Zwift Chat

[Del C]

Thanks again for all the organising @Del C. A lot of people thanking me but all I did was set up the meet up so I got the easy job. There will always be techie issues with these things as I’ve seen so many meet ups were riders are joined but when the ride starts they’re stuck in the pen on their imaginary turbo trainer or have lost connections so we did well to only lose @Ketty at the start and @mjd1988 near the end...annoying for them both I’m sure,

as for a hollow victory for A...I wouldn’t claim victory at all. Ds won and we Will never know the Advantage gained by the extra man. B were down to 3 riders unfortunately, and ultimately our time in A was a minute slower than the last outing. All I can say I had a bloody good workout and it was great fun in the lead up to the event and great again talking to the chaps on Discord - I just hope the chaps could understand my accent as well as I could understand theirs . our time compared to last.
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I noticed that B did well to hang on to our coattails for quite some time after we made the catch (allowing a suitable non-drafting gap I would add) . C team we only caught on the 2nd KOM and we could see on the map that D had crested the summit with over 60sec gap at which point I Think we knew the game was over but annoyingly Tommy kept driving us on. I was cooked at that point. @bridgy lost discord halfway round lap 1 so we did our best to keep the rotation going and hence some on screen messages to blind the rest of the teams.

thanks agian Del. As a suggestion I could put up a survey thingy for people to say if they’re available if that helps with the organising the teams, and maybe we finalise the teams just once on the morning of the event.

Thanks Al.

Appreciated your help in setting this up. Having someone else take part of the load is always a good feeling, as I'm sure you know from your work with Team Ireland.

Survey sounds like a good idea.

 

[bobinski]

Top post Del👍

 

[Norry1]

A big to @Del C for organising last night - it was all very clear.

From my perspective the star of the evening was @mjd1988 who moved into B's and then spent half the time on the front and looked anything but out of his depth. Big shame that his IT dropped right at the end. What sort of w/kg were you averaging?

I cocked up the start again. I had done half an hour warming up so I didn't bother spinning with the Pairing Screen on whilst we were waiting to go. As planned, with 3 seconds to go - I sent the message "GO B" and started pedalling.......... nothing. It took 10 seconds for my power pedals to reconnect and start recording by which time the other 3 B's were up the road. Second nightmare start out of two attempts!

After that we did ok considering Del and @Brusgaard were cooked from a weeks racing. We did consciously slow when the As passed us and waited until there was a 2 second gap.

Also don't know what was the issue with Discord. Steen, Del and I were on it fine.

Good fun anyway - and hopefully I'll start properly next time when no doubt @mjd1988 will be up in the A's

 

[Joffey]

Morning all.

Thanks for the kind words on organising last night.

I thought all the teams rode well, despite B and C being unexpectedly short of numbers at the start. And I really enjoy both the TTT and Hare and Hounds format, so to combine them is pretty unique and good fun, especially when its a bunch of friends racing with the banter that goes with that. I enjoyed last night.

I certainly wasn't annoyed by Internet drop outs and IT failures. I worked in Telecomms, Internet and IT throughout my career so I know these things can happen. That's life. And I don't get upset by human error. We all screw up from time to time.

I try not to write tetchy posts, but I did last night and maybe I was wrong to react that way. I was annoyed by a couple of @Milzy 's posts. Firstly, where he seemed to me to just gloss over his mistake in going with the D team. But I snapped when I saw the later comment about a hollow victory for the A team. Maybe it was just a poorly worded joke and I got it wrong, but I thought it was a poor thing to say.

Look. I've always been a huge believer in teamwork, whether it's a social thing like sport, or back at work when I was running large engineering teams. One of my weaknesses is that when I feel people let down the team, or breach the trust I put in them (when I was running engineering teams) I can be pretty unforgiving and I had an episode of that late last night.

