Zwift Chat

[bridgy]

Last night I did my second Club Ladder ride with Team Electric Spirit. I don't know if anyone's done these but they're a very different format to other Zwift races. Basically it's two teams, 5v5, in a scratch race, and team with the overall best finishing positions wins.

The team are all on Discord and it can be quite tactical as you plan strategy on the go!

This last race was a pretty flat course - Croissant in France x 2 laps - with an uphill finish (but no significant hills really). Often this would be a bit of a snooze-fest with everyone waiting for the finish but in this race there were lots of attacks and bluffs - helped by the fact we had ghost and burrito PU's which added a bit more chaos!

Ultimately it did come to a group sprint at the end - albeit a very long one - and we lost out to the other team overall, but it was really good fun


View: https://youtu.be/sjtprv8UQdA

 

[bridgy]

Last night I did my second Club Ladder ride with Team Electric Spirit. I don't know if anyone's done these but they're a very different format to ther Zwift races. Basically it's two teams, 5v5, in a scratch race, and team with the overall best finishing positions wins.

The team are all on Discord and it can be quite tactical as you plan strategy on the go!

This last race was a pretty flat course - Croissant in France x 2 laps - with an uphill finish (but no significant hills really). Often this would be a bit of a snooze-fest with everyone waiting for the finish but in this race there were lots of attacks and bluffs - helped by the fact we had ghost and burrito PU's which added a bit more chaos!

Ultimately it did come to a group sprint at the end - albeit a very long one - and we lost out to the other team overall, but it was really good fun


View: https://youtu.be/sjtprv8UQdA

P.S. only just realised watching the end back - it looks like my ghost PU glitched and didn't work! Not that it would have made any difference I'm sure but I don't know what happened there!

 

[mjd1988]

Last night I did my second Club Ladder ride with Team Electric Spirit. I don't know if anyone's done these but they're a very different format to ther Zwift races. Basically it's two teams, 5v5, in a scratch race, and team with the overall best finishing positions wins.

The team are all on Discord and it can be quite tactical as you plan strategy on the go!

This last race was a pretty flat course - Croissant in France x 2 laps - with an uphill finish (but no significant hills really). Often this would be a bit of a snooze-fest with everyone waiting for the finish but in this race there were lots of attacks and bluffs - helped by the fact we had ghost and burrito PU's which added a bit more chaos!

Ultimately it did come to a group sprint at the end - albeit a very long one - and we lost out to the other team overall, but it was really good fun


View: https://youtu.be/sjtprv8UQdA

That does sound fun. Are the teams all the same cat or mixed cat? That would add some more strategy but presumably would be much harder to arrange

 

[bridgy]

That does sound fun. Are the teams all the same cat or mixed cat? That would add some more strategy but presumably would be much harder to arrange

Each individual team is grouped together based on ability (although to be honest I don't know exactly what method of categorisation they use because as we know there are many! It's power based I think though, so not ZRS). But all teams of all abilities are in the same overall ladder. league

When the team is first put in the league it is positioned based on it's categorisation, but after that the only criteria is they race any other team within 5 places of them I believe - whether that other team is full of higher category riders or not. Then if your team wins you move up the ladder and if you lose you drop down - I guess the aim is to get, and remain, as high as possible.

You get to see the team you're going to be up against and their power numbers before the race which can determine your tactics for the race based on relative abilities and the course profile etc.

 

[mjd1988]

100% this. SL8 for the win at the moment. Halo bikes are just for fun and of no particular interest to me.

As far as I can tell on the zwifterbikes app the aethos is only better on pure climb when you get to level 5 and even then it's so small. I've been working on aethos but will probably prioritise TT bike moreso. But sl8 is the goat

 

[bridgy]

As far as I can tell on the zwifterbikes app the aethos is only better on pure climb when you get to level 5 and even then it's so small. I've been working on aethos but will probably prioritise TT bike moreso. But sl8 is the goat

Yeah agreed - according to Zwiftinsider tests the fully upgraded Aethos is only 7 seconds quicker over an hour of climbing than the SL8, and the trade off for that is that the SL8 (with Enve 4.5 wheels) is still 22 seconds quicker over the flat than th Aethos. So it would have to be a VERY climb focussed race to ever favour the Aethos over the SL8 + Enve 4.5 wheels. That's why I paused trying to upgrade the Aethos in favour of first getting the TT bike done!

I can imagine a ZRL race with avery long climb finish where I might want the Aethos so I will aim to upgrade it next - but it probably won't get used much!

https://zwiftinsider.com/top-performers/

 

[CXRAndy]

At the rate im going its going to be a very long time before I get Project 74 bike. I've not yet got past level 3 on the SL8.

This is the first bike Im wobbling towards level 5.

