of the weaker riders in the group overall, but I got some recovery time.

I’ve found that on group rides if you are rider who comes over the top last you do not generally get any recovery – because everyone is kind of waiting for you, and that leads to you being dead after the hill and struggling for a while.

I prefer to go harder initially and get a little recovery time.

Better obvs would be to organise and agree before hand to give the last over the top riders some recovery time if they need it before the pace goes back up, that way you know you are going to get back on without immediately getting dropped again.

One other thing is that we were never lined out very often, which is the most efficient use of effort, but very difficult to do. You need to have a nominated line order and a 2m gap, so everyone knows where they should be. That takes practice at lower power levels before you can do it at higher levels.

That said – last night was probably the quickest I’ve ridden – so what do I know !.

hills are the death of teamwork !.

Well next week will be fun then, 2 laps of Harrogate world’s circuit.

One other thing is that we were never lined out very often, which is the most efficient use of effort,

Way back in the general zwift racing thread someone linked an article on Zwift insider about this.

https://zwiftinsider.com/speed-tests-ttt/

Overall its the best use of effort (saving about 8% overall W) but for a given speed you need a lot more effort (13% more from the front rider) on the front and a lot more organisation.

Any gapping and having to catch back on and it very quickly stops paying dividend.

More importantly though it also requires a bit more serious prep and practice which tends to detract from the fun a bit.

Thanks for the ride guys, thought we were smashing it yesterday, the extra numbers helped, we passed lots of teams, perhaps a fringe benefit of being in Pen A but much nicer than being passed by other teams. I had a bit of a tough patch from 20-30 mins ish, I perhaps need to eat more in the afternoon but despite that my fitness actually seems to be improving slightly, which is a little surprising considering my low training volume 🙂

Yes to get better times the way to go about it would be to be more organised into a paceline as that is much more efficient than having several riders churning at the front, also setting pace as being conservative at the start and having negative splits is much better than being a bit too keen at the start and having gaps/positive splits towards the end. It’d need a race strategy/roles planned in advance though e.g. whose taking turns on the front and in what order, target pace for each sector of the race.

That said it makes everything a bit serious and also the best laid plans go to waste and more planning needs more comms. during the race to keep things on track.

Yesterday was a good ride. I thought we smashed it too.

I think we could have stayed with @ivandobski for longer, to the end really once it flattened again, but he knew how @Phil56 would react to him dropping off so pulled the plug! There’s chat in the other thread about it being too hard for C riders, but the whole point of the event is to mix categories, so it might be worth making a concerted effort (in advance, just by chatting it over) to get everyone to the finish.

We’ve talked about the pro’s and con’s of paceline v blob before. I agree with @dangeourbrain – even if it is faster the costs in terms of preparation, taking it too seriously etc outweigh the benefits. Our line up changes each week. Our main obstacle is keeping the mix of riders happy. It seems to work well for us to informally contribute what we can. It got us in the premier league one week as well, so it can’t be that bad.

My picture froze near the end. I thought I had tried to keep pedalling, but the initial hesitation did for me and by the time I pulled the cable and went back to the laptop screen I was over 1 minute down.

Entry is in for next week: 2 laps of Harrogate, 27km.

Enter category A here: https://www.zwift.com/events/view/1055240

We’ve ridden this course before – team of 4 riding in Latte and it took 48 mins. We came over the top of the hill together both times, so it is possible.

It really pushes my limits so think it helps me to ride with faster riders.

That will be a tough course for a TTT with the hills! I should be in. My little lad starts back at Beavers soon which clashes with it. It depends if they are doing meeting via zoom or back in the hut.

Harrogate is my least favourite Zwift world. Probably the one where I get dropped the most…but I’m in for next week again pending any work issues.
I think overall we did really well last night, we were bunched nicely for the most part. Apart from losing Ivan we kept a tight unit, even after that horrible underground climb! Be interesting to see where we came overall.

Be interesting to see where we came overall.

We were 179/419 overall, and 100/141 in frappe.

I might try and drop in to the STW team for this week as my usual BRT team make me look like an ace climber and I’m not sure that would be good for anyone.

I am in for this week but this will be my last week for a while as my son restarts Beavers via zoom which is 6 until 7 and I need to support him during that.