Why last night and why did @Milzy 's comment make me snap? Probably because of the amount of time it takes to organise events like this. Others who've done stuff like this will know what I mean. Sorting out a course, teams, handicaps, writing them up in tables, continually updating them based on people becoming available/unavailable takes far more time than you'd think it does.

Writing up rules, because everyone wants to be clear how something like this works, answering questions, realising someone has raised an issue you've never even thought of, telling people how to unlock jerseys and a host of other silly stuff just adds to that. On top of that, I was sitting on here for a lot of yesterday afternoon, just to pick up last minute questions or in case anyone couldn't make it and we had to adjust the teams again.

I don't mind doing this stuff. In fact I quite enjoy it, as I've always been an organiser and I like to get stuff right so that people enjoy themselves and want to do it again. Surely, that's what it should all be about?

Anyhow, I'm perfectly relaxed now. Sorry if people were upset or just confused by my outburst last night, or have fallen asleep reading this rather long and maybe self-indulgent post, but I've got it out of my system now and I always make a point of being honest about how I feel.

On to the next event. Who's up for it?

A thought going forwards - maybe in the week leading up to the event a 'Team Captain' for each Cat could chase up their respective teams?

Then the day before the 4 Captains can swap riders in and out to even up the numbers and make sure each rider in that Cat knows the rules and their start time.

You did a sterling job yesterday but a bit of delegation MIGHT make it a bit less stressful - or it might end in disaster Just a thought.

 

[Milzy]

I was only been a wind up merchant Del C. Thanks for the hard work. Most enjoyed it very much. It will just keep getting better from now on. Enjoy your weekend.

 

[mjd1988]

A big to @Del C for organising last night - it was all very clear.

From my perspective the star of the evening was @mjd1988 who moved into B's and then spent half the time on the front and looked anything but out of his depth. Big shame that his IT dropped right at the end. What sort of w/kg were you averaging?

I cocked up the start again. I had done half an hour warming up so I didn't bother spinning with the Pairing Screen on whilst we were waiting to go. As planned, with 3 seconds to go - I sent the message "GO B" and started pedalling.......... nothing. It took 10 seconds for my power pedals to reconnect and start recording by which time the other 3 B's were up the road. Second nightmare start out of two attempts!

After that we did ok considering Del and @Brusgaard were cooked from a weeks racing. We did consciously slow when the As passed us and waited until there was a 2 second gap.

Also don't know what was the issue with Discord. Steen, Del and I were on it fine.

Good fun anyway - and hopefully I'll start properly next time when no doubt @mjd1988 will be up in the A's

Haha, cheers - I've no idea what power I was averaging but definitely felt really good - so annoying that I can't check because of the app freezing. I'll boot it up today and see if I can retrieve the fit file or what have you but I doubt its gone forever. Great pushing myself with the three of you, think it's definitely helping.

 

[mjd1988]

A thought going forwards - maybe in the week leading up to the event a 'Team Captain' for each Cat could chase up their respective teams?

Then the day before the 4 Captains can swap riders in and out to even up the numbers and make sure each rider in that Cat knows the rules and their start time.

You did a sterling job yesterday but a bit of delegation MIGHT make it a bit less stressful - or it might end in disaster Just a thought.

That sounds like a great idea. Spread the responsibility out a bit

 

[<Tommy>]

To be honest it isn’t rocket . Once rules are established it kind of takes care of itself after that. Every race people get more used to the start, the team work etc. Then it’s just a case of adjusting teams and handicaps slightly if needs be as we go forward.

Del’s done most of the leg work setting up the rules. So going forward it should get smoother through practice? Also there’s a lot of guys who are doing it for the first time. Going forward there might be the odd person joining but the majority can show him / her the ropes.

Now can we please get back to talking about the race?!! I for one haven’t heard enough stories about how much it hurt watching the A team come flying though. Who wants to go first?

 

[Joffey]

To be honest it isn’t rocket . Once rules are established it kind of takes care of itself after that. Every race people get more used to the start, the team work etc. Then it’s just a case of adjusting teams and handicaps slightly if needs be as we go forward.

