RimRock – it will get stuck somewhere, I guarantee it.

https://www.slackpacker.com/lexicon.html

Went far too hard at the beginning thinking the group would fracture and I could hang with whoever fell off, although I was the only one to drop off, so that didn’t go to plan.

Was fully in the red when I had to drop, until I found my moving buddies led by stumpy. Managed to hang on in the blob until the end despite several crises of conscience and continual hitching of the big boy pants.

Dropped the zwift ftp before the ride and post ride went up to 245, with my claimed as 247, so that’s as spot on as I can do.

If there had been any hills other than that slight rise I would have been gone.

Cheers, good to be back.

Sorry – last minute weather inspired decision to hit the beach, am out.

Maybe, just maybe they have fixed it:

Update 1.16.2 – September 2nd

Fixed an issue which prevented some users from being able to pair a controllable smart trainer on subsequent sessions without closing the app first.
Fixed an issue with the Cervelo S5 2020 having incorrect aerodynamic values.
Fixed an issue which caused the new Garmin kit to replace the original Tac

Despite allocating 45 mins of get on/warm up, life and all its little demons conspired against me, and I made it into the pen with 3 cold mins to spare to warm up. Burnt all my matches, the matchbook and the shop that sold it to me just to stay on in the first 18K, so was not going to be getting up any more hills at pace near the end.

Am still 30+ watts down on zwift best over 20 mins, which is a bit concerning as I’ve got first CX event since covid on Sunday…

Is anyone else plagued with Zwift apple tv pairing issues, when swapping between trainers it won’t accept a heart monitor anymore unless its been rebooted a few times.

I had a post ride update, so maybe they have tweaked something.

Looking forward to some regular tue/thur events.

Yes, I’ll be in, and probably Jack.

Watts are slowly creeping back up, and weight the other way, even slower.

I’m a big fan (do you see what I did there) of FLAB – they do very branded and not very branded on a lot of kit.

I have several shorts and bibs and a few jackets – none of which have fallen apart.

https://fatladattheback.com/collections/mens-mtb

@haloric is too modest to admit he won his zwift classics race last week so I’ll point it out for him. Nice one!

Ha ! – I’m currently right on the upper limit of a D rider, and the autocat system keeps putting me in C6, which seems to suit me. Poor Jack gets into C5 or C4, and is getting pushed to the limit. I’m also riding the ‘D’ class of the ‘no sandbagging, you will be flagged’ crits, which seems to be full of sandbaggers who can output 800 watts in the last 30 secs, and have yet to be flagged despite pushing the upper boundary. I suspect I will be formally a C in a few more rides.

Am unlikely to be present now, got a tradesman turning up at sometime after 6.

> Pomegranate is the King Fruit according to the Moors of days gone past and every fruit has the same number of seeds. Enjoy that fact whilst growing a man bun, it’s a brave new world!

That smells too much to just leave it sitting there.

https://www.aquaphoenix.com/misc/pomegranate/

‘Also, it is said to have 613 seeds, which corresponds with the 613 commandments of the Torah, but it was a misconception.’

oo – just realised its 6:30, and I’m doing this at 5:30 with son Jack – the ‘autocat classics’, done the last 3 so I’m sticking it out.

https://www.wtrl.racing/zwift-classics/#schedule

If I make it I will defo be limping along at the back.

The autocat series is an attempt to level the playing field against height and weight dopers, so got to give them some support in testing it out.

Coming back from injury, so will tagalong at the back probably, hope to be there.

Oops, forgot to post Blindsight homage site:

https://blindsight.space/

Very hard core but totally excellent – anything by Peter Watts

https://rifters.com/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Watts_(author)

Blindsight: The novel has been described by Charles Stross as follows: “Imagine a neurobiology-obsessed version of Greg Egan writing a first contact with aliens story from the point of view of a zombie posthuman crewman aboard a starship captained by a vampire, with not dying as the boobie prize.”[4]

Thanks for the ride, nice result, just 35 secs down on the (admittedly depleted) STW !.

