Zwift Chat

[Joffey]

I wish i could get obsessed with losing weight

(I know it can be a problem so joking aside, pleased it wasn't a problem for you @Freelanderuk)

 

[Joffey]

Must have dug deep last night as I got an increased FTP (281 watts). I can remember trying to get on the front for a bit towards the end and having to put out 400 watts thankfully I just managed to get across the line at the end.

I see the WTRL site is still down! Someone will be putting in a shift there to get it all back up and running!!!

Zwift Power got a backlog too - 7,161 fit files still to be processed. You'd think with all that money that Zwift just raised they might have got a new server or two...

 

[bridgy]

Must have dug deep last night as I got an increased FTP (281 watts). I can remember trying to get on the front for a bit towards the end and having to put out 400 watts thankfully I just managed to get across the line at the end.

I see the WTRL site is still down! Someone will be putting in a shift there to get it all back up and running!!!

Zwift Power got a backlog too - 7,161 fit files still to be processed. You'd think with all that money that Zwift just raised they might have got a new server or two...

You'll be in Cat B before you know it! 👏

 

[<Tommy>]

Here is the link to the #23 TTT effort. Ignore the first few minutes as they are just the pairing screen


View: https://youtu.be/o1DXLgK9iKw

Watching that back last night made me realise I was probably the worst at going from taking a turn to dropping to the back. I wonder how much energy a team loses through that type of inefficiency. I guess if everyone is sat in their correct position in single file then no energy is lost to sticky draft or the small gaps that form when the line becomes jumbled. I guess it’s near on impossible to keep a perfect line the whole time with the course undulating and power going up and down. But the more you focus on that maybe you could gain a decent chunk of time.

Martin was pretty vocal with clear directions. Move forward, back etc. Really good to have that level of comunication. To be honest I didn’t hear most of them during the race. Maybe we need to have a look at discord too. To make sure we have it working as well as possible. It makes such a big difference.

 

[bridgy]

Watching that back last night made me realise I was probably the worst at going from taking a turn to dropping to the back. I wonder how much energy a team loses through that type of inefficiency. I guess if everyone is sat in their correct position in single file then no energy is lost to sticky draft or the small gaps that form when the line becomes jumbled. I guess it’s near on impossible to keep a perfect line the whole time with the course undulating and power going up and down. But the more you focus on that maybe you could gain a decent chunk of time.

Martin was pretty vocal with clear directions. Move forward, back etc. Really good to have that level of comunication. To be honest I didn’t hear most of them during the race. Maybe we need to have a look at discord too. To make sure we have it working as well as possible. It makes such a big difference.

I think I got better as it as the race went on (at dropping back I mean). 10 second warning to the guy behind you, then say you're backing off and back right off for a couple of seconds, then put in a small sprint as you drop back through the group and slot in.

Where I need to improve is I think when I took the front I increased the watts too much too soon and created a gap a few times. This can be made worse if the person dropping back isn't doing what I've said above because the person behind me (usually Martin) could then get caught in their sticky draft while they were slowing down. I soon realised that as the person in front of me was increasing their watts to take a turn, I needed to put in a little burst as well to ensure I didn't drop off their wheel.

I'm looking forward to the next TTT already as I think we did a good job but there's lots of small things to improve. I also think I had more to give last night - maybe should have done longer turns on front, but its hard to know how to judge your effort. It feels so easy in the draft at the start of the race, but at some point everything becomes hard in those TTTs, but I think I saved a bit too much energy at the start

 

[bridgy]

Let's enjoy the WTRL site being down - until we finally see the real results we can still live in hope that we absolutely SMASHED the other teams in our leagues

 

[Norry1]

I've done a bit of a write-up in my blog if anyone is interested.

https://norryscyclingstuff.weebly.com/blog

 

[Whorty]

Watched @steverob video and that looked a fun race Great team work and some great power being put down by each of you

When you caught and passed the other team, did you notice that a couple of their riders jumped on your train? Naughty, naughty!!

Shame @JLaw got dropped on the hill, and only just too. And I think @Spartak was unlucky to get dropped as he was putting out some good w/kg at the time, but it must have been the effect of the draft on the sesses that caused the split.

Looking forward to watching the next installment

 

[bridgy]

I've done a bit of a write-up in my blog if anyone is interested.

https://norryscyclingstuff.weebly.com/blog

Nice write up Martin - did I really do 7w/kg at the start after agreeing 4.5w/kg?

Bit over-excited I guess, sorry about that

 

[steverob]

Watched @steverob video and that looked a fun race Great team work and some great power being put down by each of you

When you caught and passed the other team, did you notice that a couple of their riders jumped on your train? Naughty, naughty!!

