Good to see a more considered and proportionate position by the chief plods.
Let’s hope that quickly makes its way to the front line.

Really enjoyed the ride thanks Weeksy.

Unfortunately an internet drop out kicked me out at the sprint and I don’t think Zwift is loading the data onto Strava.

But a great ride, very well organised. But how do you manage to type so quickly and ride at the same time? I can barely manage the occasional couple of words.

how do you define minimise?
well patently not….
I’d point out that we’re all free to ride our bikes as far as we want

I wonder what a legal expert would say?

Ah, we have one here – an ex Supreme Court judge. His view seems to be that the police enforcing made up rules and ministers’ pronouncements is a bad thing – the start of a police state, no less:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/30/covid-19-ex-supreme-court-judge-lambasts-disgraceful-policing

Hi Weeksy, please can you send me an invite for Monday if there’s any available? On Zwift I am SouthsideJohnny.STW

I am now following you on Zwift companion, I think – is that what’s required?

Thanks – SSJ

Personally I like my steak with just its natural juices and chips – a case of less is more.

And in that vein, the most important criterion is that the steak must be capable of being resuscitated when it comes out of the pan – seared on the outside, still beating red on the inside.

But on the rare occasions I am tempted by a sauce, that peppercorn sauce is the one.

I have an IKEA electric one at home – it’s great: easy to use and enough range of motion for a 6ft person.

Two different measurement techniques getting to within 3% of each other – that’s pretty impressive.

What a great write up. Third of six is still third. I’ve never managed a podium, so don’t knock it.

Maybe go for a ride outside is the right answer! – riding IRL is always the best answer.

But on Zwift you should really try racing. You’ll never work yourself so hard and be so focused on your riding as when you are in a race. It really is where the most intense fun is to be had.

As for your FTP – well the key factor in Zwift is FTP W/kg, so work that out and based on that you can chose a category A-D for racing. In reality you will feel like you are comparing yourself to others in the same category, but with the proviso that if you choose too low a category to be one of the best you will soon get kicked up to a higher grade based on your performance in the fist few races.

As for what a race is like, my experience, shared by others on this thread is:
– starts are brutal, the first 2-3 minutes are usually well above your FTP as subgroups form
– you can’t ride at above your FTP for long, so you do need to pace yourself based on the race length, especially keeping something in hand for hills and a final sprint
– on the flats your raw power and making the maximum of drafting is key. 239W is middling, but not bad, you’ll find a group you can hold on to but it probably won’t be the front one.
– for hills it pretty quickly shakes out based on W/kg.

Work out your category, choose a race, give it a go and have fun. You’ll learn quickest by doing.

also interested in this, our bills creeping up to £48 p/m next month for internet only

although that’s their standard list price it’s crazy money for 100MB broadband. We pay £35/month.

Their business model is to punish loyal customers with continual above inflation price rises.

What you need to do is get a cheaper introductory price from eg Sky/BT/Talktalk then phone VM and say you are leaving because the price is high. Maybe throw in an excuse like your wife has been made redundant so you need to cut costs.

If you can’t get them to offer you a decent price for a 12 month contract then tell VM you are unhappy and will be leaving but will call them back once you have agreed a switchover date with new supplier. You can then decide at your leisure whether to take VM’s best offer or to switch.

But £48/month is robbery!

I tend to think whitestone is right, but the people at Exposure are very helpful so why not just email them and find out for sure?

I saw you’d register for one of the Crits yesterday Weeksy so I thought I’d give it a go. But of course I didn’t see you because you only see your own group, and you ended up doing a different one anyway!

It’s not well suited to me, and I’m pretty unfit from hardly any riding the last few weeks. I only managed to hold onto the leading pack for the first third, then ambled around until a small chase group caught me. But as I don’t really like it, it’s probably good for me – an FTP test on steroids!

I reckon you’d have been as fast as me on the Crit despite being a C, and probably nailed me on the sprint.

You could just call or email Sonos – they are incredibly helpful.

Tried the suggestion to loosen the cable tension and it worked perfectly. So thanks everyone.

How do you manage to do two races in succession? – I am totally spent after just one.

Thanks all, a pretty consistent message there.

I’ll tinker with the cable tension and if that doesn’t work send it back – unfortunately well beyond its second birthday.

@tthew – cheers.

@Woodser I’m 69kg. That’s your problem with looking at W/kg – as I said a few days ago. You’ll have trouble keeping up with the pack on the flat where it’s all about the W. But you can really hurt them on the hills where you lightweight riders have a big advantage and hiding in the pack doesn’t help.

As for those who are heavier than you AND better W/kg, then it’s just a matter of taking on board what Weeksy said and recognising that you can only do what you can do, someone is always better than you, so just enjoy the race.

And I was thinking that the Eric Min Thanksgiving Ride was some sort of memorial ride for a bloke called Eric. Until it dawned on me that today is THE number one public holiday in the USA. And Eric Min is the founder of Zwift.

Doh!

Ah, thanks @Weeksy

the notorious bath Salts in there ! Sheesh. The undisputed king of C racing LOL.