I think we are almost ready for the sink and sprint technique the pros use.

Advance notice – I am out for next Thurs, enjoy the ride.

Ant

A load of second hand parts and some good luck might get you something equivalent to a new apple tv 4k for £180 with a warranty from John Lewis that you will never have to get a windows licence or update its drivers mid way through your ride.

Apple TV for the cheapest win, imho.

Finally, be the man you’ve always wanted to be.

https://zwiftinsider.com/community-welfare-update/

Annoying that its coming in just as I’ve found the perfect 1kg/day diet, but we can’t have little Timmy being upset…

Probably trying to head off some sort of law suit.

At least I will no longer have to spend any time raising my eyebrow at team Tugaz riders, who are all under 68kg.

LMGTFY.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1655770387/motion-the-ultralight-and-durable-carbon-fiber-bike

Lighter means faster, speed dial goes to 11.

There was definitely the possibility of it becoming a three team cluster-tuck.

I’ll get my coat.

> don’t know whether you two eased off slightly after passing the 1st team and therefore got stuck behind the 2nd one whereas I’d seen Robbo etc weren’t easing up

We were still exiting the first team as you were pushing into the 2nd, we were not bunched as we hit the first one, were a little bit stretched, we didn’t ease up, put in even more effort, but could not escape the first team for a few seconds and then you were all through the 2nd and they were between us and you.

Probably would have been better to co-mingle with the 2nd team, or just hold behind until we were all together, then press on, than have tried to pass both at the same time, but thats the fog of war!. They were very close together, so anything might have happened.

I’m not sure what to think about the splits, since they have changed a little since last night.

Now MoreSTW were +18, +52, +47, +9

I’m pretty sure if we could have stuck together on that last pass we could have finished even stronger as 6 – rats !.

Looking at the splits we were ahead by a 3m 15 at 30km, but STW hauled that back and finished in 1:06:11 versus our 1:07:45

We had a drama with about 8k to go and got split passing a second time on a rise, Jack and I coasted to the finish.

I got recently bitten by a dog on a ride, even though I always pass people with dogs at walking pace and announce myself on a shared path. The owners were apologetic, although the female, who seemed startled that a bike was on a shared path despite there being several other bikes around, said ‘oo – he might bark…’, the dog was elderly I think, off the lead and seemed startled by a bike (still at walking pace..) and proceeded to run up and bark at my shoes – and caught me, breaking the skin. ‘oh has he grazed you ?’ – she says. Her partner was a bit more switched on and said ‘no, he bit’.

Being a dog lover I had a few words, they seemed genuinely upset, so I left it. Had to go and get a jab, and the hospital reported to the police, even though I had made it clear I wasn’t going to. Police incompetence meant they never successfully got my head cam footage. There ends my story.

Dogs are great, people who don’t look after or train their dogs to be around others, including children, are part of the general human condition of uselessness.

I’m just going to leave this here for any remaining dog lovers who got this far..

https://www.wedontdeservedogs.com/

Ouchie. Thanks for dragging me round Phil & others – was continually in the red it seems.

Hope we didn’t mess up some other teams, seemed to be a few odd stragglers near the end.

Ant

I’ll take that spot if thats ok !

Not sure how I’ll be but last nights ride out was ok, albeit electrically assisted.

I’m hoping for trikes…

I’ve taken myself out – was jabbed at the weekend and was doing sort of ok on Tuesday nights pain fest but then lost the will to live at about halfway.

I’m doing an actual ride in the actual outdoors tonight, if that goes ok I’ll put myself back in.

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

Jack is in. Looking forward to my lead out train.

Unusual to get stung without cause, was she on the can as you picked it up ?

Best to cover yourself in sugar and go back there, build up some tolerance.

Enjoyed the race to the bottom of the first climb, then went steadily backwards holding on to whoever came by for as long as possible.

