Discovered Clif bars at the Etape Loch Ness one year and they are my favourite but blooming expensive energy “product.” But snickers bests them every time!

Are you allowing for rear sag in your measurements when stationary? Your ride height changes on a full sus vs a HT where it’s fixed.

Lol as long as the music got through! Sorry if you had to listen to any disturbing heavy breathing too :D good course as the surges were quite short so it wasn’t too hard to stick together?

Great first time guys! Couldn’t hear anyone from just past the half-hour mark so apologies if you were trying to communicate with me. And apologies for the outrageous super gravity :D

Ok cheers Robbo, sage advice!

Lol should be interesting! Any ground rules to be aware of eg time at front etc?

Awesome thanks!

Hi Savoyad,

I’ve been talked into signing up so I’m in for this week. Username Taylor Third.

Cheers

For reference that was the hardest start to any zwift race I’ve done yet! I thing working on 30 second max power then hanging on for 45 minutes might be my new workout:D

Haha those numbers royally hurt just looking at them :D

Got left standing at the start and had to fight incredibly hard to get back on to any kind of group. Worked up to the group with Robbo and NArnold eventually, cheers for good group work guys! That climb is just long enough to make you really want to kick back at the top but lost a bunch of folk the first time and again had to hit far too many watts to get back on. Sprint at the end with Robbo for very little gain :D

Great experience for first time out and will try and make it weekly!

Would a more reasonable challenge be more like say the average punter on here is 80kgs? Then 500/80=6.25 w/kg for 5 minutes? or if the average is 70kgs then 7w/kg lol

Sorry I didn’t ride today. Sun was shining so intended to get out on the big bike for the first time this year then decided stupidly to get involved in building a desk and woops it was tea-time. FFS.

Quite nuanced when you avoid the headlines

@n0b0dy0ftheg0at I second to take it easy although as a counter to that with an 8 month old in the house even 1-2 nights of interrupted sleep can be devastating for my function on the bike and just general drive to even get on a bike! Sleep is so essential for fitness gains and motivation. Not good when you aren’t getting enough.

I’m hoping the weights will make a difference both in mtb and road. It will be interesting to see how much difference it makes to mtb as I have’n’t been out since December!

TBH I think if you looked at the amount of anti-inflammatories pro’s take pretty regularly you might be surprised. Ibuprofen and other NSAIDs definitely reduce renal blood flow but it shouldn’t be significant for young healthy people. I would caution doing exercise with any pain that isn’t helped significantly by paracetamol/ibuprofen as they are very effective painkillers and anything that doesn’t pretty much go away after half an hour shouldn’t be ignored.

I wanted to ask how much gym and weights work people are doing? I have bought a cage, barbell and other associated equipment and now trying to religiously stick to one gym session a week. I use the fit4racing program which is pretty hardcore but I feel gives you enough bang for your buck you can just cycle or turbo the rest of the time. I’m not sure increasing the frequency would give me enough benefit.

Without even watching the video I can state that starting to cook on the way up the Col D’Izoard in the Etape du Tour meant my power output just went down and down and down. Very difficult to hydrate in 35C+ heat! Also you can’t really train for that in Scotland or you wouldn’t want to anyway!

@pickle thanks for that. I listened to the Downtime podcast and Chris Hull was raving about it so is high up my list although the Privateer is too. And possibly the Torque although haven’t had fantastic customer experiences with Canyon. Hopefully production and delivery will pick up by the summer fingers crossed!

@Pickle where did you order it from? I can’t see any in stock anywhere?

Aha I may be able to help! I have a Topaz T3 216×63 that’s been sat in his box after being serviced by a DVO registered service centre. PM me if you’re interested. Brilliant shock btw just doesn’t fit my megatower.

It was Dirty Reiver style pain so it fits your bill perfectly :)

Did PRL full yesterday. Was one of the worst episodes on a bike due to the sheer repetition and fairly unrelenting nature of the course. I think if you can keep in a pack and not let it all fall apart after each climb it’s doable but I certainly won’t be repeating it any time soon, regardless of not actually getting the badge due to Zwift stall and having to get late entry! Did all the climbs though and was shouting at the laptop on the last climb that it just needed to be over now :D

I honestly call BS on the whole thing. He sounds like someone stuck in a mindset and needing to vent. Because high end bikes can come in way under the 6.4kgs weight is never going to be an issue and in terms of aero in the real world ie not wind tunnel the width of your rims and body habitus makes the effect of 160mm or even 140 mm discs just about irrelevant. He’s understandably going to take a while to get used to a new setup but I believe he will likely be faster on this bike overall than without discs. Maybe he just can’t get over the move from an F12 to what the advertising gurus would want us to believe is simply less of an F1 car?