Del’s done most of the leg work setting up the rules. So going forward it should get smoother through practice? Also there’s a lot of guys who are doing it for the first time. Going forward there might be the odd person joining but the majority can show him / her the ropes.

Now can we please get back to talking about the race?!! I for one haven’t heard enough stories about how much it hurt watching the A team come flying though. Who wants to go first?

It didn't hurt at all as they never caught the fatties in D

 

[mjd1988]

To be honest it isn’t rocket . Once rules are established it kind of takes care of itself after that. Every race people get more used to the start, the team work etc. Then it’s just a case of adjusting teams and handicaps slightly if needs be as we go forward.

Del’s done most of the leg work setting up the rules. So going forward it should get smoother through practice? Also there’s a lot of guys who are doing it for the first time. Going forward there might be the odd person joining but the majority can show him / her the ropes.

Now can we please get back to talking about the race?!! I for one haven’t heard enough stories about how much it hurt watching the A team come flying though. Who wants to go first?

I mean technically we had a man up the road so you didn't by really catch team B either...

 

[Whorty]

I don't know about the other guys but I certainly had put in a burst to catch you guys, so needed a bit of recovery when we got past so that makes sense (and definitely didn't get stickydrafted so assume we were let through okay).

It was an interesting one ... we made the call to slow as we crested the hill as we thought you'd caught us, but then we noticed @Del C was still 7 seconds adrift so we carried on a bit more. But as the 3 of you together closed we let you through. Once you had about 20 metres on us we started up again and (as you say you took a rest) we started to pull you back. We did ask on our Discord what the rules were ... as we were now catching you so should you yield, or should we sit behind at a second or so but effectively holding back? We decided to push and see what happened, but as Brendan made it to you I was trying to pull Chris along but once we realised Chris was struggling and as a team we wouldn't make it then Brendan pulled back.

Shame, as we were desperate to make it to the sprint section with you guys so we could ride together to the end as a big blob

 

[Whorty]

FWIW some of us ride the TTT series on Thursday nights largely without issue. Even dischord seems to work. We ALL pay attention to times so we don’t let each other down. That’s all part of being a team.
It’s a bit disappointing that a group of men of a certain age can’t get their s**t together for a simple race - perhaps some of you should enlist the help of a significant other, young child or carer to help you next time 😁

Oy, I am a full time carer ... so maybe I need to enlist my wife

 

[Whorty]

A big to @Del C for organising last night - it was all very clear.

From my perspective the star of the evening was @mjd1988 who moved into B's and then spent half the time on the front and looked anything but out of his depth. Big shame that his IT dropped right at the end. What sort of w/kg were you averaging?

I wasn't joking when I said pre race that Michael is a massive engine and I sit on his wheel Been racing with him now for a few months in the DBR leagues and he puts out monster rides every week. What was 'funny' (well, not funny, but a kick up my @rse) was seeing you, Michael and Del chasing us down last night - I've raced with all of you over the years but you've all moved on so much and quite literally leaving me behind

 

[Del C]

Haha, cheers - I've no idea what power I was averaging but definitely felt really good - so annoying that I can't check because of the app freezing. I'll boot it up today and see if I can retrieve the fit file or what have you but I doubt its gone forever. Great pushing myself with the three of you, think it's definitely helping.

Martin is right.

You were very impressive last night. I thought you might struggle up the last KoM but anything but. You two had to wait while I struggled over it!

Great B debut!

 

[Whorty]

Haha, cheers - I've no idea what power I was averaging but definitely felt really good - so annoying that I can't check because of the app freezing. I'll boot it up today and see if I can retrieve the fit file or what have you but I doubt its gone forever. Great pushing myself with the three of you, think it's definitely helping.

I had a freeze out recently and whilst I couldn't load the FIT file to Strava it did still show on the Zwift website and also ZwiftPower