Jack was not in the shed today, and the last lap or two was basically the tiresome balance of trying to look effortlessly uncatchable to those behind whilst being perfectly poised for a catch to those in front, while actually being near death.

Yay ! from WTRL.

TTT #101 starts a new era of NO MORE FIXED TAGS.

Yes, be interesting to see if the length of downhill and the benefits of weight are enough to fracture the lead group into heavy/light before the first climb.

Unfortunately for me they will be so far ahead at the point that I won’t be able to see !.

I wonder if ‘trainer difficulty’ needs to be put up in order to be able to apply enough watts for that initial mad rush.

Does this course have a longish initial downhill run to start with ?

Zwiftinsider say 19.2 km but with a long lead into 26.5 total
https://zwiftinsider.com/route/serpentine-8/

That lead in is also mostly downhill if I am understanding – be interesting to see what the pace is down there.

To me the dynamics seemed better, at least we seemed more lined out than normal.

Quite hard to say.

If the new entry system arrives, that will be a small step forward toward a real time trial mode where other teams don’t interfere with each other. We didn’t come across any rogue riders last night, although one team was a bit sticky.

The passes went well, i think by not accelerating too soon and being blobbed to the last minute really helps.

I bailed with cramp as we entered the volcano so a bit disappointed, but would have died at some point, having seen the state of Jack today.

I wonder if we might try a different passing strategy tonight – should we get to pass anyone.

Our usual approach is fine where there is a largish disparate speed difference, as its easier to make a clean pass, but when we creep up on a similar speed team..

I find that we accelerate too soon and too strong on on the front, and get strung out before the pass, leading to the last few (normally me and my minder) struggling through, and the group wondering if we all got through, and being a reasonable distance away from the last rider.

If we were ‘led up’ to the acceleration point as usual, but on the ‘go’ word (say 10m back) we accelerate from the rear of the group, with the rear riders riding through our team as the accelerate, but the passed riders only accelerate as they see they are about to be passed.

This way we should pass as a blob, making it less likely to get caught in the passed team, and not a long line.

This will also lead to the stronger riders being aware of where the slower riders are, because they will be alongside or in front for a short while as we hit the tail of the team in front.

It does require the rear riders to put in the effort first, but it should ultimately result in less split drama and total effort.

Just a thought. If we are on a hill, all bets are off.

Both @mbs and Jack are now registered.

None of us are looking forward to it, in the usual way.

Garmin may help, but since its out of warranty its expensive, like £700 for a 2nd hand trainer. The Neo group on FB is full of people with burnout issues and different warranty behaviours. I’ve got all the kit to replace the bearings so may have a go at taking it apart, cleaning and putting back together, as well as a mounted fan to improve airflow.

I got Jacks one of the FB group for £50, Garmin had diagnosed it as ‘burn out’ and out of warranty to some chap, he forked out for a new Neo 2T. He claimed it worked when pedalled but not via the power brick (which he had replaced) and that was true. I tested the power brick and that was fine, took the Neo apart and soldered in a new power jack socket and its been perfect ever since, either the socket or the cable were flaky, got lucky.

I’m not looking forward to that volcano. I may have to do a Captain Oates at that point.

I’ve also got a situation with my 2 year old Neo 2 which may be knocking on deaths door – it lost resistance twice during the second event yesterday, like extended wheel slip for several seconds, causing me to cruise round from about half way. This with a smell of burning is known to be a death knell for Neo’s, although I could not smell anything. Some people have rigged up cooling fans, I may have to look into that.

Jacks original Neo which I bought and fixed for £50 is still going strong.

Export CSV – > perl -> Import CSV
Make me a csv, I’ll send you the perl !

You are a witness unless you get hurt apparently. If you get threatened with a knife, you are a victim, but if you get threatened with a car, you don’t matter.

https://road.cc/content/news/some-forces-treating-close-passes-victimless-crime-274917

See also
https://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/classifieds-what-am-i-missing/#post-11671705