Hi Del. Thanks for taking the time to write such a thoughtful post mate! I’ll try and do it justice with one of my own...
Regarding your issues with BKOOL not being a fair representation of your abilities that wouldn’t surprise me at all to be honest mate. I think there are peoole in the league who are stronger in BKOOL than they are in the real world. And people who are stronger in the real world than BKOOL. There are definitley little tricks I can give you to try and improve you speed (including fedex’ing my turbo to you!
). My first tip would be making sure you bike is ready for the turbo. You might not believe just how much difference having a good tyre on you rear wheel makes. And also having it at a good PSI. But it can make a difference of 50+ watts minimum in some cases. My favourite tyre is a conitinental gp4000. Is expensive but it grips the turbo better than any other tyre I’ve used. Others might have tyres they prefer more. It’s personal preference to some degree. But there are defo tyre that are much worse than others. Once you’ve got the tyre sorted we can look at your general set up. Do you use a powerful fan? And are you drinking enough water? These two factors also play a big role in performance. I’m not trying to tell you how to suck eggs but these things are easily overlooked and underrated sometimes.
Now you’ve got the bike sorted we can look at the sim. Firstly BKOOL and zwift are a complete joke really. I say this because of the way we start races in both cases. Have you ever seen a bike race where everyone is trying to hit such big watts right out of the gate?! I never have at any rate.... it’s mental! And takes a while to get used to, maybe you never will Del. But if you want to compete this is a hurdle everyone needs to try and get over. Basically for me this involved being realistic. On BKOOL there isn’t that many starters in any given race. So before the race, I’d target the people I thought I had a realistic chance of competing with. Out of the gate you have to go hard, but you also have to be honest with yourself and try and conserve some energy where you can. There’s no point in leading aaac and co for the first 200 meters, just to die a painful death and struggle for the next 20 miles. My own philosophy is to always want something for the last mile or two of the race. Don’t get me wrong, I want the tank to be completely empty by the finish line. But I don’t want to struggle over the line. I want to be able to smash through it (it doesn’t always happen like that...)
So...In one of your real world rides you probably start of relatively calmly. Then build pace and momentum as the ride goes on depending on how you’re feeling. On BKOOL you have to start hard. Your heart rate is going to max out if your not careful. Maybe even if you are careful. But if you’ve targeted the correct people they should be suffering at a similar rate as you. So hopefully you can slow your pace enough a mile or so after the start to try and calm your HR and reduce the power a bit. If you find yourself alone on the road. You can slow down to try and find a group/rider to sit with. Or if you’re behind your target group, then you might just have to settle on the race being an individual time trial. It doesn’t matter at all being last honestly. So long as you get something from it. Maybe the guys ahead are having a good day by their standards. Maybe your having a bad one. So all you can really do is find improvement. If it’s a course you’ve done before you can try and beat your previous time. If you haven’t just look to set a target time. And practice how you want to construct a race. It’s a good way of learning how to manage your energy over the said distance and terrain. And the time you set will then be your target next time.
Sometimes in BKOOL it can feel like walking though treacle. But then you might make a massive step forwards. It is really weird the way it works sometimes like that. But stick with it mate.
The best races are definitley the handicap races. Because you often get involved in little mini races and it really improves your ‘race craft’. It can be painful when people go bombing past. I have lots of memories of people going past me like I was standing still. I later discovered watching the replays that people put down massive watts on purpose when they’re passing you so you can’t latch on. But to you it seems like that’s there normal speed and it can be a gut punch if you let it!
I hope that helps. Don’t hesitate to ask a question no matter how basic it sounds. I do the whole time!
With my own issue is much more straight forward!
In that last stage I did, apart from the usual contenders of old,
@peterob and
@JJRobinson amongst others put in cracking times. And I’m really happy that more and more people seem to be joining the league now. Could I beat those times? Maybe, maybe not... I’m not sure it’s worth debating. But I am sure they both buried themselves to get those times. So now I’m supposed to take their place in the team with the bs time I put up? No thanks, not me. We all know BKOOL is a little inconsistent. But when I beat Bridgy by 6 minutes it’s too much for me... let Pep be Pep. I’m sure some people want to ‘win’ at any cost. But I’m not having people talk about me like that further down the line. It’s not that important to me. I’d rather be able to look people in the eye.
I’m going to try to put up some legitimate results if my turbo lets me. If not then I’ll have a great time cheering on the team.
Guys let’s just make sure whoever gets into the team gets there on merit. There’s so much competition for places it’s brilliant! I know you’re all being good friends and I’m really grateful for that honestly. It’s really a great thing to be part of. But enough now I think. Let’s just focus on the legitimate results
We might not win the nations cup. You never know, maybe we will. Be we definitely gonna have the most fun!!!
)
