I’ve lost track of what events are going on, but I can probably do either eve or morning on the 24th, I’ll check with @mbs.

I’ve brought a Neo trainer back from the dead (£50 on FB) and now have two bikes set up, so will see if I can convince little-haloric to join in (27, C cat).

Yes, ditto, the mechanism of calling rather than the general melee. On the flat I found I would go off the front too hard and then slow to allow catch up, but then too late accelerate again, and then turn would be over, and could have gone for longer, but when on the hills I was all over the place due to being too heavy.

Because comms is so flaky would it work just to be called to the front, until you feel you;ve done enough then drop hard to the back, and its clear 2nd wheel is up. If you are the next rider you have to make sure you are in position at 2nd wheel ? That way you can do as long as you like.

So tired.

I think 1:09:50 for the STW survivors ?. I was on my limit from about half way, so thanks for pulling those last few K, and it sucks to fail for a technical.

Zwift seems to be getting worse with respect to not getting in the pen these days. As soon as the invite appears I get in now, rather than wait for the last few minutes which we used to be able to do.

As per technique, I think it worked well, although we were not fading to the back quickly in some cases and that made it awkward. I would prefer to keep the line order and the front rider drops off much harder, so second wheel is already in place, but its good to try different things.

I’m coming off the back of two big races and a hilly night MTB ride, which is a lot for me, so if I start to do a Captain Oates off the back, don’t come looking for me, its for the best.

Otherwise, I’m gonna be in the sleigh at the back with Santa if I get any say in it.

For my tuppence worth I’d suggest we surge off the back then try falling back a place at a time it’s much much easier and far lower risk of splintering the group.

I would normally agree, but I’m ready to try it the other way today, it makes it very clear that after the front you go to the back. Without this there is a kind of random churn of the front few riders. Can’t wait to see us whipped into shape.

I didn’t see the break point on the road announced for mince pies, but can I suggest xmas jumpers for team kit tonight ?

Click the default Zwift kit (grey with orange Z) – https://zwiftinsider.com/xmas/

Alas no @mbs this week.

I have an epson eco tank – why did no-one tell me about this before.

Epson ET-2750 – probably there is an update since I got it, if it is in your budget and has the features you want, it has been the most trouble free printer I have owned, works on wifi, with macs.

Its two years old at least and I’ve yet to refill the ink, and I can see the levels. through the side. We are just a normal house, printing the odd photo and documents, nothing heavy use.

Looking forward to it, I have it on some good authority (Eric Min) that there will be some gravel routes in the next update, whenever that is.

He posted a few pictures during his last ride I understand.

I want to be drinking water out of my bare hands… none of this foreign beaker nonsense.

It definitely started to go wrong the beaker folk, coming over here with their beakers.

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.

I had a direto but got fed up with it by the time of the third belt and pulley change.

From there to a Neo 2 (no calibration -yay, very accurate – boo, expect to lose watts after a direto), and that’s been great for two years, but now has a slight vibration and I’m replacing the bearings this weekend.

See dcrainmaker.com for comparisons

@weeksy – do you know who owns/admin is for the STW team on Zwiftpower? Want to try and encourage people to sign up for the team but their are no contact details.

I don’t know but you might try David Churchill, he seems to have done the most rides. Not sure if that means he was a STW original or. not though

Excellent start – we were ripping along I thought, but then disaster – a stretched out overtake half way up a hill, with the other team at a similar pace, I was near the rear trying to get through as bumble bees started to come back towards me, out of the team we were passing, but they were not us, so that was a slight pause.

As I hit the crest I couldn’t see Martin behind me any more in the rider list, so tried to press on and catch the rest of the team, but all I succeeded in doing is pulling the whole team we passed along with me, they were not interested in backing off. When I did catch up I dumped them all on the rest of you and died in a ditch.

Dragged myself out of the ditch as Martin caught up, he and I double teamed to the end, went through at least 4 teams.

This is the proper passing procedure

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.

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…

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

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.

The gaps between your team members were fluctuating between 30 and 50 seconds so I wasn’t sure how far behind you were. I assumed you hadn’t split by that much.

I also saw this and thought MoreSTW had split, quite disconcerting to see it come and go. It didn’t help that I was not sure what your relative start delay was, so thought you had taken a minute out of us.

Not quite sure how to improve my climbing, but enjoyed that nonetheless. I felt I could have gone a little harder on the flats after the hill if needed, but not much.

Talked to Martin afterwards, he finished about 3k down on us. He heard the countdown ok, but he is on a watt bike, and was also at the back of the pen, and it may be that that is causing the delay. His previous starts have been similarly slow. He was putting in a lot of watts to catch us, but it was not happening.

Have talked him through how to shoot the gate, so hopefully starts will improve. I could hear Phil but most of the rest was garbled.

Roll on the day when Zwift puts some dev love into the TTT.

