Zwift Team Time Trial, Thursday

I’ve sign up for this early. I’ll see you all this evening.

I’ve signed up to both. How do you ‘set’ your team?

P

Hi Paul – updated teams will come out about lunchtime (Savoyad rides with another team in the AM time slot).

I am pretty certain that you will be in MoreSTW. We tend to do pulls on the front for a pre-determined length of time and other than that you rest in the draft. You were fine on Tuesday racing me so you will be fine. What I would suggest is that you don’t have a specified pull tonight and just get used to working in the draft and the nuances of the TTT and comms etc.

Welcome @paul-s. Robbo’s right – ride with MoreSTW but don’t have a specified role tonight. Focus on getting out of the start pen at the right time and staying with the team! I’ll post instructions, with the teams, in the next post…

It’s hard to get the balance today. Bear with me…

OK, teams for later:

STW (+5 mins): @paino, @yanboss, @phil56, @scaredypants, @munkeymadness, @slowpuncheur
MoreSTW (+9.5 mins): @woodster, @drew, @mbs, @robbo1234biking, @zilog6128, @haloric, Jack, @paul-s

Tags can’t be corrected after the event. We’ll move to race pass links next week. This week, just make sure they are right on zwiftpower (link below)

full info…

1. Tag your zwiftpower rider name with your team name. e.g. “Paul S (MoreSTW)”. There’s no need to change anything in zwift itself, just zwiftpower. You can do this (durably) in profile –> settings –> Rider name or just for this one race here https://www.zwiftpower.com/events.php?zid=1934728 –> settings (top right) –> My Name

2. Comms is on discord. The STW server is here https://discord.gg/SfsdY5AD and you’ll see the voice channels (each team has one) over on the left. Everyone does this their own way (PC, phone etc, headset whatever).

3. The start process is a a bodge. It works like this: Join the event by 19:40. Then, when it says “GO” you MUST NOT GO! Instead, at that point, you must already be stopped and at 0w. So stop pedalling at around 30 seconds to go just to be safe. Then each team waits for its allocated start delay. Today that means 9.5 minutes for MoreSTW, who will therefore sit motionless in the pen until 19:49:30. THEN you can go. There will be a countdown on discord. If you insist on pedalling and need a workaround to stay in the start pen, go to the PAIRING screen, not just PAUSE, the PAIRING screen.

4. Once the race starts, stay with the team. Bigger group, more draft.

That’s it. Enjoy the race. Any questions, ask here and they’ll get answered quite quickly…

Oh – and make sure you are on a road bike (esp if you last rode a mtb on Tues…). And dress up as a bumblebee.

Thanks @savoyad – I think? 😉 I’m more than happy to roll with STW. Tag changed. I suspect I’ll just be sitting in the draft but happy to take a turn here and there if I can. Looking forward to it.

Updated list for tonight based on the new teams:

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Standard plan for rotations 270/280w target (but adjust if you need to). Paul-S – I have put you as Draft only but if you are comfortable after a rotation or two let me know via discord and I will add you in to the rotations after Drew.

We need to watch Northumberland Avenue at 3.5km. At this stage blob at 3.0 w/kg and then at the top whoever was on rotation can go again.

At 12km haloric and Jack to stop taking turns and rest up for an attack on Box Hill. Once we hit Box Hill it is 3.0 w/kg. Does anyone think they can set a nice pace at 3/0w/kg?

Over the top of Box Hill w00dster can pace us up to the punchy climb and then blob again at 3.0 w/kg. We want to go over the top together so we stay together on the descent. Everyone will need to sprint over the escalator and then lets see where we are there. I think it is only 1.5km to the end after the escalator so will be a case of blobbing and working as a team to get as much pace as we can over Tower Bridge and onto the finish.

It is a short course so hopefully we can push a little harder but just speak up if you are struggling or want to miss a turn. Comms were great last week so lets keep that up!

