Zwift Chat

[alex_cycles]

Looking on Strava, I took 33s off my PR for the KoM today - twice. And my old PR I'd done twice.
The power numbers are similar, the weight won't be more than a kilo different.
But three things have happened since 2022...

Crr improvement for road bikes on dirt
Levelling up of bikes
Newer light aero wheels

Quite a big difference in speed for fairly comparable power (17 April was no draft testing, 3 Nov was a large group ride.)

 

[steverob]

Yeah, I got a PR on the climb by 20 seconds despite my previous best effort being set on a gravel bike in a C cat ZRL race five years ago when I was far fitter. Even the second lap which I struggled on ended up being my third fastest time.

 

[mjd1988]

Too much climbing for me this series. We need some flatter courses for us heavier riders

A TTT on a 6-7 minute climb seems a bit crazy. It's not going to help those teams who don't have even strength riders.

I have to be say I agree. It's great to see some more climbing and long stages but it is becoming every week. I'm very glad there's a b dev league because if I couldn't hang with the front group it really would too long (and soul destroying)

 

[alex_cycles]

I have to be say I agree. It's great to see some more climbing and long stages but it is becoming every week. I'm very glad there's a b dev league because if I couldn't hang with the front group it really would too long (and soul destroying)

It is too much. I agree. Looks like they've put both points races as rollers with punchy 2 minute climbs, both scratch races as 12-15 minute climbs (if you add the pre-segment climb) and everything is laps rather than longer routes (apart from Roule ma Poule which is twice up Petit reverse).
I'm fine with Cobbled Climbs, but Leith is a b'stard. There'll be bodies all over the road.

 

[steverob]

It’s strange because for ages we’ve said they should put in at least one climby stage per round (and ideally as early in the round as possible) to help force the sandbaggers to upgrade and their response is to go “oops all climbs this round” instead and will probably go back to all flat next round no doubt.

 

[CXRAndy]

I watched A+ riders race yesterday. Crazy the speed they travel.
4 mins30 for the climb

 

[alex_cycles]

It’s strange because for ages we’ve said they should put in at least one climby stage per round (and ideally as early in the round as possible) to help force the sandbaggers to upgrade and their response is to go “oops all climbs this round” instead and will probably go back to all flat next round no doubt.

It's a bit annoying this time because we have 3 ultra-lights in our league. it's a bit boring when the same people win every time.
It's also a bit unfair that they can't upgrade to B. I suppose they've just swapped the 85kg sprinters for the 42kg climbers being perma-Cs, but at least they have to work super hard on flatter routes and they're crap at sprinting - which is an equaliser - as long as it's not climby or sprinty every week. 🤮

 

[mjd1988]

Shout out to Bram for taking second last night with a monster sprint downhill. We had a lone rider breakaway but only on the last climb. 3 in top 10 from CC with myself and Paul.

 

[steverob]

We have a few super-lightweights in our league - and two of them are in our team! The only problem is that neither of them could make last night's race - d'oh!

Because of that I was our highest placed rider and so the team finished 9th out of 10. With those two in the team we'd have probably done really well, but that's how it goes sometimes.

 

[CXRAndy]

I did stage 3 TDF this morning.

I dont like a climb right out of the pens, thought I was going to blow up in the first 5 mins.

Held onto a second group through all the subsequent bumps. I was struggling on the final climb, I had a 20 second lead over a lone chaser, who went all in on the lower slopes to catch me. He got within 2 seconds of me, I paced it better, saved a feather and gapped him in the last 500 yards.


View: https://youtu.be/ByWSHd6JacM

 

[N0bodyOfTheGoat]

Surprisingly got 2/6/4/7 out of 117-110 signups in Tiny Races on Saturday, on progressively longer races on Two Bridges, to win ZRS pen D overall for first time. First time I'd had all quartet in top ten in D too, amazed to get 2nd race #1 where I have a long history of being dropped due to intense pace and my usual lack of warmup.

After finishing ~25th in weeks 1 and 2 from huge fields of ~250-350 signups, surprisingly got 3rd in week 3 TDZ ifrom 202 signups in the 160-270 pen, final climb was brutal and only ~4 seconds slower than my best recent efforts from Tiny Races rather than 30-odd minutes of racing beforehand.
Crazy how this only got +3 ZRS points, system is so poor!

Was going to keep yesterday very light to recover, but I got carried away with the TDZ banded rides including doing Innsbruck KOM After Party, feeling very dead this morning!

 

[CXRAndy]

My ZRS increased by 1 for my mid pack result today.

I need to do more riding to improve resilience in these punchy races

 

[alex_cycles]

Surprisingly got 2/6/4/7 out of 117-110 signups in Tiny Races on Saturday, on progressively longer races on Two Bridges, to win ZRS pen D overall for first time.

Well done. My infamous win over David Hivey came on race 3 of that set of races about 2 years ago. Just a single race mind, he took overall and I got silver that week. No I will NEVER shut up about it. I've got his Afro scalp on my wall.

Was going to keep yesterday very light to recover, but I got carried away with the TDZ banded rides including doing Innsbruck KOM After Party, feeling very dead this morning!

Mad. Sounds like your fitness is returning

 

[13 rider]

Just checked our results , as mentioned the captain got bumped up to B cat after last night and no shows as having a code 7 so her finish points are down to one , last week our then captain got bumped up to B but his results stood . I'm confused can someone explain this in simple terms

 

[alex_cycles]

Just checked our results , as mentioned the captain got bumped up to B cat after last night and no shows as having a code 7 so her finish points are down to one , last week our then captain got bumped up to B but his results stood . I'm confused can someone e plain this in simple terms

Yes. There is a threshold for category upgrade and a slightly higher threshold WTRL use for DQ.
If you hit the upgrade threshold without going over the DQ threshold, your points stand but you can't carry on with that team. If you go over both, you get DQed as well.

For example in C --> B it's something like 3.36 zFTP but if you do 3.4 you can upgrade without DQ. If you do 3.5 you're DQed as well.
(Those numbers may not be exactly spot-on, but you get the idea).