Sounds like you all need to learn to rocket launch :D. Sit in pairing screen, be at 400W ish or whatever is agreed before your start time. Exit pairing screen. Much faster.

Is this the one where you drop out of pairing and find yourself at the top of the Insbruck leg snapper ? I don’t think we even got punished for that.

I’m saying, lets have a strategy for when this fails:

Ideally we want to climb as a group, but if we don’t manage that, lets have a strategy for re-grouping that doesn’t involve death-by-chasing.

I’m not saying we should slow down unnecessarily, just if there is a gap. If we are together, press on. And concentrating on cresting together is key, yes.

Ditto the start – if you are at the back of the pen, you can be 100m down at the start, and others have left and grouped up, it can be a hard chase to get grouped up. Better to leave the pen at 80% power and group up early. If you are last man and blow through the group, keep going, the group will catch, just don’t set off as a group with a man hanging.

Can I make an appeal after last week, on behalf of my significant other – please please don’t disappear down hill.

The hardest part of last week was about a 4 minute effort of chasing my team HARD, who did not appear to be slowing down at all as we crested, and my discord appeal was on deaf ears, due to general comms issues. I was pretty blown after that.

Iff we are still trying to stay together, and you are at or near the front of the group, and we are at the top of a significant lump, and we are not all visibly together..

either a) change your view to front-on, so that you can see the gap to the back AND slow down, or b) just keep an eye on it, AND slow down.

For me the ideal strategy is that as you crest (if there is a gap) the whole team slows markedly and waits for the last guy to go through the or into the middle of the team, that way we are sure no-one is dropped, before increasing speed, otherwise its super painful.

Ideally we want to climb as a group, but if we don’t manage that, lets have a strategy for re-grouping that doesn’t involve death-by-chasing.

I don’t mind the fastest-four-over-the-line-later-in-the-race approach, but whilst we are still riding as a group, lets micro-manage the spee on the crests.

Appeal over.

If you’ve also been affected by any of the issues in this message, please contact your nearest significant other.

FB is full of stories of riders and even teams disappearing and re-appearing.

Seems like Zwift had a mare, had lots more problems recently since they have ‘upgraded’ their servers.

Looks like STW got the much coveted 214th/256 position in Frappe, and MoreSTW 115th/224 Latte.

The team just 3 secs above us (Herd of Cheetahs) has a team mate from ZRL (Thomas Kroeber) who is streets ahead of me, 8 riders with 6 B’s, so we must have been pushing hard to be that close – thanks Phil.

You had been gone for so long, I think you skipped a lap. !

I was leading up the final climb because I was so petrified of being dropped on the other side like on the 2nd lap, fear adds watts !,

My passenger coach is fully parked up, in a siding.

Kept getting dropped just over the brow of the big hill as the lead takes off, even a slight gap is too much to make up – several hard minutes of playing catch !.

Lost comms on the third lap, think that was my own fault as it looks like my headphones were on discord mute until i noticed. Apologies if my name was being used in vain. Was calling a bit to slow down but not sure i was getting heard :^(

People were teleporting around quite a lot, I was dropped on my own ready to die, and then suddenly Phil was there from nowhere. We passed at least 6 teams I think.

Thanks for the ride, enjoyed it.

Oh dear, a beasting ahead I fear.

I shall endeavour to be a useful engine, but more likely an old Mark 2 passenger coach, towed to its final resting place.

I didn’t even know this one existed – the graphics look lame but compare and contrast the amount of effort put in to the user interface to decide what you want to do.

They also do propriatory steering buttons, or a game controller.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCFUEa-C9XxWAZRHCfq-oUQQ/videos

The change is a-coming if we only believe hard enough.

Zwift actually gives me 90% of what I want. It runs on most platforms, including apple tv which is great. The problem is that the remaining 10% makes me want to throw it in the bin.

I don’t need better graphics than, I don’t need more realism.

I would like to see more steering and braking options, race-craft like features, but it’s not the key issue.

The trainer interface is stable, never seem to get rogue data.

The problems for me are two fold:

a) UI – so many well documented issues, no change there for a long time. So frustrating to be registered for an event, but not be able to join it. Why for gods sake. These should be straight forward to resolve.

b) Social – if you are not on a forum like this, you get no way to interact with anyone, other than inane in game chat.

From a software development point of view they seem to have lost their way. Promising re-writes and features, but providing nothing of note. Meetups are improving, so there is hope. Steering is there, but instead of providing an open interface that companies could use, they have kept it closed. It’s quite clunky having used it, it’s not that useful so far. The best bike in the game is hampered by not knowing if you are drafting – why ?

Some fairly trivial software changes would eat into that 10% of frustration.

Those delays are getting lengthy these days, it’s a bit of a downer. Prepare for 15, expect 3 based on last week !.

