Zwift Chat

[mjd1988]

Couple of series the rest of you might like to know about now ZRL is over...

https://chasingtour.com/ This one is going on all year and it's a bit like FRR. A mixture of stage races and day races. To access the races you join their zwift club (chasing racing). They are separate pens based on ZR.app category (platinum/gold/silver/bronze) but all cats start together, so the starts are bit frantic.

And the upcoming Dirt Racing Series starts on 18th April. https://www.dirtracingseries.com/ also using ZwiftRacing.app categories, but with the narrow sub-divisions Gold 1, 2, 3 etc. which means you won't be racing against people who can drop you in 40s (like I was this morning in the chasing tour ).

Both of the above offer multiple race times. I'll be racing in a gold 1 team for DIRT in the Atlantic time zone (1045am starts).

Dirt racing series is fun and well organised

 

[Norry1]

Couple of series the rest of you might like to know about now ZRL is over...

https://chasingtour.com/ This one is going on all year and it's a bit like FRR. A mixture of stage races and day races. To access the races you join their zwift club (chasing racing). They are separate pens based on ZR.app category (platinum/gold/silver/bronze) but all cats start together, so the starts are bit frantic.

And the upcoming Dirt Racing Series starts on 18th April. https://www.dirtracingseries.com/ also using ZwiftRacing.app categories, but with the narrow sub-divisions Gold 1, 2, 3 etc. which means you won't be racing against people who can drop you in 40s (like I was this morning in the chasing tour ).

Both of the above offer multiple race times. I'll be racing in a gold 1 team for DIRT in the Atlantic time zone (1045am starts).

Looks interesting. Now ZRL is over, I still plan to do a race a week generally.

Had a quick look around the DIRT Racing Series Website and came across the DRS Race Category Calculator. It suggests I race in B. Not sure what the basis of the calculation is.

 

[alex_cycles]

Looks interesting. Now ZRL is over, I still plan to do a race a week generally.

Had a quick look around the DIRT Racing Series Website and came across the DRS Race Category Calculator. It suggests I race in B. Not sure what the basis of the calculation is.

View attachment 682904

It's out of date and no longer applicable to the new series (but the reason they told you B was because of your ZP ranking <250). You'd be silver 3 according to your ZR.app profile. But you could happily race in Gold 1, and you're still on the up.


Series Rules and Scoring https://www.dirtracingseries.com/series-rules-scoring/

 

[bobinski]

Dual. I was tempted to go Uno and maybe do an upgrade to Duo in the future, but the combined cost of that is much higher than just buying the Duo straight away. It also gives me a bit of redundancy (in case I smash or forget to charge one pedal). I did buy the complete pedal set as the bike fitter advised me against the increased Q-factor (that you get when buying just the Shimano-compatible spindles), based on my biomechanics - not entirely happy with that but hey-ho.


We didn't worry about CE until now, so I don't think there's the need to start. I don't think anyone was holding back

Excellent choice.
The whole Q factor thing is a mystery to me and perhaps just an old school road cycling myth. Mountain bikers don’t tend to suffer the knee issues road cyclists do and they ride with a wider Q factor.

 

[alex_cycles]

Excellent choice.
The whole Q factor thing is a mystery to me and perhaps just an old school road cycling myth. Mountain bikers don’t tend to suffer the knee issues road cyclists do and they ride with a wider Q factor.

Do they vary their position more that makes up for it? (No idea, really).

 

[Peter Salt]

Excellent choice.
The whole Q factor thing is a mystery to me and perhaps just an old school road cycling myth. Mountain bikers don’t tend to suffer the knee issues road cyclists do and they ride with a wider Q factor.

Do they vary their position more that makes up for it? (No idea, really).

I was told I shouldn't go wider on road because of my biomechanics - width and shape of the pelvis and stuff like that. Taller and/or pear-shaped individuals can benefit from it but not me.

I did mention the MTB argument to the fitter. He said that's more to do with how the bike is used. Wider Q-factor gives more maneuverability, especially side-to-side and stuff like that. Kind of like comparing road and MTB handlebars or frame geometry - they're different because of the use case. Nothing to overthink.

