Zwift Chat

[bridgy]

Hi guys

Just wanted you all to know I read your posts in my PM box. Thanks for the info and suggestions :-)
Im not in here every day, so I'm sorry if I missed some posts addressed to me.

I'm have a lot of training to do before I can start cycling outside. Tried a hand bike "home trainer" and had to stop after 700 meters :-(
The first goal is 20 km. Hope to do that in 4 months time.

@LBHIFI Lars, I haven't been on the forum much recently so I have only just seen your post about your accident. I am so sorry to hear this and just want to say hi and give you my very best wishes. I can only imagine what you have been through over the last few weeks, but it's really inspiring to hear you planning for your future return to zwift and cycling generally on a hand cycle. Best of luck with your training and your road to recovery and fitness again, I hope you keep us updated with your progress - hope to see you on zwift soon too. All the best for now

 

[Whorty]

Recording of the CC TTT from C's perspective ... shows how the brave C guys battled against all the odds Great ride @Freelanderuk and @Brendan Parker

A catch us at 37:00
You can see B closing us down too on the same climb from A going past us ...

 

[Whorty]

Looks like a good crew for the b team including @Whorty so I'm going to join the B's.

I'm in

I don't intentionally lower my power but I do tend to surge and relax as much as possible during a race- if I can get away with drafting 0.8w/kg lower than the person in front of me I will do it, or if I can supertuck without losing a group I will do it as I feel if I can keep soemthing in the tank I'll have a decent sprint, so I probably artificially lower my overall power.

This is good race craft and you do it really well I try to do the same. Not intentionally keeping the watts low but as we end up in the fastest C groups I do think we struggle to get our power higher. Racing with B riders will be interesting as we may start to see our average power increase (although I'll still be wheelsucking at every single opportunity )

 

[BurningLegs]

We usually use the Red channel in Discord for the B group when racing the DBR series. Everyone up for that on Monday??

 

[mjd1988]

We usually use the Red channel in Discord for the B group when racing the DBR series. Everyone up for that on Monday??

Yeah my headset isn't working but I will maybe try and join on an old phone or something. Even if I can only hear it's better than nothing

 

[Whorty]

We usually use the Red channel in Discord for the B group when racing the DBR series. Everyone up for that on Monday??

 

[Whorty]

Yeah my headset isn't working but I will maybe try and join on an old phone or something. Even if I can only hear it's better than nothing

All you'll hear from me is how far back I am and that I'm last

 

[Randyberlin]

Hi guys

Just wanted you all to know I read your posts in my PM box. Thanks for the info and suggestions :-)
Im not in here every day, so I'm sorry if I missed some posts addressed to me.

I'm have a lot of training to do before I can start cycling outside. Tried a hand bike "home trainer" and had to stop after 700 meters :-(
The first goal is 20 km. Hope to do that in 4 months time.

'I hope you keep us updated with your progress - hope to see you on zwift soon too. "
@bridgy forgot to add or BKOOL.... Oops wrong thread...
Same as everybody here wishing you the best.

 

[Alongo]

Anyhow.

Who's going up for @IrishAl 's Without Borders Race on Monday at 19:00.

Me, @IrishAl and @bridgy in the B race. I 'll be waving them off as they dump me out of the pen!

@mjd1988 and @Ketty in the C race.

Think I’ll wait and see how hot the loft gets , weather forecast is saying 23 degrees

 

[<Tommy>]

Looks like a good crew for the b team including @Whorty so I'm going to join the B's.

I don't intentionally lower my power but I do tend to surge and relax as much as possible during a race- if I can get away with drafting 0.8w/kg lower than the person in front of me I will do it, or if I can supertuck without losing a group I will do it as I feel if I can keep soemthing in the tank I'll have a decent sprint, so I probably artificially lower my overall power.

yeah I think that’s just the nature of group racing isn’t it. It’s kind of counter productive to exert more energy than you need to in a race. I’m always trying to conserve energy in races. Not because I’m trying to stay within the cat boundary. Just because I want as much in the tank for as long as possible.

 

[<Tommy>]

I’m up for racing Monday. I was planning a long outdoor ride tomorrow but work has put paid to that. So I should be relatively fresh.

 

[JLaw]

The chase back on to catch the group following the final KOM was probably what did for me, but I didn't actually feel it in my legs until we reached the Esses - that's when I really struggled to hold the group and my power was fluctuating all over the shop as I tried to react. I had that same feeling on Monday night as well; it seems if I'm putting out a constant high-level effort, about 40 minutes is all I can manage - the rest of the ride I just have to hang on. Need to work on my stamina clearly!

There's something about the ~40min mark. I found a few years ago that I was hanging with the leaders for 40-45 minutes, then found the tank totally empty, often watching the lead group pull away on the penultimate lap of the volcano circuit. You might seriously look into some structured workouts -- I hate them (boring as hell), but I found the longer sweet spot intervals did wonders for my ability to stick with the leaders, past the 40 minute mark as well as the 2nd time up box/fox hill which was a regular KISS course back then.

 

[JLaw]

yeah I think that’s just the nature of group racing isn’t it. It’s kind of counter productive to exert more energy than you need to in a race. I’m always trying to conserve energy in races. Not because I’m trying to stay within the cat boundary. Just because I want as much in the tank for as long as possible.