I’m in for tonight if there’s a space?

@speedstar there is space in STW so join them. Just update your tag if it isn’t right! Cheers

Ok no worries thanks Robbo

Thanks boys, that was seriously tough. Probably did a bit too much riding over the past few days as legs were empty from fairly early on. If only I had Phil with me more often 😀

@speedstar well done mate, great effort to hang in there – thanks for sticking with us.

Good solid climb that, Gav – really well done

(is it just me that hallucinates Phil’s voice when I’m out and about, then ?) 😉

Really enjoyed that tonight. The sticky draft is difficult to judge though, I used to be able to sit at the back at about 200 watts but now I’m getting gapped off doing until less than 220.
Considering how bad my last few weeks have been tonight’s stats were ok. Last 5 minutes was an average of 325 watts, that’s not bad for me. I dropped back to help Drew bring back Jack and we got gapped really quickly. I was sitting at about 400 to 450 watts and the distance was still growing.

Scardey, not just when I’m out and about….even in bed with the Mrs!! Come on woodster, stay in there, only 2 mins more!!!

Thanks Guys enjoyed that. Felt that I had fuel left in the tank so will have to do a turn next week 🙂

P

Really enjoyed that too, probably the easiest TTT I’ve ridden (it’s all relative 🤣) so probably could’ve pushed a bit harder throughout. That said, I also had put in a bit of effort on occasion so as not to fall off the back! Stayed together really well, only a little gap at the end of the kicker after the climb. All the passes seemed really easy tonight, like the teams we passed were barely moving, which makes it a lot simpler!

That’s hilarious. I now know what you mean. I enjoyed that. Got a bit carried away up Northumberland Ave but I will assume that I did OK as Phil didn’t mention me much 😉

W00dster 🤣🤣🤣 that is something I did not want to imagine!

Cheers MoreSTW – that went well tonight. The gap grew on the descent pretty quickly. We were barely pedalling and you were doing 5 W/kg!

Stayed together really well on the climb – great effort @haloric glad we got you over the top and taking the bragging rights over Jack – I assume that means he is getting the beers in tomorrow?

@paul-s welcome to the team. Comms seemed ok in the end. Thanks for keeping the pace on the climb. Hope you enjoyed and will be back for more! Next time you can take some pulls now you know what it is all about.

My legs felt a bit wooden tonight but I am on a recovery week as well as the covid jab so wasn’t confident going in to it but seemed ok and no probs with the HR either. I seem to ride better with some fatigue — feeling fresh is a strange feeling! Still 813w on the escalator says there wasn’t a lot wrong with them!

Oh yeh zilog – forgot to mention the overtakes – we didn’t even have to accelerate. Just breezed past. We didn’t get overtaken either.

Tonight had the “new” zwift draft, didn’t it ? (No riding through people and a bit of a change to the draft effect). I reckon the sticky draft when overtaking might not be as big a problem with it but that probably also means that you can get dropped that bit easier from your own group. I also bet that times overall are a bit slower overall than might have been expected

“come on scaredy, fill the gap” – that sort of thing ? Yeah. 😍

(I see wtrl is down)

Yeh they are down.

Apparently they know if you left the pen early now so you get a 1min penalty plus another full minute for for every part of a minute you left early. It is automated so a minimum of 2 min penalty. Hopefully we didn’t fall fowl off that!

Were you really on an MTB @Scaredypants or a legacy of a late bike switch? Hopefully you had the lockout working.

semi-slicks mate, pretty much a road bike 😎

(or else I changed at 3 min to go when Phil said “I bet some dozy arse is still on a mtb” !)

Thanks for that – holding 3.0 up that climb was pretty tough but knowing that we were sticking together was a big help.

Jack took his eye off the ball as we hit the top, and couldn’t get back on, despite the encouragement.

I didn’t get much rest other than while on the downhill waiting for Jacks minders, but the pre-hill ride was pretty smooth rather than bursty efforts, which was helpful.