 

[bobinski]

My Bike fitter, Sandro , at cadence, may be biased , but comes from a mountain bike background. He said fit more important for road cyclists because as Alex suggests, unlike mountain bikers generally we are clipped in, steady cadence, and that Q factor for road bikes dictated by average shape of professional cyclist- shorter, narrower eg. Pete 😁 Yet that is a small sample of the wider aging road cycling community. Fwiw he was not so keen on speedplay and used shims where necessary and spdsl/Keo cleats to lock riders in , he said, to sort knee issues and to prevent them.
That is to extend pedal axle and Q factor

 

[Legs]

Tempus Fugit today vs a fortnight ago - 2 watts less on average, 3 seconds faster! I don’t know whether to be pleased or not. My power really dropped off in the second quarter and I was languishing around 290W, and only really found the strength to push again in the last few k.

Second on ZwiftPower to a watt-monster.

 

[steverob]

Brilliant! Have you managed to switch off drafting or do we have to select TT bikes?

After a little bit of testing between myself and @alex_cycles, we've found a way to turn drafting off for Club events, so for Tuesday and Thursday's Jungle Circuit TTs you will be able to select whichever bike you like - which will basically mean everyone turns up on the same gravel bike, but still...

We did a test ride this morning and noticed that your rider avatar does go into an upright position and back into tuck at various times, but it seems that this is a graphical thing when you drop below a certain speed - this happened even to the front rider and also when the back rider was 5 seconds behind and therefore not in any draft. The on screen banner never popped up telling you how far behind you were and we could see no evidence that either of us were benefiting from any draft effect.

Now we only have two people signed up for Tuesday's event and one person (me) for Thursday's, so don't forget to join either in the Club via the Companion app or through the links below:
Tuesday 28th @ 10:30am: https://www.zwift.com/events/view/3632415
Tuesday 28th @ 7pm: https://www.zwift.com/uk/events/view/3622644
Thursday 30th @ 6:30pm: https://www.zwift.com/uk/events/view/3622658

Also I haven't heard anyone request a different time, so as of yet I haven't scheduled a fourth timeslot. If you can't make either of the above, get your preferences in now so I can set something up at a convenient time for you.

 

[13 rider]

Can I use the trike from tour of watopia . I set my fastest time on the volcano descent last night so much for the aero tuck just use a trike . Not sure if it's gravel performance ?

 

[Peter Salt]

After a little bit of testing between myself and @alex_cycles, we've found a way to turn drafting off for Club events, so for Tuesday and Thursday's Jungle Circuit TTs you will be able to select whichever bike you like - which will basically mean everyone turns up on the same gravel bike, but still...

We did a test ride this morning and noticed that your rider avatar does go into an upright position and back into tuck at various times, but it seems that this is a graphical thing when you drop below a certain speed - this happened even to the front rider and also when the back rider was 5 seconds behind and therefore not in any draft. The on screen banner never popped up telling you how far behind you were and we could see no evidence that either of us were benefiting from any draft effect.

Now we only have two people signed up for Tuesday's event and one person (me) for Thursday's, so don't forget to join either in the Club via the Companion app or through the links below:
Tuesday 28th @ 7pm: https://www.zwift.com/uk/events/view/3622644
Thursday 30th @ 7pm: https://www.zwift.com/uk/events/view/3622658

Also I haven't heard anyone request a different time, so as of yet I haven't scheduled the third timeslot. If you can't make either of the above, get your preferences in now so I can set something up at a convenient time for you.

Thanks for all the effort, Steve & Alex. Yeah, I think your avatar changes position at 30km/h or something like that.

A gravel bike for Tuesday then - lovely

 

[Legs]

Pacing strategy for the Jungle Circuit TT will be very interesting. Definitely worth overstretching on the climb part and easing off on the descents…

 

[steverob]

Well for the sake of transparency, and also the fact that I'm doing the Thursday race so will have Tuesday's times to chase, my time when I did the test event (which I wasn't far off full on for) was essentially 24:26 for the same distance we're doing. Given the top guys have been about 11% faster than me when doing the same courses in this series, I'd suggest the winning time should be under 22 minutes - let's see how accurate that ends up being.

Pacing strategy for the Jungle Circuit TT will be very interesting. Definitely worth overstretching on the climb part and easing off on the descents…

Strava says my descents were done at an average of 254W, while my climb was done at 282W. And even then I think I could have gone a tiny bit faster had I biased it even further in favour of the climb.

 

[mjd1988]

Is @Whorty back yet? Trying to figure out if i need to protect my league position or not...

 

[alex_cycles]

Is @Whorty back yet? Trying to figure out if i need to protect my league position or not...

You'll be too busy trying to draft each other to worry about that