Zwift Chat

[bobinski]

just back from docs
not allowed to push myself for a while yet by the sound of it
even if i had a helmet i shouldnt wear it yet cos where bump is
bump could be with me for quite sometime
got told off for not taking painkillers
live with knee,shoulder neck and head pain for now
feeling a bit pi55ed off now

Knee pain you say?

seriously, just rest and recover.

 

[Monte]

Well you can tell the winter is on it's way, I did the Pack social extended ride last night 35 miles to include both fox hill & box hill with over 100 riders and can honestly say that on the Tacx neo it felt very similar to a real life group/club ride. Not been a great year for me for cycling, knee injuries followed by illness bug that took 7 weeks to recover from. Took the bike to Portugal and very much enjoyed the Portuguese roads (need to watch out for wild dogs) and now ready to get back into it...

See you online soon

 

[bobinski]

Well you can tell the winter is on it's way, I did the Pack social extended ride last night 35 miles to include both fox hill & box hill with over 100 riders and can honestly say that on the Tacx neo it felt very similar to a real life group/club ride. Not been a great year for me for cycling, knee injuries followed by illness bug that took 7 weeks to recover from. Took the bike to Portugal and very much enjoyed the Portuguese roads (need to watch out for wild dogs) and now ready to get back into it...

See you online soon

Good to see you back. Lots of rides and races ahead.

 

[CXRAndy]

See you online in October.

 

[Randyberlin]

just back from docs
not allowed to push myself for a while yet by the sound of it
even if i had a helmet i shouldnt wear it yet cos where bump is
bump could be with me for quite sometime
got told off for not taking painkillers
live with knee,shoulder neck and head pain for now
feeling a bit pi55ed off now

Not like button. But could be worse. You could have hit a little harder done some brain damage and ended up qualified to be president of the united states.

 

[JLaw]

Yes, but only some I think.

I did the KISS race and there were 45 starters. The starting rush was fast - evidenced by getting a PB on the warm-up stretch (2 seconds slower than Mr Bobinski's best).

A group of 10 went off the front (most were clearly over-C) and I hung on. At the start of the last lap we ran into a massive group ride. Probably an Academy one.

The front guys used this as cover to escape and hit big w/kg numbers. It was hard to see where they were and you also had to fight against the sticky draft of the group riders. 5 or 6 got away and took the top places. One rider also caught out, chased me down and passed me but then blew up. I chased one of the leaders who was fading but they kicked hard at the end and beat me by 2 seconds. That rider was 6th but the first legal-C. I came 2nd.

It was a short race, 35 mins or so and unsurprisingly I hit my highest average power.

Enjoyable race even if it took a while to get my breathing back under control!

Wish I could have been there with you.. A couple thoughts.

FIrst, use zwiftpower's live info to spot the riders that are over cat limits and the top riders within limits. DId that for the first time last week to help identify if I was pacing with the lead C riders. For a short 35 minute race that may not be interesting. But beyond that it could be helpful -- more than once I've found myself in the 2nd group assuming I was well out of contention only to find after finishing that most/all of the fast group DQ'd. Had I known I was still in contention I might have found a bit more oomph somewhere.

I think most of the KISS races are closed course now, but I have noticed that Monday ones are not. Not sure what the rationale is, but as you note it can make for a bit of chaos. The advice I saw elsewhere was to move to the first few positions in the pack and push through hard. Both to avoid the sticky draft, but also because others are likely to use it as an opportunity to get away, but it's going to be hard to see it as it happens. Best to already be ramped up.

As for my racing -- for the next couple months I've got a very tight schedule MTWR. Anything where I'm likely to finish 1:05 or longer is probably not going to happen. I'll probably try to avoid those races and substitute in the shorter TT on Wed.

I'd do that this week, but after 4 days off, I'm anxious to get back on the bike, even if I have to bail on the race prior to completion.

 

[kipster]

Reenabled the zwift account, missed the start of the ride I thought I'd do as I just wasn't organised enough, so just rode around. The kickr snap wasn't changing resistance, but I think that's because I didn't do the calibration properly, then tried it on the elemnt, and I think that took control. Did the greater London loop, rebooted everything, calibrated a few times, loaded zwift again and the resistance was back. The gears on the turbo bike need a bit of adjustment, the bike was last used in April and needed a couple of cobwebs removing.

 

[JLaw]

80+ in the KISS EUR C group today. Presumably the Zwift Academy effect. I stuck with the lead group for a little while, but knew that wouldn't stick. It was so clear there was going to be a huge number of DQs. Used Zwift Power to get a sense of who I should try to stick with -- with some success. Stuck with my targets until the A group came flying by and broke the group apart. By the time 4-5 of us got a new small group organized we were about a minute behind the likely podium group.

