While I wait for my video to upload, here's a quick recap of the D race from my perspective.
Firstly, it was a bad start - I didn't manage to make the initial front group out of the pens like planned. I was only able to doing about 300W for the first few minutes when I'd planned to do nearer 350W and also unluckily managed to get on the wheel of someone else who was doing about the same and had to watch as a gap slowly grew in front of me that I just couldn't do anything about. However both
@Joffey and
@JLaw did make the cut alongside our nemesis JB, and I followed their group as closely as I could (was probably 3-4 seconds back) hoping to catch the wheels of anyone passing me to help drag myself back to them. This I finally managed just after the Blackfriars tunnel, but I promptly lost them again on the Embankment and this time it was for good, or so it seemed.
By the time we reached the Strand, the leading group (ignoring the 2 or 3 obvious sandbaggers strung out at the very front) was already 20 seconds ahead of me and growing, so I eased up to let a small group catch me at the sprint point and used them for the rest of the first lap to stop haemorrhaging time to those ahead of me - that seemed to work as the gap, which had become 30 seconds by now, did not get any bigger. However, this group then started to go on the attack as we came past Harrods (I thought they would wait for the Green Park climb) and that started to bring down the gap to the leaders. I clung on as best as I could and by the time we reached Pall Mall, they were only 3 seconds behind the lead group, with me a further 2 seconds behind them.
Saw that this was probably my last chance to catch up to my teammates, I absolutely went all out and bridged the gap just as we got on to the Mall. Figuring that I was already on the limit, I gave myself just a few seconds to relax before starting my wind up for the sprint - I don't have a lot of sudden explosive power, so have to slowly build my sprints from quite a long way out. I basically followed JB's wheel and as soon as his avatar came out of the saddle, I went full beans and we crossed the line at the same time (there was also a third person involved in the photo finish, but he wasn't on ZP). ZwiftPower says I won it by 0.039 seconds!
For the next lap, we stayed as a group of nine riders at a fairly swift, but not impossibly high pace - including the three of us from CycleChat and JB from DBR. This was now my first chance to see the group dynamic in action. JB was always at the back of the pack, barely doing 2 w/kg, but then accelerating to 3.5 if he was ever in danger of losing the draft, while most of us were doing 2.3-2.4 and moving up and down through the group constantly, with a few of the stronger riders pulling high 2's/low 3's at the front (these were mainly the riders who had dragged me back to the leaders at the end of the first lap). Another attack came as we climbed past Green Park again, but we were able to neutralise it and it came down to another bunch sprint at the end of lap 2. This time I started ahead of JB, but I reacted too late to his surge and he won fairly easily, but I still put in a good showing, which turned out to be quite important in the end...
As soon as we hit Constitution Hill, one of the strong riders made a jump and not long after, two others followed him. I went to try and cover the gap, but I then saw a message from Joffey saying not to bother as none of them were on ZP. Excellent work - saved my legs! With those three up the road and us having dropped one rider midway through the previous lap, we were now down to five and the pace dropped dramatically; not just because of the smaller draft, but also because we were playing cat and mouse a bit more. I was now only doing 2.1 w/kg and JB was sub-2 (still always at the back!) as we saved our legs for later. This gave Joffey a further chance to burnish his Director Sportif credentials by planning tactics over PMs and telling us to let the 5th rider go when they attacked at Sloane Square as they were also not on ZP. Cleverly he did send some of the messages to the whole group, meaning JB could also see who was worth following and who wasn't, but most were done privately.
So it was just the four of us - three Cyclechatters versus JB for the final sprint. This time I'd decided I was going to watch the power numbers on the right hand side closely to see when JB started to ramp up, rather than wait for his avatar to show the sprinting animation, by which time it might be too late. And it was clear that JB had marked me out as his main rival, as he stayed alongside me at my pace all the way on to the Mall - which is fair enough, as we were 1-1 in sprints so far (as I wasn't around for the first one). But he hadn't counted on one thing - he wasn't watching the right man...
I'd seen JLaw take the front at Admiralty Arch and was watching his power numbers increase slowly, then with still at least 600m to go, suddenly they went well over 6 w/kg and he started to gap us. But JB hadn't seen this - he was still alongside me! I had no interest in chasing and waited for him to notice that the win was slipping away from him. By the time he reacted, JLaw already had a 3 second lead which had grown to 4 at the green dotted line signifying the start of the sprint proper - at that point he'd essentially already won! JB tried a valiant attempt to sprint, but I just followed him and overtook with 150m left and held off his last late surge at the line.
Now yes, JB is still going to win overall once the sprint points are calculated, but to manage a Cyclechat 1-2 against someone who's won 3 of the first 4 races of this series was a sweet team victory and we all played our parts. Oh, and I just got a notification on Zwift Companion that he's now following me - maybe he's fearing the men in the green kits!
). Last week I organised an individual time trial series using 8 scheduled Zwift events all on the Tempus Fugit course. The series took each persons best effort over the week for points and I got the riders to tag their Irish province to make it more aboutwinning for your province than individual glory. Something to think about for here?
This weeks course is takes in the volcano and watopia KOM reverse so it will be tough.