If you have the companion app you can search for group rides and then select the category ie. power range you’re looking for. They are often the best for staying at specific power outputs.

After all that I didn’t realise it started at 8:30. I’m on-call from home this weekend and have a 9am teams meeting I need to attend. Sorry DrP although I am keen to attend in future!

DrP thanks for accepting my friend request! Initials GT if you’re inviting me to anything. Thanks!

good work speedie

For once living up to my ridiculous STW name that i’m not allowed to change :D

Morning folks,

I saw you all yesterday in the crit before the one I did. Zpower bumped me to a win in C which is kind of unusual as I don’t tend to “win” things. Anyway I wondered if I might be invited to the Sunday hills ride? I am looking for a Sunday spin but none of the normal rides are quite fitting the bill this morning. Cheers!

Can I just reiterate again the benefit of doing Zwift races in relation to ftp. It seems to help if it’s people you actually know you are racing and you genuinely can’t deal with them being smug having beat you. Zwift reckons I should increase my ftp by 23 watts after yesterday :D I am being conservative and only going with 15 as I may not be able to recreate this power in any other scenario…

*You can still stay off if you’re unwell regardless of reason. Too many people just soldier on without need. Silly work culture we have of working whilst sick.

A negative test does not mean you’ve not got Covid unfortunately. If it looks feels and doesn’t smell like it, it still may well be!

I just want to add that I have attained my best FTP numbers in zwift races. Brings me to that level of caring.

https://metro.co.uk/2021/01/06/entire-coronavirus-unit-in-egypt-dies-after-oxygen-supply-fails-13855446/

Horrendous depiction of what happens to Covid patients without ICU

^^agree both

I don’t disagree with the comments about the style of government but that is separate to the regulations surrounding the epidemic. They very much are a government that alters things for their mates, as the epidemic has shown. But within that is a desire to reduce government’s reaches and decrease regulatory frameworks. Although this might not be in our favour these do not hasten an autocratic state. You could argue that Brexit might be more towards that style of isolationist politics that autocrats tend to love but this was of course voted into power democratically albeit against any notion of logic.

Those who believe these restrictions have even the slightest possibility of becoming permanent or representing the actions of a 1984-style government clamp-down have no idea how much we have had to fight to get the lockdown measures currently in place! This government is in it’s essence opposed to any restrictions (see notes on Tory tax evasion and books about the new opportunistic man) and is doing it through force of necessity alone. Gribs, you are a sign of a portion of the population who have lost their way in terms of caring for your other citizens. This is a period of time that is tough but all you are being asked to do is follow some rules to protect other people. It is the difference between the child and the adult. A child always pushes back against restrictions when they don’t understand the implications. An adult tries to understand and acknowledges the reasoning of the common good even if it doesn’t suit their immediate purposes.

TiRed what say you about the suspected but unconfirmed covid cases the bmj article raises? We know the pcr test has a variable false negative rate so should these not be at least factored in?

Ah ok Chrispo I understand now. I find it highly unlikely that will be correct. Covid is causing such unprecedented numbers of deaths across Wales that once the season is over and numbers totalled it will be significantly higher.

Link

This is a helpful comparator from fullfact.

Thanks MCTD, glad it’s not just me! I’m bewildered tbh. Do people honestly think if the numbers were comparable our numbnut Tory overlords would have taken the path they have which goes against every instinct of their little blue blood cells? Is it that people so desperately want experts to be found not to be so clever that they will go along with any clown on youtube? Why even go to a doctor in the first place?! I try desperately to remain balanced and non-judgemental but there is a whole new level of incredulity out there now

I don’t understand why people are not shooting down comments about no excess deaths in 2020? The statistics are very clear: covid deaths are almost entirely excess compared to the 5-year average ie for the uk at least 70 000 excess deaths occurred in 2020 despite total societal shutdown for periods. Any quick search of the various statistics sites including ONS shows this. Am I misunderstanding what people are referring to?