Zwift - Cruzbike Activities (races and group rides)

[benphyr]

I actually did PR the climb. I was not quick, but trimmed 15 minutes off of my prior PR. Finally sub-2 hour at 1:55! I need to work on my endurance especially at power.

The other night I did my max on the trainer for this year: 1 hr on the bike - I'll get there but 2 hours I would not be able to do (yet) as tingling starts about at 30-40 minutes. Next time...

 

[RojoRacing]

So yeah as expected I totally forgot to change my weight back after yesterday and din't notice till after my steady state erg session today when I wondered my my mileage for 175 watts was low. The other thing weird was my height was set to 5'7" instead of 5'10" so I have no idea how long that has been that way.

 

[CruzLike]

It was a memorable ride for many reasons. First off, I did PR this ride. Just a tick or two over an hour @ 1:07:48 With a little improvement I could break the 1 hour barrier. Another notable item as I beat Jason up the mountain. That's the big print. The small print was Jason was 100lbs over weight (to equalize his speed with ours), was tired from previous days rides, was not competing with others as much as I was with him. Probably the most fun was the couple hours of commiserating with friends.

It was a fun time.

 

[RojoRacing]

Yes I can’t stress enough how much being in a group chat on discord makes the difference. Without being able to exchange banter to cheer each other on when we see someone falling back it would be little different then riding solo.

In game text messages are great but when you’re push as hard as I was, typing isn’t really an option.

 

[RojoRacing]

Damn 267th I didn’t realize these were recorded as results in Zwift power, talk about a blaring scar :lol

I didn’t realize how long it’s been since I’ve not been on the podium in a Zwift race. That’s probably half ability and half the fact that even with half the people on Zwift cheating we still only get like 5 people in the A races

 

[RojoRacing]

Hey @trplay go get a screenshot of the results page and post it here. I’m tied for heaviest rider with that Josh Powers guy who was posting all those in game messages.

 

[RojoRacing]

Felt bad for dirtying my results page on zwiftpower with that last one so I went out and took a gold cup today to help compensate. Was an odd race with only 3 A racers with one guy not wanting to pull at all and the other being a fair bit heavier then me so it was near impossible to me to take pulls without going anarobic. He was just maintaining 4.0-4.3 most the time and only at 150HR but every time I'd try and pull at 4.5-5.0 his avatar would roll passed me at 3.9 so it was like why am I even trying here? I did take several 20-30 second pulls at 5.0 just to not feel like a wheel sucking roadie but it would put me near 180HR so I'd have to sit in for several mins to get it back down to 170 and try it again. Race ended with a sprint but honestly the other 2 ether suck a timing it or just suck at sprint way more than me because it was no contest.

 

[RojoRacing]

Yeah I’m sure those guys never dropped below my FTP of 4.5 the whole race and were probably above 5.0 for most of it. It would probably be more fun if I wasn’t so realistic with how there are so many people faster then me and just claimed all those top Zwifters were cheating somehow

 

[jond]

Jason all those iced donuts have caught up with your inner fat bastard. Lol. Would have felt strange like riding in mud under water.

 

[RojoRacing]

Um yeah I've raced with Casey maybe when he was on his second race that day and I was at my peak but I've always been on the back foot when he or Beck are in my race. I did just glance through the race on youtube and there's no little chance I'd have lasted a full lap in a group that fast as I am now but if I could just settle into some consistency I could reach the level on cannon fodder in a race like that.

 

[RojoRacing]

I’ve never seen a race decided by a power up outside of maybe when used in a sprint finish. I guess they could be a metal booster to get back on the group when getting dropped but to say you lost because you didn’t know how to use power ups just shows how little you understand about them. The timing a pacing for sure is what caught out the pros this time just as it does with every new user fast or slow.