Zwift already has a ghost power up, it would be great if these events were shorter launch delays or similar like the individual TTT, (with the travellator) but teams near you were in ghost mode, so they can’t affect your team and you only see them as they approach from the rear or you approach someone else, then they fade out until there is a distance between you.

Unless you like the chaos of course.

@mbs – Martin I assume? Just so I can tie up the forum username with the Zwift!

Yes

Damn you Zwift – how hard is to have a button that says ‘join this ride that I see you are going to, that is starting in 15 mins’.

Riding around hoping its going to appear, then 15 mins of logging in/out, restart, go/don’t go, made to the event with 3 mins to go (all warmup time gone), managed to ride the go wave, yay, but then dumped out after 15 mins.

I hope Veloton eat all their lunch.

I made one with inline roller skates and tennis balls.

I sometimes go back to a fixed version whilst tinkering, and its not as comfortable for me.

I guess it depends very much on the arrangement of your inner tube.

Note there is a specific rocker plate group on the facebook with various designs featured.

Having rotated out of the ZRL for a week – I’m in.

Looking forward to it, although my trainer which has decided not to power on..

The event link is:
https://www.zwift.com/events/view/1231763?fbclid=IwAR15bF01GNsWTZPWyAc0ZFdBkYTw9LwG2sDHV78aP5-tgtImKWlzuVs_twI&__znl=en-gb

The full text from FB:

Just a note to say that as the Zwift Apprentice unplugged the main server to charge his phone, much of the Zone 8 race data that did come through needs a bit of ‘Martin Magic’ working on it but some of it is more dead than a dodo.
We wont be announcing the results tonight. There is a ‘Make-Up’ WTRL TTT tomorrow (Friday 13th 😱) for those teams who can and want to give this one another go.
https://www.zwift.com/events/view/1231763
Signup is crudely on a Google Doc at the moment

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1zzvcOgAaSXyX12hs8PPt2Wi6ARkrPMV0XzJcUVBO9wI/edit?fbclid=IwAR0JIoGU9__fdIMgaI-cyGw1GYPuMxYMSdF7-8JqvUdnJAenZF5yHBG_HCg#gid=0

That was a mad scramble with 30 secs to go to change the ZP tag, and also to get out on the dot of 3:30. My water bottle was not prepped and no snacks !, thought I had 16 minutes to sort that out.

Didn’t have much more to give and didn’t get dropped, so top marks all round.

From FB:
To all those in Zone 8 who were affected by the entire Zwift game network crashing, Zwift have kindly offered to do a Zone 8 reschedule FRIDAY 13TH 19:30 GMT / UTC

I have some library books to take back, and then I have to re-order my record collection, enjoy yourselves.

Ignore, I’m behind the curve. Looks up how to delete a comment…

Martin is also in, has registered on STW but can’t post here yet !.

Chunky boys looking forward to some flats.

To be honest, it’s all been a bit tame since trick trax..

Can’t believe how seriously everyone is taking this.

It’s just banter surely – we all appreciate the effort that goes into setting it up and running it, without that we are relegated to the anonymity of zwift races again. Lots of discussion means riders are animated by it, rather than taking it seriously results-wise.

That being said.. I’m going to tentatively and softly bang my drum for a wavy start again ! Robbo has done all the hard work to make individual time penalties, I’m suggesting grouping those penalties into waves – say 5, publish the list of who is in what wave, and what time they go off at in good time.

Wave 1 goes when the meetup starts, Wave 2 some N secs later etc. It is up to you to wait for your start wave. If you don’t wait and you cheat off the line, I don’t care, because I’m doing it for the fun, and the racing of whats nearby rather than the accuracy of the final result, so boo to you. Waiting is not rocket science.

This wavy start means that you are more likely to blob up with your wave riders at the start, and try and stay ahead of the wave behind. This avoids slower less twitchy-start riders being on their own from the go, which is pretty miserable.

If you have something more to give, you can lead your wave, disappear into the sunset, or you can go with a faster group as they come through. Wave times should be calculated so that waves meet at 90% distance perhaps, rather than finish line, so that everyone gets the chance to draft the faster waves.

It means that everyone is more likely to see everyone else at some point, rather than just on the start line.

The results are the finish line order, (if anyone actually truly cares) although I don’t know how easy that is for Robbo to get versus what currently happens. I’m hoping thats easier than time based calculations after the race. It’s less precise than individual time penalties, but I suspect it may be more fun in practice.

Yes, this means that the faster riders are more likely to win the league. That seems legit to me, I’m more interested in my relative placing and having a competitive race.

Also, thanks Robbo.

One last thing – if you are a test/QA engineer and you would like to be a dev, read this link.

It’s only a small thing, but dev’s can be picky, and if we come across someone who knows the difference between these things, and knows which one they are doing at the time, its sure to be remembered.

https://www.functionize.com/blog/quality-assurance-vs-quality-control-vs-testing-whats-the-difference/

Don’t try to explain this to management – it’s too late for them.