I found myself drifting through the front when not meaning to, usually after a brief downhill event, but the pulls were very consistent from everyone.

Cheers, Ant

I actually found it quite tough this evening, definitely harder than last week. Maybe still feeling the effects of Tuesdays race. Thanks for getting me back on Woodster, I’d still be there now if you hadn’t waited for me, and to everybody else for waiting. Not an ideal time to slip off the back. I thought I’d be able to catch back on again with Jack but soon realised that was not going to happen.

Looking for morestw in the results and wondering if I’ve messed it up for you guys somehow? I changed my name in zwift in the afternoon believing it would automatically update zwiftpower but it clearly doesn’t so I raced as (morestw) according to zwiftpower. Is there any way this can be corrected? Sorry if I’ve messed it up

@speedstar Zwift and Zwiftpower aren’t linked so you have to do them separately (but you only have to update in ZP for the TTT). Could be why as we would have 9 riders then so assume we got DSQ (although you think they would say that in the results!)

I wouldn’t worry about it though. You can email them but it prob isn’t worth it. Think we came in at 40min 17 seconds so about a minute behind you guys. Would have put us about 80th in Latte (and we would have beat @mrhoppy team as well! 🙂 )

Tags wont be an issue next week as we will use the new sign up process.

Couldn’t find the MoreSTW results either. Very much doubt if you affected the result by changing your tag.
Fair performance from STW last night on a decent short route. Great to see speedstar hanging on up the hill. Captains orders to gun it up the final kick split the field with the 4 of us super tucking all the way down to the flat. Think we generated a 20 second gap without even pedalling!
Edit-ah yes, didn’t realise you guys had a full team. WTRL says we had 6. That would explain it!

Coulda, woulda, shoulda @robbo1234biking 😛

Not that their result had much to do with me, we were nearly 1st on the road at the bottom of Box Hill so I very valiantly suggested I’d try what I was calling the “evergreen” tactic and block the road as they went on. Didn’t work.

https://zwiftinsider.com/route/watopias-waistband/

Next week is fairly short and flat again. Don’t think I have ridden this route before.

Ok I’ve emailed them and messaged them so hopefully they can do something. Apologies again! Also we just lost more and more time on the descent once we split so you guys must have been gunning it!

Next week is fairly short and flat again. Don’t think I have ridden this route before.

it was a TTT back in Oct although according to the results, we didn’t enter any teams that week for some reason (although we did the weeks before and after!)

Totally flat so will be taking pulls the whole way round with zero opportunity to have a rest! At least it’s short although normally that means we just ride harder 😂

Also we just lost more and more time on the descent once we split so you guys must have been gunning it!

we actually had a split too so weren’t particularly! Just highlights why it’s so vital to summit together just before a big descent, as then you can all supertuck together and pick up tons of free speed!

Also we just lost more and more time on the descent once we split so you guys must have been gunning it!

It’s the effect that cresting the climb together gives you. None of us were pedalling, but all 4 were super tucking on the descent giving us the massive gap. Didn’t matter so much last night as the descent was near the end, but just shows how important it is on a TTT to crest together on hills mid course.

Only the first 4 riders count right?! I hit a PR coming up Box Hill mainly due to Phil’s incredible mentoring as I had no legs even by the bottom of the hill and was fully ready to quit! Managed a paltry 4wkg over the last rise which is worse than most of my PRL full attempts as I simply had nothing left to give.

Have I got this right: the one week, ever, that tags can’t be fixed (a policy @robbo1234biking endorsed wholeheartedly as “tough luck/shit happens”!) is the week we get a dq for a tag error?

New system from now on.

As soon as I have recovered from reading @w00dster’s post above I’ll supply some details.

In the meantime: everyone will need a WTRL account from now on. If you don’t have one, you can prepare for the brave new world by signing up here: https://www.wtrl.racing/registration.php