8 laps is a common race length on that circuit. Yesterday’s 3R race had a reasonably good showing, and it took them…
a 45-50 mins
b 45-55 mins
c 50-60 mins
d 65-75 mins
(https://www.zwiftpower.com/events.php?zid=1051094)

I’m happy to ride a couple of extra laps for the badge, and also because robbo1234biking’s choices have been spot on so far and the contrast with the other rounds in the series is nice. But I think it’s true that lots of us are going to be out there longer than an hour next week.

I asked about bikes in Halfords just now: stock expected in October, but initially will only be available online. This isn’t necessarily true of helmets, but it does seem to be part of a “slower than you seem” answer across the board…

At the moment, we have 6 on the list : dangeourbrain, mrhoppy, phil56, robbo123biking, me and zilog.(mrhoppy you need to change your team from BRT in zwiftpower settings, rider name)

Any other takers? 2 laps of Harrogate at 6.30pm. Join category A here: https://www.zwift.com/events/view/1055240

I doubt I’ll make it at the moment – my trainer started making an awful grinding noise in yesterday’s race. Let’s see what elite tell me to do…

I think moving to a later time is inevitable as people’s routines get more and more normal. 6.30 was perfect when we chose it, but that was at the height of lockdown.

The later times are 7pm and 7.40pm. I’d be happy with either. Maybe we could try 7.40 next week?

I’ve never ridden Innsbruck before. I really liked that course, thanks for choosing it Robbo.

The time gaps were a bit odd on the ascent – 5-6 second gaps showing when our “non group” (as @straightliner put it) were definitely all together. Zwift is weird sometimes.

See you all next week!

It’s weird. But less weird when cooked.
This (or something like it, just stock and thyme isn’t really enough taste for me) is pretty good: https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/jackfruit-bolognese-vegan-parmesan

Be interesting to see where we came overall.

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

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.

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.

Ooh, yes! He won solo didn’t he? I think JV will probably shut that option down today (where by JV I really mean Sepp Kuss).

@crazy-legs I agree that ASO don’t take la course seriously enough. But it doesn’t follow that it’s boring – it works despite that. I think the 2018 version was one of the best bike races (men or women, road or otherwise) I’ve ever watched.

This is a really odd finish. I can’t remember a grand tour stage quite like it.

The GC riders will have to race up the Col de la Lusette (where “race” might include something like the way stage 4 finished). It’s properly hard, selective, near enough the end to matter. So a small(ish) group will emerge, and enough of them will be up for it that they’ll likely never be caught. But there’s 13.5km to the end from the top, and it’s not obvious how the resulting small group race on that bit will play out. It’s quite far, it’s not obvious who it will favour.

Possibilities include mini JV train to the finish (they could still have 4 riders; Roglic wins), proper messy race with no domestiques left for anyone (this would really favour Yates, him and his brother have always been good at that), tight bunch ride, small group sprint (if Alaphillippe is there, he’d be favourite).

Great course design.

(It’ll be like yesterday now I’ve tempted fate)

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!

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!

To be fair @weeksy, more people were beaten by the one armed bandit than not yesterday!
Hope your wrist is healing OK. Will you still be riding, or will the longer term plaster get in the way more?

The winners in these races, especially the flatter ones, will be the “weakest” (on paper!) rider who can stay with the fastest group. And like @phil56 almost said up there somewhere: the weekly TTT is excellent training for exactly that…

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.

I got caught out at the start. This format is punishing when you are on the back foot.

– I tried to bridge to the front group as soon as I realised I had missed the boat. It was impossible. I got a personal 1 minute power record (by quite some margin, 354 or 4.8w/kg –> 414 or 5.6 w/kg) out of it before I sat up and settled back into…

– …the group in poopscoop’s pictures above. that group rolled along nicely. I pushed on as we approached the aquaduct, hoping some of them might follow but ended up on my own. There were some solo rider ahead, but a big gap to the next group so after that I was really always more likely to get caught again than catch another group up the road.

No complaints though – I might have scored no points, but I had a fun workout. And it was great to see so many familiar names in the sidebar. Thanks so much robbo for the immense effort you are putting into this.

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.

When I said this the other day, I thought I was joking:

I’ll probably still … start my next road race still on the mtb

But it’s exactly what I just did. I don’t really know if it would have mattered, but I sat up. I’ll try again later (bike is now changed again). Don’t be like me.

No. Comms are usually better. We are usually pretty good at coordinating overtakes (either way) and regrouping when necessary.
Overtaking and being overtaken is hard but we’re getting better at it. Yesterday was unusual though. There was a lot of traffic, not just teams but dropped riders (I saw some grumpy outbursts from other teams in the chat…) because of the multi lap format. That makes it harder, as does being spread out when a pass starts. Which happened to us yesterday.
Next week should be more representative.