It was a bit of a shame that I couldn't integrate the Discord chat with the video - as soon as the team ahead had been spied, all the team were talking about was tactics on how we could pass them most efficiently and it was great fun to be a witness to. "Increase your power, make sure you don't get caught in their sticky draft", "Get past them as quickly as possible, don't allow them to hang on", "They're trying to draft us, more power needed to shift them", etc.

Luckily as I was able to look at different camera angles, I was able to reassure the group that while two of them indeed were trying to draft illegally, all it was doing was splitting their own team up - there was now a two second gap between their 2nd and 3rd riders, so they were going to have no choice but to give up the chase.

 

[mjd1988]

Watched @steverob video and that looked a fun race Great team work and some great power being put down by each of you

When you caught and passed the other team, did you notice that a couple of their riders jumped on your train? Naughty, naughty!!

Shame @JLaw got dropped on the hill, and only just too. And I think @Spartak was unlucky to get dropped as he was putting out some good w/kg at the time, but it must have been the effect of the draft on the sesses that caused the split.

Looking forward to watching the next installment

I noticed that but figured that as they had 2 riders that didn't latch on they would suffer for it eventually, and they did

 

[Norry1]

Nice write up Martin - did I really do 7w/kg at the start after agreeing 4.5w/kg?

Bit over-excited I guess, sorry about that

Guilty as charged

 

[steverob]

So thoughts on the ZRL league after a couple weeks.

First race was just plain brutal given my current lack of fitness, particularly as races run over the 20-30 minute mark. Most of my racing this year has been in that 20-30 minute range and when I leave that range I fade horribly. Add the climbs and it was horrific.

The second race was much more suited for my current abilities in terms of distance and elevation profile. However, I should have done a ride on it to get a better sense of that hill near the halfway point. In retrospect I should have gone deeper at that point if for no other reason than to help make a bigger blob on the downhill afterwards -- I doubt the 2-3 minutes of rest would have allowed me to hold on the rest of the race :-) Once I lost the group it didn't make a lot of sense to gut myself further, so I didn't push hard at all. I actually preferred the latter bumps as they were sustained. The ones right after the balloons were too short to get in any rhythm, but the latter ones were much easier on me.

I had a lot of trouble finding a rhythm when I was on the front -- my power output bounced all over the place and as a result those behind probably didn't get as much of a benefit as they could. I was shooting to hold 300W, but I think I bounced between 250 and 350. That may be a symptom I was over-geared as I've found it easier to produce smoother power at higher cadences. That bouncing around power-wise may have also contributed to my inability to pull after the first 10 minutes. I was also struggling to stick behind Ketty. Again, a lower gear with higher cadence may have smoothed that out.

I'm not likely to gain us more points than the 1 for finishing in the scratch races and I'm not likely going to be able to stick for the entire TTT events, but as long as y'all want me, I'll be there. The combination of the league and ZA workouts have me working harder than I have in a year or so.

You did superbly well last night I thought @JLaw. Considering I'm probably CC's 13th rider at the moment (e.g. if you/Joffey/Spartak weren't available, I'd be next in line to fill the place) but I certainly wouldn't have been able to do any better than you did.

In fact my performance probably would have been almost identical based on the previous C race I did on that very course - managed to hold on to the lead group through the flat stages, but had to give pretty much an FTP effort to do so (even though I was in the draft) so had nothing left to accelerate with when I reached the Aquaduct and got dropped there.

 

[bridgy]

View attachment 553701

Guilty as charged

 

[Del C]

Looks like everyone had fun last night. I guess those of you who are new to TTT probably understand why some of us have enjoyed doing them so much. They are a real mixture of teamwork and personal pain. Fantastic!

We had similar fun trying to get our paceline right last night. We've tried it a few times on the Thursday TTTs with varied success. The range of abilities in our team has often meant we've struggled to keep a rotation going with the stronger riders pushing too hard and creating a blob instead of a line.

We tried to get that right last night and we were better, but still work to do. We went for 30s rotations but we've decided at the moment that's too short for us. I'm sure once we get the line and rotations correct, then 30s will be good, but we've decided to go for 1 minute next time, and to allow people to call it if they need to ease back earlier. We didn't do that good on calling the rotations. Partly my fault as team captain, so we're going to work on that on Thursday as well. Interested that you also started using the same tactic of calling for the next rider at 10s. We were aiming for 5s, but practically it was often nearer 10s. An getting the slip back off the front and sprint to get back in the draft takes a bit of practice as well.

We started a bit raggedly as a result of all that but ended up going well. I think we got home in 35.35 but that's estimated off Zwiftpower as the WTRL site is still down. We were sitting 10th out of 23 last night in B6 before the WTRL site went down. A little faster at the start and we could have possibly finished 6th - our second half was much stronger!

With a 6th placed finish last week I hope we'll get a good placing when the revised league table are published going into Round 3.

And if anyone wants more TTT fun if you're at a loose end on Thursday, give me a shout and I'll see if we can get you a guest ride with WTRL.