Around lap 6 there was another mass chaos event -- it wasn't clear to me if we were caught by the DQ C group or if we'd slowed down and been caught by a big group of legit C riders. Looking at the data I think it was the former rather than the latter. It was something like a group of 20 that we got mixed in with and one of our group 5 got away. As we wrapped up lap #6 I decided to go ahead and go for the full race. It was going ot be very tight time-wise, but thought it'd work. So I pushed on.

Instead of an acceleration there was a definite slow-down for the last lap. I found myself pulling regularly and really backing off hard to force the others to do a little work. On one of the late little rises one rider hit the gas and I followed. He used his featherweight and I was just barely keeping up. THankfully I seemed to carry on harder as we crested and was able to get into the draft. I tried to keep him in front and didn't notice the rider come up behind us with less than a mile to go. When he passed, I hit the gas hard to jump into his draft with success. About 400M out I went for it, using a aero power-up. I really didn't need to go so hard -- the other rider didn't even seem to make an attempt to sprint. So even though I faded with about 50M to go it didn't really matter.

In the end I think half of C group DQ'd. Several names in there I recognized from prior races. It had to have been brutal up at the front. Of the ~35 left I was 8th.

 

[Norry1]

Nice report. I like big numbers of riders in the race - but it is a bit annoying to have obvious DQ riders. Maybe the software should bin them as soon as their 20 min power shows them over category?

Couldn't see how to get live zwiftpower info - I recalled you had suggested that before and I did try in the race, but failed.

 

[si_c]

Nice report. I like big numbers of riders in the race - but it is a bit annoying to have obvious DQ riders. Maybe the software should bin them as soon as their 20 min power shows them over category?

Couldn't see how to get live zwiftpower info - I recalled you had suggested that before and I did try in the race, but failed.

I'm not really comfortable with the way the races work, especially the shorter ones, as it's way too easy to DQ. My FTP is around 300-315, and I know I can hold that range for about an hour, it's really really hard, and I don't like it, but I can just about do it.

For 20 mins though I can hold significantly over that, especially if I'm pushing to say 500W and then getting a recovery time around FTP or just below, this means it's really easy for me to DQ from say CAT C even though nominally I might be within the category based on my FTP. Now you could argue that I should be Cat B, and I'd probably agree with you, but my point is that just because you can push well over your FTP on a short race doesn't mean you should necessarily be disqualified.

A better system might be a points based ranking system like British Cycling use. Everyone starts in Cat D, and works there way up based on results, or not.

 

[Monte]

I'm not really comfortable with the way the races work, especially the shorter ones, as it's way too easy to DQ. My FTP is around 300-315, and I know I can hold that range for about an hour, it's really really hard, and I don't like it, but I can just about do it.

For 20 mins though I can hold significantly over that, especially if I'm pushing to say 500W and then getting a recovery time around FTP or just below, this means it's really easy for me to DQ from say CAT C even though nominally I might be within the category based on my FTP. Now you could argue that I should be Cat B, and I'd probably agree with you, but my point is that just because you can push well over your FTP on a short race doesn't mean you should necessarily be disqualified.

A better system might be a points based ranking system like British Cycling use. Everyone starts in Cat D, and works there way up based on results, or not.

or alternatively, just get really fat like me... CAT D rider

 

[si_c]

or alternatively, just get really fat like me... CAT D rider

Spent too much effort to go the other way lol

 

[bobinski]

I'm not really comfortable with the way the races work, especially the shorter ones, as it's way too easy to DQ. My FTP is around 300-315, and I know I can hold that range for about an hour, it's really really hard, and I don't like it, but I can just about do it.

For 20 mins though I can hold significantly over that, especially if I'm pushing to say 500W and then getting a recovery time around FTP or just below, this means it's really easy for me to DQ from say CAT C even though nominally I might be within the category based on my FTP. Now you could argue that I should be Cat B, and I'd probably agree with you, but my point is that just because you can push well over your FTP on a short race doesn't mean you should necessarily be disqualified.

A better system might be a points based ranking system like British Cycling use. Everyone starts in Cat D, and works there way up based on results, or not.

Sure, but you are racing in the wrong category

 

[CXRAndy]

Si I think you're doing yourself down a little. Im a strong C cat rider on flat ish courses, but I'm working flat out to attain those results. I wouldn't want to cruise around not testing myself when I could try a higher category

 

[berty bassett]

And there's me pushing hard as I can all way round just to keep up and I get dq because of low weight and should be in cat b because w/kg but came nowhere in cat c
At the end when everyone turns up the pace - I ain't got another notch to go up !
Doesn't quite work but it's close