 

[RojoRacing]

Nice now I don't have to world hack and ride solo if I want to get in some serious climbing on watopia

 

[RojoRacing]

Not being a fan of a structured training plan I am not sure why I am diving into this zwift workout stuff but I am? Mainly its for knowledge regarding Zwifts capabilities. I was able to create a past garmin real life ride and turn it into a workout without any problem. Now I'm trying to determine what one would do with such a thing. It is neat and can be used to train for a specific route but I'm thinking there may even be a better use. Perhaps they can be used to share with others around the world who can't do the ride themselves. In other words someone in California can give the file to their Cruzbike cousins in Georgia or Australia and they can experience the difficulty of a specific ride they do in California. Not sure it will work this way, does anyone know?

Oh the the torturer I could inflict on people with my routes.

 

[RojoRacing]

Ok so I took one of my old lunch ride files and made a workout with it but it's just an ERG map of my effort on the ride as recorded via my power meter. I guess you could input your own FTP setting and experience what 96% intensity effort feels like for 70 mins but it won't be like climbing my hills.

 

[Pollock]

Still waiting for Zwift on iPad to update so I can pick from two worlds. For those on Apple TV, have you seen an update for it yet?

I might have to break out a laptop tomorrow to get my TT ride in before the end of the weekend.

 

[benphyr]

Still waiting for Zwift on iPad to update so I can pick from two worlds.

iPod was NOT updated/ NOT allowing choice of worlds this afternoon at around 3pm EST.

 

[Pollock]

I pulled up the Zwift forums to see if there was any more info there. I would look for it hopefully late this week.

I spent some time with a company that published iOS and Android apps. Google would approve new changes in a few hours. Apple would approve them in a few days to a week. I suspect the iOS (and likely Apple TV) build is waiting for Apple to review and approve.

Today was the first time I have used something other than my iPad for Zwift. I loaded the app on my MacBook Pro (3-4 years old). The new world switch worked great on there. The graphics look much better as well. I still prefer the iPad for now though as I have a decent stand for it. It does make me think of a decent TV and Intel NUC or similar mini PC for later.

 

[RojoRacing]

TT race in T-minus 26 mins. Last two days have included some epic efforts so not sure what's left in the tank.

 

[RojoRacing]

You guys and gals missed an interesting race between a Japanese rider and myself. It was a TT race to do drafting effect and the route was the greater london loop which includes box hill. I started out strong averaging about 310 watts and had the Jap rider hanging on 5-15 meters back. It wasn't long before I started to feel the last two hard days of riding as I got passed and started to struggle to keep it above 300w. I was about 4 seconds back when we hit the little 5% climb in the city so clicked up one gear and got out of the saddle, yes I'm on the DF bike. I quickly overtook Japan for the lead and quickly opened a 10 second lead. It seemed like the other rider in the race had their trainer setting set at zero and were trying to just steady power the whole thing like a flat TT race. That's fine for a flat race but it's not going to get you the fastest possible time on a hilly course when air resistance comes into play. You need to ease up on the negative grades and push harder when climbing and speeds are down and air resistance has less of an effect, this is true in zwift and outdoors. There was still plenty of flat before the climb and with me struggling to hold 4.0w/kg the Japan rider overtook me again and steadily opened a 15 second lead before getting to box hill. I figured I was racing for second at that point because once we started climbing his weight advantage would have him pulling away even more, but the opposite happened. Once I got into the 7-8% grade and the trainer piled on the resistance I was able to get out of the saddle and crank away at a comfortable 65 cadence and 350w. I quickly ate into Japan's lead and then half way up passed him while struggled to increase his power over what he was doing on the flats. By the top I had a 30 second lead and I could soft pedal all the way down and recover for a strong 300 watt final 2 miles to take the win.

If you do a TT race with no drafting and it has a 5 min climb in it make sure you ride the flats at 90-95% and then 105-110% on the climb for best results.

 

[Pollock]

Congrats Rojo on the race and win! Also, thanks for the tip on TT races. That is not something I would have considered.