 

[bridgy]

Funnily enough one of my teammates on that Ladder ride was on a Project 74 (didn't really help him, he came 9/10!)

 

[alex_cycles]

Last night I did my second Club Ladder ride with Team Electric Spirit. I don't know if anyone's done these but they're a very different format to other Zwift races. Basically it's two teams, 5v5, in a scratch race, and team with the overall best finishing positions wins.

The team are all on Discord and it can be quite tactical as you plan strategy on the go!

This last race was a pretty flat course - Croissant in France x 2 laps - with an uphill finish (but no significant hills really). Often this would be a bit of a snooze-fest with everyone waiting for the finish but in this race there were lots of attacks and bluffs - helped by the fact we had ghost and burrito PU's which added a bit more chaos!

Ultimately it did come to a group sprint at the end - albeit a very long one - and we lost out to the other team overall, but it was really good fun


View: https://youtu.be/sjtprv8UQdA

I did about 18 months of on and off ladder when it first came out. Had some really fun races and some really unbalanced ones when our opponents were just tonnes better. The well balanced ones are so much fun, but the unbalanced ones are like "catting up" - you just get dropped early and TT home.
But that is exactly what it's like in a real-world tennis club ladder. The best person in the club sometimes has to play the worst.

I had some epic races, but the rest of the guys got stronger and they tightened the rules so I'm not in that team any more as you can only span 3 vELO cats now.

 

[mjd1988]

My last 4 races have been on that Glasgow circuit. I do like it but it's a bit of a torture doing it over and over 😂

 

[Whorty]

I spoke too soon… had a day working from home yesterday because I can barely go a minute (seemingly day or night) without being bent double, coughing and retching. 😣

i have the same bug I think. Coughing constantly, horrible bug.

 

[alex_cycles]

My last 4 races have been on that Glasgow circuit. I do like it but it's a bit of a torture doing it over and over 😂

Don't worry. NY KoM again this week


I did "Fresh Outta" today as a last-minute decision. As a 517 I could only do it in the 510-650 pen. I held on for 28 minutes and got dropped at the start of the final punchy climb. I was 23rd of 24 at that point and about a minute ahead of the last guy. He was clearly not in a hurry either, so I took my time after that. I'm 510 now, so still not allowed in the lower pen, but one more race like that and I would be.

 

[N0bodyOfTheGoat]

I hate how you can have a good result in Zwift these days under ZRS and I'm left wondering if others were sandbagging to limit ZRS increase.

Had to do all Tiny Races in pen D yesterday for first time under ZRS (when 5 pens active). In race #2, on LaGuardia Reverse, I was struggling at times (as expected) to keep with the front group on the little ramps. Decided to go with ~30secs effort with power up (aero?) and nobody threatened to pass me. Wasn't expecting that, even though 30-60secs is my relative strength!

Races 1&3 were the struggle I expected, given their hilly nature on Titans Grove and Rooftop Rendezvous, while I failed to keep with the front group on London to have a go for another good finish on race 4.

Somehow 11th overall, must have been loads of "snipers" that were DQed plus others went over ZRS 350 mid series to get a pen promotion for the next 30 days.

 

[alex_cycles]

I hate how you can have a good result in Zwift these days under ZRS and I'm left wondering if others were sandbagging to limit ZRS increase.

Had to do all Tiny Races in pen D yesterday for first time under ZRS (when 5 pens active). In race #2, on LaGuardia Reverse, I was struggling at times (as expected) to keep with the front group on the little ramps. Decided to go with ~30secs effort with power up (aero?) and nobody threatened to pass me. Wasn't expecting that, even though 30-60secs is my relative strength!

Races 1&3 were the struggle I expected, given their hilly nature on Titans Grove and Rooftop Rendezvous, while I failed to keep with the front group on London to have a go for another good finish on race 4.

Somehow 11th overall, must have been loads of "snipers" that were DQed plus others went over ZRS 350 mid series to get a pen promotion for the next 30 days.

Tinies uses 30-day now doesn't it? That makes it MUCH harder to regulate your ZRS to stay within spec.
With four races, I suppose that would mean you have to have a rather large cushion to be able to do well in all four and still not go up. Probably about 80+ points? It hardly seems worth it.

 

[N0bodyOfTheGoat]

Tinies uses 30-day now doesn't it? That makes it MUCH harder to regulate your ZRS to stay within spec.
With four races, I suppose that would mean you have to have a rather large cushion to be able to do well in all four and still not go up. Probably about 80+ points? It hardly seems worth it.

Tiny Races do use max ZRS in last 30 days now.

But in pens D and E, without a seed score improvement, a win is usually less than 10 points, so a ~40 point cushion would be enough.

Stronger pens get more points, so I could easily see you needing ~80 point cushion in pen B.