Zwift Chat

[Joffey]

Ok, I think by general consensus we postpone our next TTT to next week.

I'm assuming to Wednesday 3 June? The alternative is Friday 5 June, but that's only if enough people say they'd prefer it.

Friday for me - can't do Wednesday

 

[mjd1988]

Doesn't that look nice
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It is mad being in a group of 10 or so and maybe 8 riders are the same team, and yet there rarely seems to be much tactics?

 

[Brusgaard]

It is mad being in a group of 10 or so and maybe 8 riders are the same team, and yet there rarely seems to be much tactics?

DBR have dedicated race teams (designated by DBR-RA/RB in their names) which uses Discord etc. but I don’t think they ride as a team in these rides. DBR is just one big group of riders from the same Facebook group. At one time they were the 3rd biggest “team“ on Zwift Power.

 

[JLaw]

Bit of a dull race in D. Once again we had even fewer riders enter than in previous weeks - only 15 took the start line (just 10 on ZP and one of those was an A, so really only 9). @JLaw and I went out the blocks at full power and only two other riders managed to follow us, JB from DBR (see previous races) and one non-ZP rider (although by the looks of it, he probably would have been a D). By the time we were halfway up the Otley Road, we already had 20 seconds on any chasers, who while they were putting out decent watts, weren't in a tight group, meaning we were still pulling away and the race was already likely to be between just the four of us at this early stage.

I was amazed that I managed to stay with the group over the first two mini-climbs (supertucking on the descents) considering I'd been dropped previous weeks on much smaller ascents. Reaching the KOM, Jeff and JB took a lead over me and the other guy, although I was able to stay within 2-3 seconds of them until the mini-roundabout, whereupon they disappeared. I know it was close on the line (and I saw the crazy power numbers they were putting out!) but according to the results JB just pipped Jeff on the line. At some point on the climb though, the other guy just disappeared and left me on my own to take third.

Jeff then allowed me to catch up with him so I could take the sprint points and basically that was the last we saw of JB - he didn't exactly fly off into the distance, but rather was always somewhere around 10-20 seconds ahead. I drafted Jeff for the next half lap, then all of a sudden he dropped back. I tried getting him on Discord to find out what was happening, but I'm not sure if he could hear me - occasionally I'd get a burst of static, but that was all. He carried on riding, but his power was up and down all over the place, so I wondered if it was a technical problem?

At this point I was slowly being reeled in by a Spanish rider - a quick glance at my browser window told me he was on ZP, so I thought I should up the power to try and prevent him from catching me, but while I was going down the Pot Bank descent, I had more time to look closer and saw he was averaging 2.9, so felt it was not worth pushing too hard as he was going to be DQ'd (he did). We played cat and mouse anyway over the next two climbs - him pulling ahead on the uphill, me catching and passing on the downhill, but eventually he went chasing after JB.

For the last half of the second lap I basically cruised around as I was clear of the riders behind me and couldn't catch those ahead. Tried a few more times to get hold of Jeff as I could see he was getting caught by those behind him - in fact two riders just overhauled him in the final straight, although he beat them overall because he'd picked up enough points on the Primes earlier on.

In the end, only one other DBR rider turned up, so with mine and Jeff's points, we matched their total and so kept CycleChat's lead intact in the team competition.

I just didn't have it today. JB and I went off for the KOM points and I was feeling OK during the first part of the climb, though in retrospect I was having a much harder time just settling into a pace and was instead surging, then backing off. I upped the pace further out than I should have and blew up. I waited for you then tried to tow as much as I could to help make sure you'd be well ahead of the trailers. At some point my legs just said enough and I hoped the ride-on conveyed not to wait for me. From that point I was just trying to hang on, but both of the trailers caught me and while I was able to latch on there just wasn't anything left to fight with.

I tried to let you know my state via discord, but I was pretty sure it wasn't coming through. No idea what's going on with that.

That rider that caught you was going to DQ. No way around it as he was holding 3.0 pretty consistently.