Are you aware he was DQ’d from a race series a while ago, for having an A group person (Choppa) ride with him in C as somebody to draft. It is a very interesting read:
https://www.zwiftpower.com/viewtopic.php?f=62&t=5218

@weeksy how does this race work? You guys in C were around 46 minutes for the race, which was significantly less than the time taken by A and B.

J-R this the Nirvana Loop you’re talking about?

Almost. I ride it clockwise and include the tops of Holmbury and Pitch Hills, which makes it over 30 miles and gives some useful additional climbing. When I get home tonight I’ll check what the actual laminated map from Nirvana Cycles says.

One plus for the Nirvana route is plenty of food stop opportunities.

Kelvin, as Tom says just choosing a program and sticking with it will probably help your fitness rather than worrying too much about exactly which one.

But you should now be able to enjoy an occasional race: at 216W and 82kg you are 2.6 W/kg which puts you well into C. You may not win any races but you should be able to keep up and enjoy it. And if you get down to your 70kg target you’ll be right at the top of Bs. As a fellow Surrey Hills MTBer I’d suggest aiming for races with hills, because maxing out on your W/kg for 10 mins at a time to hold onto the pack is great training for slogging up Leith or Pitch. But if you are serious about doing the SDW in a day you’ll need to build a capacity to ride 10-12hrs off road, and I suspect that means focusing on progressively longer slow MTB rides outside when Spring comes – such as 30->40->50+ miles around the Nivarana Killer Loop plus a detour to Box Hill and Headley for good measure.

Play 1 is £130 at Curry’s, the One Sl is £180. Is the £50 extra worth it?

I don’t know if there is a significant sound quality difference as I’ve not compared them side by side. But what you are getting with the One SL is the Air Drop capability. BBC is moving to their Sounds app and not interested longer term in things like Tuneln for online radio, and for BBC Sounds you need air drop.

So the One SL is the future proof option and that is what you are paying for.

I recommend instead of the Play 1 you get the Sonos One SL.

Similar size to the Play 1 but has the very useful feature of taking Airdrop feeds, so you can directly stream audio from your phone to the speaker such as for BBC Sounds – in addition to using Spotify and similar services direct through the Sonos app. Choose the SL version to avoid the spooky voice activation and save a few £. You can get a pair for about £380, probably rather less on Black Friday.

I use Sonos all over the house, for TV surround sound, kitchen and streaming through the HiFi when practicing my bass. It is excellent and the customer service is outstanding.

My wife was out for a few hours on Sunday so I thought I’d try something different: the Fun in the Sun 70km race on the Big Foot Hills course. This features the Volcano climb half way and a couple of small kicks before and after. I was interested to see how well I could keep going for 2 hours and whether it would be too boring.

In fact I found the focus involved in racing made it an engaging 2 hours and it wasn’t boring at all. Listening to previous advice on this thread I tried not to go too fast at the start, just enough to keep me in the front half of the bunch rather than near the front. The pack split in two on the first climb, Titan’s Grove but I was in the front bunch. But at the next climb over “Forward Climb” the acceleration from the front guys was just too much for me and by the other side I was in a select group of 3, which was soon 2 minutes behind the fast guys and 2 minutes ahead of the slower bunch.

Everything stayed stable for the next hour, and I got the impression I was a better climber than the other two but they were as good or better on the flat – probably big guys with good power but not as good on w/kg. But I thought there’s no point getting away on a climb if they were going to catch me afterwards, so I just wound up the power on the climbs to keep them working hard but let them keep catching me. On the flats I was a bad group member and successfully spent 95% of the time at the back.

This worked really well so that for the first time ever when we got to the last 300m I found I had a good sprint in my legs and got 6 seconds off them over the line and came in 9/21 on B in Zwiftpower: https://www.zwiftpower.com/events.php?zid=256909

Not a bad result, but nowhere near troubling the better Bs.

Looking at the stats afterwards for the other 2 in my small group I see I was totally wrong, they were both lighter than me, one of them just 60kg, so they must have been riding their legs off on the flat while I was taking it easy on the back. I feel now like I was quite mean to them – but I guess that’s racing. Overall it was surprisingly enjoyable but I know now I could have gone harder and maybe should have burned some matches to hold onto the front group.

Thanks for your comments.

I had not really considered a watch instead, but it looks like they use their own HR sensor. I tried a friends’s a few months ago and was very surprised how much the wrist measured HR varied compared to my chest strap and Garmin – I found the wrist measurement quite dubious. I also prefer to be able to see HR, time etc with a brief glance downwards rather than remove my hand to look a watch, so I don’t think that’s the right option for me.

I’ve found a company that will replace the micro USB on the 520 for £40, so I am giving them a go, because it’s a lot cheaper than a new one. But if I do eventually have to replace it it’s good to see the positive opinions on the Bolt, and I’d also take a look at the Lezyne micro.

12,000 posts – that’s an impressive topic Weeksy.

I bet you never expected that 3 years ago when you started it?