Haha, at times our most cohesive ride I think (the first few km, lots of the last lap). But at other times we were, um, shambolic. We were scattered 400m apart at one point. Noone’s fault, the course and circumstance opened gaps and sometimes they refuse to be closed. I enjoyed most of it though. My comms broke (again; I know why now! my headset goes to sleep and I can’t wake it up without getting off the bike) so I don’t know how much I missed in terms of trying to get us back together.

I don’t like change, so I think we’ll be better back on a normal road surface without double draft next week. The entry is in: 1 lap of Greatest London Flat, so 31k which we’ve ridden together before.

@peesbee, it’s normally hard work but slicker overall than last night.

@weeksy your first walk can be out into the stream to get the turbo back.

@peesbee – yes, there is of course room for you. Presumably that is you I already see on the start list? You do need to add “(STW)” [in brackets, no quote marks!) to your rider name in zwiftpower so that the results system counts you as part of the team (it’s independent of the “team” functionality in zwiftpower, presumably because some zp teams have loads of entries in the TTT).

Logistics as follows:
– join the event by 18:30. When the screens says “GO”, stay absolutely still (in game) for 12 minutes. You probably need to stop spinning the pedals 30 seconds or so before 18:30 to make sure you’re at zero watts when it says go. Don’t pedal at all during the 12 minute delay.
– comms are on discord. join the STW server here: https://discord.gg/MVneMU and you’ll find us shortly before race time in the STW voice channel in there. It’s easier with comms. But it’s possible without – watch for the start at 18:42, and just ride silently with the blob.
– someone (Phil?) will monitor the time, count us down to 18:42:00 and shout go. At that point, go.
– we are not tactically sophisticated. we try to ride as a supportive group and all get to the line together. If gets scrappy, we work to regroup. If you get dropped, you’ll usually get towed or encouraged back on. basically stay in the blob, and it’ll be fun. there’s no pressure – just contribute whatever you can (and even hanging on the back helps the blob draft so speeds up the team).
– finally, and for tonight only – equip yourself with an MTB or Gravel Bike (whatever is already in your garage, it’s not compulsory to splash out like robbo) as it happens to be dirt tonight.

See you in the pen!

I’m hunting for a quieter start pen (for a shorter start delay, and less traffic on the course)

Well, that didn’t work.
Start delay this evening is 12 minutes. So we have to be in the pen by 18:30 and we’re off at 18:42.

[NB – event start is 18:30 tonight rather than 18:33 as A is three minutes ahead of D. So in the pen by 18:30, stopwatch start at 18:30]

@weeksy – heavy legs are neither unusual nor unwelcome!

@peesbee – definitely room for you, I’ll do a separate post specially, hang on…

No they didn’t

Yes they did.
https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2019/29/contents/enacted

The triggers for an early election are set in the 2011 Act. They are basically what mrsheen said: a vote of confidence (leads to period of negotiation, maybe a new gvt, maybe an election) or the 2/3 supermajority vote in the Commons.

The gvt couldn’t get the numbers in the Commons to use either of them in late 2019, so they passed a whole new Act through parliament (requiring only simple majorities in each House) to override, for one time only, those triggers and set the election date directly as 12 December 2019.

Power ups will be enabled for Thursday’s race. 1 for each lap.

It’s Road to Ruins (from downtown on road, up to and round the jungle dirt, back to downtown on mainly road) where seamless bike changes can be a worthwhile strategy. I don’t even think it’s worth it in a race because you just trade the reduced rolling resistance for a lack of draft as you time trial back to the group you were in to start with. Twice. Anyway, it can work because there is a lot of road either side of the dirt on that one.

The Jungle Circuit itself, which we’ll be riding, is different. There is a lead in (5km?) down from the start pens and this might well be normal surface (I haven’t ever paid attention) but it’s not enough to be worth changing bikes for.

The main reason I just made the choice of MTB was to make sure we all do the same thing – otherwise someone will be making life really hard for themselves…I’ll probably still forget (or, worse, start my next road race still on the mtb).

Entry details for this week’s TTT…

It’s 3x laps of the jungle circuit, 29 lumpy kilometers, 6.30 on Thursday.

Enter CATEGORY A here – https://www.zwift.com/events/view/1028995 – yes category A this week, I’m hunting for a quieter start pen (for a shorter start delay, and less traffic on the course).