 

[mjd1988]

Just looking at the winners of the c and d cat, 1 minute raw power again seems to be the deciding factor, which makes sense in short races with punchy climbs. Some of the raw wattage is pretty insane, with both races being won by heavy riders.

Bartram put out over 380 watts for one minute in the d race.
Just in the c race put out 522 watts for a minute.

 

[CXRAndy]

Just looking at the winners of the c and d cat, 1 minute raw power again seems to be the deciding factor, which makes sense in short races with punchy climbs. Some of the raw wattage is pretty insane, with both races being won by heavy riders.

Bartram put out over 380 watts for one minute in the d race.
Just in the c race put out 522 watts for a minute.

Are you able to see their strava for said 1 min efforts, how old are they?

In a race I doubt I could do 500+, but in training efforts I probably could, I would need too long to recover during a race, unless it had a very steep descent after.

 

[mjd1988]

Are you able to see their strava for said 1 min efforts, how old are they?

In a race I doubt I could do 500+, but in training efforts I probably could, I would need too long to recover during a race, unless it had a very steep descent after.

This is just based on the numbers on zwiftpower for the last race. To be fair this race did have lots of microrecoveries. I don't think the c guy is sandbagging but the d winner is clearly staying in D as long as he possibly can. Which is a bit odd

 

[Brusgaard]

I forgot to start the recording yesterday, but you can see most of the race (at the back of B-cat.) on Eric X Johnson's Twitch stream.

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/631639154?t=19m00s

Really high heart rate from him BTW.

 

[Whorty]

Friday for me - can't do Wednesday

@Del C same for me, Friday easier to ride than a Wednesday. I'll do my best to join a Weds but I'll be hit and miss I'm afraid.

 

[Whorty]

It is mad being in a group of 10 or so and maybe 8 riders are the same team, and yet there rarely seems to be much tactics?

I'd go as far as to say there is no teamwork at all in the DBR team. That guy Schwan yesterday was pulling us along even though there was a DBR up ahead and a DBR chasing. He should have sat in and made us work Maybe they just see it as a chance to race other DBR people, and we're in te way

 

[mjd1988]

I'd go as far as to say there is no teamwork at all in the DBR team. That guy Schwan yesterday was pulling us along even though there was a DBR up ahead and a DBR chasing. He should have sat in and made us work Maybe they just see it as a chance to race other DBR people, and we're in te way

You are probably right. The only guy who cares about tactics seemed to be that ferries guy, who was obsessed.

I meant to say, for some reason on the discord I couldn't make out anything you said for the last 5 minutes. I think it worked out alright in the end though

 

[Whorty]

This is just based on the numbers on zwiftpower for the last race. To be fair this race did have lots of microrecoveries. I don't think the c guy is sandbagging but the d winner is clearly staying in D as long as he possibly can. Which is a bit odd

But then Petersen did that in C, destroying the field every week, but now he's in B he's mid table - he was always having easy rides in C and destroying the field at the end. Doesn't make much sense to me - but then I never win C races so what would I know

 

[Whorty]

You are probably right. The only guy who cares about tactics seemed to be that ferries guy, who was obsessed.

I meant to say, for some reason on the discord I couldn't make out anything you said for the last 5 minutes. I think it worked out alright in the end though

I think I was mostly grunting and swearing, so you didn't miss much

 

[Brusgaard]

But then Petersen did that in C, destroying the field every week, but now he's in B he's mid table - he was always having easy rides in C and destroying the field at the end. Doesn't make much sense to me - but then I never win C races so what would I know

Petersen mysteriously dropped 2 kg a few days after he was (accidentally) promoted to B-cat. Yesterday he dropped out of the race some time after he was caught by our group. Guess he didn't want his performance yesterday to polute his palmares on ZP.

 

[Whorty]

Petersen mysteriously dropped 2 kg a few days after he was (accidentally) promoted to B-cat. Yesterday he dropped out of the race some time after he was caught by our group. Guess he didn't want his performance yesterday to polute his palmares on ZP.

He's clearly a decent mid table B rider, and far too strong for C - just find it odd that people ride under their best and in doing so are happy to beat clearly weaker riders. But, as they say up north ... n'ought as strange as folk