Thanks for the all comments guys, especially about putting the effort in to hang on a bit longer because it will ease up, and about knowing where to accelerate up the short hills wear the breaks occur.

ultimately you can’t really know whether other riders’ performance is accurate, but that’s just how it is

This is true. IRL there are always people who are a lot better than you, and so what if on Zwift some of them may not be completely legit – you can only race against what you see and against yourself.

12:05 3R Greater London 8 Hilly for me today – another painful experience leaving me 12/19 in the B’s. I held on to the front group at the start for the first few miles but when they ramped up the pace ascending Picadilly I just couldn’t hold >400W for that long and ended up in a small group that slowly drifted out to be about 40 seconds down.

Naturally that group split on Box Hill in order of W/kg which was good for me, but having got into another small group I just didn’t have anything left for the final sprint, and a few of them beat me over the line by 5-10 seconds.

So all in all pretty typical for my Zwift racing, but I was pretty staggered that one of the sprinters was a C. Looks like he’s a big guy with good power but not the W/kg – he kept up with the front runners to Box Hill, I eventually caught him there, but on the final sprint he put out 600-700W for 20 seconds, which is well out of my league.

FWIW FTP isn’t everything – i regularly ride with people that have high FTP / push high w/kg and even huge peak power according to zwift and they get thumped on the road by people who don’t have such big power or FTP or w/kg. road craft and real world pacing goes along way.

I guess racecraft is my problem on Zwift, and maybe I need to work on good top end power for 30-60 seconds rather than just relying on W/kg for doing OK up the hills. Anybody got suggestions for how to train for that?

Weeksy, at the last minute I decided to give the 8.25 a go and spotted you nearby a few times.

https://www.zwiftpower.com/events.php?zid=230497

Ouch – a distant 8/13 in B. I think I’ll avoid flat races in future, they are clearly not my thing.

I clung onto the front group until about 4km out then just could not stay at FTP and above any longer, so I lost touch with them. Give me a hilly race any day!

Weeksy, I got 12th in the Bs. As usual the race was mad at the start and after the fast ones had pulled away it was all I could do to cling on to the group I was with. Luckily it was quite a big group so I could sit in the slipstream and save myself for holding onto them on climbs.

When the final lap came around it was all I could do to stay with the group with nothing much left for a final sprint with the top 10 getting a few seconds ahead of me.

Looking at the zwiftpower w/kg for people above me I think my sprint is what really lets me down, but I felt so drained by the end I had nothing left to give.

https://www.zwiftpower.com/events.php?zid=231267

You inspired me to give it a go , and it was painful, but fun.

There is a reservoir by the semaphore tower at the top of the hill before Pewley Down starts. Endless possibilities for off road riding.

One option is to ride E from Pewley Down to Newlands then do the 35 mile “Nirvana Killer Loop” taking in Leith, Holmbury and Pitch Hills. Total about 40 miles or so nearly all off road.

The Surrey Hills IS bike heaven.

Some people know this already and others have not been here.

Although the Alps has a lot going for it too, although the beers not so good and it’s unbridgeable for a third of the year.

There is a lot of stuff on here that’s wrong and one thing that’s definitely right.

Basically, science does not yet know why cramp happens so there is no true solution…

is the closest you will get to the truth.

electrolites etc don’t work . .

is wrong. I am sure they don’t work for everybody, but they work for some, me included. I’m pretty fit and I often get cramps an hour or two after a ride, especially if I sweated a lot. Drinking just water didn’t help, but a pint or so of electrolyte drink is very effective in preventing them.

. . . getting fitter will.

is wrong. It may be true in some cases, but not all. Cramp seems to be a multifactorial problem and different things, in different combinations, will work for different people.

So don’t focus on just one solution because somebody on this forum claims it works. You will need to try a few things to see what works for YOU.

There is a lot of stuff on here that’s wrong and one thing that’s definitely right.

Basically, science does not yet know why cramp happens so there is no true solution…

is the closest you will get to the truth.

electrolites etc don’t work . .

is wrong. I am sure they don’t work for everybody, but they work for some, me included. I’m pretty fit and I often get cramps an hour or two after a ride, especially if I sweated a lot. Drinking just water didn’t help, but a pint or so of electrolyte drink is very effective in preventing them.

. . . getting fitter will

is wrong. It may be true in some cases, but not all. Cramp seems to be a multifactorial problem and different things, in different combinations, will work for different people.

So don’t focus on just one solution because somebody on this forum claims it doesn’t work. You will need to try a few things to see what works for YOU.

While we have the heating engineers’ attention, are there are particular types of junction boxes that you use to connect up the wiring from complicated 3 or 4 valve systems?

Flat for 20 mins? This is the Surrey Hills, not Suffolk.

I think you would have to look for something north of Woking, South of Cranleigh, or go for A24/A29 south of Dorking.

Thanks all – I’ll give it a go.

I got an On One Floater 4″ to work OK on the rim, but unfortunately that extra 0.2″ just fouls the chain on bottom gear, so looks like it’s got to be a 3.8″ tyre.

Are they the same instructions that have a section called “Installing a Tire – Tubeless Setup” ?

No – the only mention of tubeless is to say “not recommended for tubeless applications”.