Zwift Chat

[CXRAndy]

I gambled flat early speed against tussling it out on the climbs. Harry was particularly strong, holding me to around 20-25 secs which then disappeared once on the climb

Michael and even ailing Pete were very strong on the climb

Held my gap to Carl and Steve. Was thinking Phil would have been in the race. Hence my TT bike choice

 

[13 rider]

I gambled flat early speed against tussling it out on the climbs. Harry was particularly strong, holding me to around 20-25 secs which then disappeared once on the climb

Michael and even ailing Pete were very strong on the climb

Held my gap to Carl and Steve. Was thinking Phil would have been in the race. Hence my TT bike choice

That would have made an interesting race ,I would probably have gone full lightweight to maximise my advantage on the uphill .

 

[Peter Salt]

Query - do you think the two mini-stages should be given the same amount of points as the other three longer stages? I can see arguments for and against it. They were supposed to be treated as a back-to-back single race, but then a sprint win is a sprint win regardless. Opinions?

I would say treat them equally. I get that they were shorter but also harder because of the back-to-back nature so in the end worth the same, I think.

 

[Whorty]

Didn't realise draft was off till last minute, but made for a fun race. Accidental hare and hounds situation with Peter taking it easy then flying up the petit KOM, looked like close tussles for 3/4 and 5/6 as well.

I don't really mind re the mini stage query, final league table looks about right. Very impressed with Andy and Harry putting time in at the start, TT bike must have been tough uphill though.

Thanks @steverob for running the league! When is next wtrl or would it be worth having another league when the dirt crew/wtrl finals crew are finished?

Edit; put in my best ever 10 minute power apparently! Chuffed with that. I think Peter still pulled back at least 45 seconds on petit KOM mind

I didn't realise draft was off Makes sense now why I couldn't hang on to Pete on the first part of the race on the downhill sections

 

[Whorty]

I gambled flat early speed against tussling it out on the climbs. Harry was particularly strong, holding me to around 20-25 secs which then disappeared once on the climb

Michael and even ailing Pete were very strong on the climb

Held my gap to Carl and Steve. Was thinking Phil would have been in the race. Hence my TT bike choice

I started off steady ish hoping I could make up some time on the climb. I did pull back a little on the little KoM but then legs started to flag and I just couldn't sustain the chase. Steve was always within striking distance so I had to keep pushing hard else he would have quickly closed the small gap I had.
You and Harry both had cracking races. TTs and rising terrain have never been my friend, and you both showed me a clean pair of heals tonight. Well done

 

[steverob]

Green Jersey:
@mjd1988 - 330 points
@CXRAndy - 324
@Peter Salt - 320
@13 rider - 170
@steverob - 164
@HarryTheDog - 149
@Whorty - 100
@Brusgaard - 73
@Johnsop99 - 24

 

[steverob]

Started the Petit KOM 2 seconds behind Carl and thought about chasing, but decided to keep to my scheduled pace. Still did manage a PR on that climb by 7 seconds, but Carl had put another 40 secs in to me by then. I then really put down the power for the Ventoux section and did close the gap by almost 20 seconds, but I'd left it too late to actually get close enough to really challenge.

But it has made me a C again, so I suppose that's something good, even if I still don't understand quite why I dropped down to D briefly.

EDIT - so my zFTP has apparently gone up by 11 watts (putting me 3 watts above the C/D threshold for my current weight) but the only values that have changed since I last posted my figures are that my 15 minute power is up by 2W, 20 mins by 1W and 30 mins by 3W. Go figure.

 

[CXRAndy]

Here is my video. I used steering to maximise advantage

View: https://youtu.be/eRYcqelhGnA?si=Ki7M17SMTBWKPQYD

 

[mjd1988]

Here is my video. I used steering to maximise advantage

View: https://youtu.be/eRYcqelhGnA?si=Ki7M17SMTBWKPQYD

It was actually quite a big advantage on that course with all the curves. Below is a picture of Harry just in front of me, but I've done 200m less, and that's before halfway. It did straighten out a bit after

 

[HarryTheDog]

It was actually quite a big advantage on that course with all the curves. Below is a picture of Harry just in front of me, but I've done 200m less, and that's before halfway. It did straighten out a bit after

And the silly thing is I have steering and never bothered using it as I was breathing out my butt which disconnected my brain.
Interestingly my ftp rose from 208 to 218 according to Zwift ( 3.01W/kg) . I quickly looked at my ftp on strava seems it was 224 at the begining of the year but 218 in 2023 but over the last few years, this is the highest its been since 2019 when it was 240 ( when I was 57 and probably a lot lighter) Looking at Andys Video I had gone 100m further than him when I caught him.
Overall pleased I went with the Tron seemed a good balance. I think having 4 days completely off the bike did me a world of good. Next time I will try to engage brain and use the steering.

 

[CXRAndy]

I didn't realise draft was off

Was the draft off for every bike? I thought Steve was making the comment re my TT bike

 

[mjd1988]

Off for all I think?

How did the DIRT folks get on?

 

[bridgy]

Off for all I think?

How did the DIRT folks get on?

Not bad thanks. I got 5th FTS (4:11) on the first segment which was Titans Grove FWD KOM. I didn't contest the flat sprint segment as I knew I wouldn't stand much chance with this group of riders and it would destroy me for the hard finish to come. The finish was at the top of Titans Grove KOM Reverse, which was also an FTS timed segment. But the road goes up for quite a bit before teh actual segment starts so it meant for a really tough finish.

I was hoping for FTS points and a decent finish but I made the silly error of going too hard too soon and went off the front only to eventually be swamped towards the end and finished 16th on the road and 14th overall after segment points. Did the KOM in 1:38 which was only good enough for 14th for the segment unfortunately.

Overall pretty happy with that though - it's a tough league with a lot of very closely matched riders and 14th is the same finishing position as last week so at least I didn't go backwards! I was the top finisher in my team and we came 6th which leaves us in 4th overall.

Video - but really the only bits of interest are the first KOM at around 12km and the last 3km!

View: https://youtu.be/BcftJoHmeJk?si=mOzd4pWvIowywhwn

 

[steverob]

Was the draft off for every bike? I thought Steve was making the comment re my TT bike

It was off for everyone. In fact I thought you knew and that's the reason why you'd decided to go with a TT bike!

My reasoning behind it was that I always think we should have one TT-like stage (we would have had one on last year's series as well but I messed up the setup of the event) and this stage seemed like the best option. It was all going to be decided on the climb anyway, so to have people able to draft through the undulating bit I thought was going to give some people more of an advantage than others - might as well have it be a race right out of the gate.

 

[steverob]

Thanks @steverob for running the league! When is next wtrl or would it be worth having another league when the dirt crew/wtrl finals crew are finished?

Next ZRL season starts 12th September. We could do another series in late August/early September as a warm-up for that, but as quite a lot of people quit their Zwift subscription over May/June/July (myself included), I don't think we'll get enough interest over the summer months.