Zwift Chat

[Norry1]

Well the wife isn't too interested so I may as well tell you lot

Did my 2nd British Cycling 10 mile TT tonight and got 1st Place in Cat C on Zwift Power, a new FTP of 303 watts and a new PB of 24:55 for 10 miles

Not a bad night!! (Sorry for the bold text and the bragging - I thought I'd never get near the silverware again when I got promoted)

I think what I'm most proud of though is yesterday I stripped my rear mech on the turbo bike, cleaned it, rebuilt it and boshed it back on and now the gears are running as smooth as the day I got the bike! I wonder if the clean mech and freshly indexed gears were the marginal gains needed

This is the place to brag. Looks like you earned the right

 

[Joffey]

Thanks everyone. Normal service is now resumed:

What we all having for tea?

 

[bridgy]

Yorkshire UCI reverse x2 🤮

That is all.

So that's the reverse version of what we have in store for us in the ZRL on Tuesday right? 😬

 

[bobinski]

So that's the reverse version of what we have in store for us in the ZRL on Tuesday right? 😬

Yep😁 I can’t say I enjoyed it but i prefer it to New York. It’s either up or down whether in reverse or not. We were chaperoned by a guy doing 4.5 at the front and team captain stewarding from the back. Lost one in the pen, 1 on the road and I was nearly dropped 3 times, always on the flipping climbs. I had dropped trainer resistance to 25% and was having to spin too much even for me.
Roll on Tuesday!

 

[steverob]

So that's the reverse version of what we have in store for us in the ZRL on Tuesday right? 😬

At least doing it forwards you come down Pot Bank instead of going up it (that's the one that hits 16% at its steepest). Instead we'll have to do that long straight road where the first few miles seem to be a pretty much constant 4% - bit of a grind but infinitely preferable.

 

[bridgy]

Yep😁 I can’t say I enjoyed it but i prefer it to New York. It’s either up or down whether in reverse or not. We were chaperoned by a guy doing 4.5 at the front and team captain stewarding from the back. Lost one in the pen, 1 on the road and I was nearly dropped 3 times, always on the flipping climbs. I had dropped trainer resistance to 25% and was having to spin too much even for me.
Roll on Tuesday!

Interesting- I usually race at around 25% difficulty to minimise gear changes but never tend to have the problem of having to spin too much. I presume you mean on the downhills it was a problem do you?

 

[bobinski]

Interesting- I usually race at around 25% difficulty to minimise gear changes but never tend to have the problem of having to spin too much. I presume you mean on the downhills it was a problem do you?

Well I have just checked and it’s on about 17/18%. And yes, on the downhills where they didn’t let up much but also on the ups. Average cadence shows 87 which seems low but then maximum was 139😂

 

[IrishAl]

I’m thinking of a recon ride around Harrogate tomorrow morning 8.30/9am if anyone wants to join. Looks like this is a another route for the Tron bike.

 

[<Tommy>]

This course was the last stage of the big zwift league thing last winter. It’s not actually that bad (honestly). I mean that relatively speaking compared to other tough courses. Obviously there’ll be some suffering involved 😄. I don’t think the climbing is that arduous. I know this is all completely subjective... But I’d put it on a par with the Surrey hills course. I think that’s a fair comparison.

 

[berty bassett]

Interesting- I usually race at around 25% difficulty to minimise gear changes but never tend to have the problem of having to spin too much. I presume you mean on the downhills it was a problem do you?

Interesting , I never thought of ever having turbo set at anything other than 100 - question - I know it would help you spin up hills but do you think it would help by making downhills harder as such ?

 

[<Tommy>]

I’m thinking of a recon ride around Harrogate tomorrow morning 8.30/9am if anyone wants to join. Looks like this is a another route for the Tron bike.

I’m going to try get a race in tomorrow afternoon Al. Bit of a fitness test 🤞

 

[bridgy]

Interesting , I never thought of ever having turbo set at anything other than 100 - question - I know it would help you spin up hills but do you think it would help by making downhills harder as such ?

Zwift halves the effect of descents even on 100% difficulty - so a 10% downhill will feel like 5%. It then reduces the descent gradient even more if you've reduced your difficulty setting- so at 50% difficulty the 10% downhill will only feel like 2.5% etc.

So yeah, reducing difficulty can help you to stop spinning out on descents and enable you to keep the power down because there's relatively more resistance.

Which is why it sounds odd @bobinski that you felt you had to spin out more once you'd lowered your difficulty setting to less than 20% because in theory this should have given you more downhill resistance not less? And even with a low difficulty setting I’ve never found I’ve had to spin too much on climbs - surely you're not going uphill in your hardest gear?

 

[bobinski]

Zwift halves the effect of descents even on 100% difficulty - so a 10% downhill will feel like 5%. It then reduces the descent gradient even more if you've reduced your difficulty setting- so at 50% difficulty the 10% downhill will only feel like 2.5% etc.

So yeah, reducing difficulty can help you to stop spinning out on descents and enable you to keep the power down because there's relatively more resistance.

Which is why it sounds odd @bobinski that you felt you had to spin out more once you'd lowered your difficulty setting to less than 20% because in theory this should have given you more downhill resistance not less? And even with a low difficulty setting I’ve never found I’ve had to spin too much on climbs - surely you're not going uphill in your hardest gear?

i don’t know! 😁 Perhaps it’s perception more than reality? Perhaps also because I think I am the lightest and as we descended I had to sometimes sprint to stay with them? once with them I could stop and then my avatar went into a tuck.
logic suggests you have to be right but that isn’t always how it feels for me in the meat of a ride.

 

[Spartak]

Just finished the 'Cycling Weekly Autumn Chase Series Cat. C' race.
On the Greatest London Flat course, a good size field in Cat C. and I managed to stay in the lead group of 25 riders until we reached the countryside, a small group got away on the climb but I managed to stay with the second group on the road, as usual I struggled coming out of the underground but hung on.... just !
Back into London and our group got caught by both the lead groups of the Cat B & A riders, our small group worked well for the last few kms and we finished together.

Looking at the results and I finished in 7th place on ZP, therefore collecting 9 points in the CW series...
Well pleased with my performance, average speed on the course was 42 km/h... My fastest Zwift race to date.

Might even get my name in 'The Comic' next week... !!!

 

[mjd1988]