I think we need all need to change onto MTBs this week judging by this https://zwiftinsider.com/gravel-bike-results/ which says that’s worth over 1 minute per lap compared to a road bike (we’re starting in the jungle start pens).

Bikehut 1600 is 217g. I just weighed it.
I wear it on my head (with a solarstorm on the bars) but the consensus is that it’s too heavy for that.

Snowdon itself might well be crazy busy. But much of the rest of Snowdonia really isn’t. Above Harlech I startled a runner on my road bike last week simply by existing – he hadn’t seen anyone or been passed by a vehicle for over an hour.

That is a really satisfying result, especially as we were a team of just 4.

I got home in a hurry and started without a fan, towel or discord working properly. Luckily I was rescued about 10mins in when my wife got home. But apparently I didn’t ask very nicely…

I’ve said this before – other teams are the hardest part of this. We did get scrappy towards the end, but it didn’t matter timewise because we were stuck behind those others anyway. It was a big effort to regroup just before we caught them (tpbiker you cruise along at 15% over my FTP…) so I’m not sure that we’d have been able to surge again and get all 4 of us past them after that even if we had tried. Frustrating though. Before that, it was really a great compact team effort.

What device do you use tpbiker? On a computer you can choose your view with the number keys. I think you are asking for view 5: https://zwiftinsider.com/keyboard-shortcuts/ I think phil might vary his view a bit to keep us together/encourage us along/shout when a gap opens, either that or he can read the side panel like the matrix.

I’m putting us in pen A (which is less busy) next week to see if that helps. I think we might (appropriately) have to get our mountain bikes out next week. It’s three laps of the jungle circuit. I’ll post the link separately.

No worries tpbiker. There’s no need to give advance notice. If you join the event and you’ll automatically be part of the team (your zp profile is still tagged STW). If we see you in the pen or on discord we’ll know you’re with us. If not, not.
As twisty says, you can safely pedal to wake up the power meter in the pairing menu (press A, or go through menu –> pair). The settings menu itself doesn’t help – in fact it’s worse because you move but can’t see that it’s happening – you have to go all the way into pairing.

£175-200 for annual service, maybe same again for insurance. Seasonal pitches are expensive. A common formula seems to be 100x the (low season) nightly charge + electricity on a meter. A lot depends on the kind of site you are looking at. There’s a price list on the application form linked here if you want a concrete example: https://www.campingandcaravanningclub.co.uk/ukcampsites/storageseasonalpitches/ but independent sites can be much less (and much more). For semi-permanent without towing hassle, also consider storage with a towing service near the site (or sites) you like from year to year.

3rd of 3 or 4
and
4th of more.

Simple. But I can never remember this information in the last 5km.

We have a start delay for this evening: 7 mins. So in the pen by 18:33 and we actually start at 18:40 exactly.

At the moment it’s
savoyad
twisty
zilog6128
robbo1234biking

To add your name to the list, sign up to category D here: https://www.zwift.com/events/view/1015345

S avoyad (STW)
74kg
260W

Thanks Robbo.

Bump. Four of us on the start sheet at the moment for tomorrow 6.30pm.

1x 24km lap of Douce France. Weeksy says it’s hilly. Robbo says it’s glitchy. But it’s pretty short for a TTT and I think (let’s see) the difficult bit as a team is near the start when we’ll still be fresh this way round.

Join us here, category D: https://www.zwift.com/events/view/1015345

I’ll post our start delay this evening / tomorrow morning…

CPC also have one which is basically the same as the screwfix floor fan. Pro-Elec 18″ High Velocity Floor Fan.
The exact stock seems to vary wildly. Mine is 110W, way overpowered for any ordinary household use, but perfect for zwift.

Entries are open for this week’s TTT. Thursday, 6.30pm.

Enter category D here: https://www.zwift.com/events/view/1015345

It’s back to France for 1x 24km lap of Douce France this week (which is the reverse of RGV, the course we rode the week before last).

How has your Garmin been?

My experience is like @andrewreays’s on this. Mine routinely false alarms. It’s a pain – mildly annoying if you have a free hand to cancel it but positively dangerous if it goes off when you need both hands on the bars. Way more likely to unnecessarily frighten your contact than to communicate any useful or authentic information about an incident.

Another good ride. Brian I thought you had realised but were just being modestly discreet about the upgrade to A. Congrats though. It doesn’t matter what category we ride in.

I don’t think I’ve ever ridden half of that route before, it’s an odd one!

Indeed. It doesn’t even go out and back. And its weird profile makes it rubbish rather than interesting for races. It is quite a “good” TTT course though – it’s hard to stay together on the reverse KOM after 30km and the volcano.