An interesting weekend on Zwift, trying a whole bunch of new things. Given that the weather was going to stop me riding outside, I was determined to get as many miles in as possible.
Started off on Saturday doing the Repack Ridge for the first time. Because I'm on a Wattbike Atom, I've got no front wheel to turn, so for ages I've presumed I wouldn't be able to use this course as there was no way I could turn my phone unless I was holding it in my hand, which would probably mean I'd be constantly veering from one side of the path to the other. However I figured out a bodge using the tablet mount on the bike that possibly could work, though I'd have to use my left hand to tilt the phone left and right as my right hand would be fixed on the shifters. And it was okay - kind of.
Did have problems straight out the gate - when Zwift asks you to centre your bars, I left the phone where it was and clicked OK, only for my bike to immediately go hard right even though I hadn't touched it. Came to a stop, clicked to re-center and now it was fine for some reason. This happened on both occasions I did the course, so I guess the initial re-centring doesn't have any effect. Took a few minutes to get used to the steering on my first run, but once I'd turned down the sensitivity, I started to get the hang of it - 3 stars and 6 halves on my first run, 8 stars and 2 halves on my second - although I learned that I would have been better off locking the phone first, as every time I touched it to steer, I ended up opening apps / menus / other screens I didn't want by accident!
I wasn't a huge fan of the big hill at the end of the course however. It seemed like it would have been better doing it the other way round - having the course mainly downhill with small climbs dotted throughout instead. It just meant you got 3-4 minutes of fun action followed by a 6-7 minute grind up a steep slope at 4mph where the steering didn't really matter all that much. Also cause the course was no longer new, the place was abandoned - didn't see anyone else on it. I got the fastest time at the end - 1st place out of 1 riders! By the time I'd done my second run (which was 2 1/2 minutes faster) others had been through as I was now down to 2nd out of 3.
That I used as a warm up for the DIRT Chase Race about half an hour later - I had done a Hare and Hounds one before, but that didn't go great as everyone pretty much did their own thing and there were no real tactics, so this time I'd decided we were going to do it right. In the pens, got talking to all the other D's about trying to stay together for as long as we could and got a lot of agreement; said we'd go fast out the gate but not ridiculously so and try to keep the rate high but steady for the rest of the race. And then a group of about ten riders decided to go 4+ w/kg for the first 2km - thanks guys! I went hard out the gate to try to keep them within sight, but was rapidly getting into a situation where I was soloing between two groups, so waited for those behind me (who were doing about 3.2 themselves) and joined with them - they'd settled down to about 2.7 by the time we reached the desert arch.
There was a lot of sniping in the chat between the two groups; us asking them to ease off, them saying we should have joined their group, us pointing out that holding 4 wkg for 3-4 minutes (as they had) wasn't something D's could do and there was a bit of bad blood. The good news though was that this meant our group (we starting calling ourselves the second group, or the true D's!) became all the more determined to work together and stay away. We eventually managed to get about 15 riders blobbed, including a few who had been dropped by the leaders who were now multiple minutes ahead, proving that they were not really D riders at all.
I kept a zoomed out map open on my companion app to check on where the C's were and would occasionally call out in the chat as to how far round the course they were - they were closing, but maybe not as fast as we'd feared. We reached the Watopia banner as they left the glass tunnel from the volcano and it looked like it might be touch and go as to whether we'd survive. I then said in chat that I'd bury myself for the group if needed and did a 3.2 w/kg turn on the front for a few minutes before someone else took over and I dropped to the back of the group, but thankfully just clung on. We assumed the first group of D's had long since finished, while the third group of D's on the road reported that the C's had just blasted past them, but as we were now entering the desert loop, it looked like we were going to make it. Having recovered in the group for a few minutes, I was able to join the sprint and finished third or fourth and it turned out we had held off the C's by almost 30 seconds!
Of course, checking ZwiftPower later, I was not surprised to find that NONE of the leading group of D's were in the results - all were either DQ'd, UPG'd, WKG'd or not on ZP at all, so our group turned out to be the winners after all (of which I was second apparently)!
I also did a long ride on Sunday, but the less said about that the better! I fully subscribe to this idea of doing long Zone 2 rides (I think all my IRL rides probably are), but trying to do them on Zwift is mind numbingly (and bottom numbingly) boring. Got 67km of a 100km group ride done - the second half of which was done drifting between Zones 1 & 2 as my concentration levels waned, then just had to quit because I'd had enough. Still was my longest ever ride indoors, so I suppose that's something.