I've generally done the same. I try to position myself in the legitimate lead pack and sit in to conserve energy as much as possible -- call it a survival mechanism ;-) Though lately I'm finding myself not pushed terribly hard in something like the 8 or 12 lap crit city races and as a result I'm pushing the pace harder iin some of those. Essentially whatever power-up I get determines the lap strategy -- feather, burrito, aero I use to attack on the hill or just after. truck I use to get a bit of recovery after the climb or in the rollers. ghost I tend to use to make my opponents work harder on the climb (thinking I'm trying to get away) when I reality I'm just sticking in their draft). It's backfired a lot as I'm often near empty at the end of the race after pushing things, but that's OK, I'm getting a better workout.

 

[JLaw]

So a few notes from last week's crit city races.

Monday. I noted one rider in the pens as particularly strong as we'd raced together recently. So I marked him through the race -- our lead pack kept dwindling and I think around lap 10 my mark and I pulled away from the remnants of the lead group as we crested the little climb. He ultimately took the final sprint and it was only after the ride I realized he wasn't ZP registered. Anyway, happy with the effort. 2nd place on ZP was like 4 minutes back by the end of the race.

Tuesday I think we'd whittled the lead group down to three by the 10th lap or so. I wasn't monitoring ZP, so I just assumed both opponents were legit. I was able to curb my desire to go early and instead waited a bit longer in my opponents' draft and caught them both before the line for first. It was only after the race that I realized the next ZP rider was actually ~2 minutes back. What was most interesting about this race was that only one rider got coned -- about 3 minutes in and well off the front. We reeled him in and eventually lapped him. My thought by the end of the race was that folks may be figuring out that sandbagging in the zhq beta races is just dumb.

That thought lasted less than 48hrs. On Thursday cones were flying in abundance. I think more than half the field got coned. One guy was complaining that he was in 7th place and coned while myself and a few others in the lead group were not coned. I guess he's just too dumb to realize it's power, not speed, that gets you coned. I was in the lead group and feeling strong. Then the dropouts started. At first they'd just be a few seconds and I could recover and stay with the lead pack. Then I got a massive drop -- so bad that I re-paired with apple tv rather than through the companion (and that takes a long time!). That took me back to ~10th on the road. Worked my way back up to 6th, but disappointed as this was a very winnable race -- the ZP winner was wasn't even in the lead pack when my drops started and he finished slower than both my Monday and Tuesday races.

I think I'm either going to get a 4iiii HRM and use that as a bridge or a dedicated zwift PC/laptop. The dropouts are driving me nuts and I'm having zero success figuring out what's causing them.

As for the race quality. It's probably time to start riding C for the 8/12 lap crit city races for no other reason than I'm going to get a better workout trying to stick with them. For anything with a climb or longer than ~40 minutes, I'll probably register in D as long as I'm allowed.

 

[peterob]

So a few notes from last week's crit city races.

Monday. I noted one rider in the pens as particularly strong as we'd raced together recently. So I marked him through the race -- our lead pack kept dwindling and I think around lap 10 my mark and I pulled away from the remnants of the lead group as we crested the little climb. He ultimately took the final sprint and it was only after the ride I realized he wasn't ZP registered. Anyway, happy with the effort. 2nd place on ZP was like 4 minutes back by the end of the race.

Tuesday I think we'd whittled the lead group down to three by the 10th lap or so. I wasn't monitoring ZP, so I just assumed both opponents were legit. I was able to curb my desire to go early and instead waited a bit longer in my opponents' draft and caught them both before the line for first. It was only after the race that I realized the next ZP rider was actually ~2 minutes back. What was most interesting about this race was that only one rider got coned -- about 3 minutes in and well off the front. We reeled him in and eventually lapped him. My thought by the end of the race was that folks may be figuring out that sandbagging in the zhq beta races is just dumb.

That thought lasted less than 48hrs. On Thursday cones were flying in abundance. I think more than half the field got coned. One guy was complaining that he was in 7th place and coned while myself and a few others in the lead group were not coned. I guess he's just too dumb to realize it's power, not speed, that gets you coned. I was in the lead group and feeling strong. Then the dropouts started. At first they'd just be a few seconds and I could recover and stay with the lead pack. Then I got a massive drop -- so bad that I re-paired with apple tv rather than through the companion (and that takes a long time!). That took me back to ~10th on the road. Worked my way back up to 6th, but disappointed as this was a very winnable race -- the ZP winner was wasn't even in the lead pack when my drops started and he finished slower than both my Monday and Tuesday races.

I think I'm either going to get a 4iiii HRM and use that as a bridge or a dedicated zwift PC/laptop. The dropouts are driving me nuts and I'm having zero success figuring out what's causing them.

As for the race quality. It's probably time to start riding C for the 8/12 lap crit city races for no other reason than I'm going to get a better workout trying to stick with them. For anything with a climb or longer than ~40 minutes, I'll probably register in D as long as I'm allowed.

I’ve been using a 4iiii Viiiiva @JLaw since using AppleTV for the last month or so and it has been faultless, no dropouts on any sensors. I also think @Freelanderuk has the same setup.

I’ve found ATV to be much more convenient and stable compared to the dedicated Zwift Laptop I was using before.