The Indoor Riding/ Zwift/ TrainerRoad etc. Thread

Soldato
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3.7-3.8w:kg in C grade roadie? Shame on you ;)

I did the Korea handicap race in C grade 3-3.5w average today, handicap was actually very good, 2 min gaps, we caught D with 5k to go, about the same time that A&B caught us.

My connection was a bit iffy, had left my VPN on so probably onedrive syncing all the time. Kept losing spots due to that but was still ridable. I’m not convinced by some of the riders and weights but it was a good workout which is what I wanted!
 
Soldato
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It's CVR grades and Cat's mate, they're determined by rider ranking and points from their system. As I hadn't ridden any of the 'training' rides and the test league over the winter I didn't have points, they originally placed me in bracket D. I raced in D the first week and because it was mass start ended up racing with the bracket C riders and teammates I've ridden before with in 'normal' Cat B. So I've requested to be 'upgraded' to bracket C, but CVR in fixing an issue with my account have put me in B and lost all my race results except week 1's D race, but given me points calculated from the B race, so they're wildly inaccurate! :rolleyes:
 
Soldato
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No riding to work again today, so I had a crack at a Zwift workout again. GCN's Sprint one. 1 hour, and mainly focusing on 10x20 sec ~650W efforts.

Not going to be doing that one again in a hurry! I'm sure there are tougher ones out there, but at 6:30 in the morning, I felt it!!

https://www.strava.com/activities/1374119397

You ate breakfast and then thought it'd be a good idea to do that?! :D

You wouldn't find me eating a meal before any sort of workout, unless I'd got at least 80 to 90 mins clear time between finishing eating and sitting on the bike. I usually neck a gel or two and then leave the meal till after, safer that way!
 
Soldato
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Not going to be doing that one again in a hurry! I'm sure there are tougher ones out there, but at 6:30 in the morning, I felt it!!
There's quite a few early morning WBR training rides and they all look pretty hard work! I can't imagine riding that hard that early lol

You wouldn't find me eating a meal before any sort of workout, unless I'd got at least 80 to 90 mins clear time between finishing eating and sitting on the bike.
I need a good 30 minutes here, I don't have any more time to spare & I probably do ride a little too close to meals. In the evenings I'm very time crunched to make 8pm race starts and have to rearrange my whole evening routine to fit in the 7:05pm CVR races! :o

I have come close to throwing multiple times and quite often will have indigestion. I use it in my 'favour' as a reminder not to ride that hard & early in races! A race start is sometimes enough but I can hold 5.5-6w/kg for quite a while without a huge HR spike these days. Think that's a good thing? :D

Ordered a Tacx Flux yesterday. 10% off on CRC + 10% BC discount + 2% topcashback + 4% 'kidstart' (2nd cashback, if it works!) = £533. They're selling S/H/Used on Ebay for £450-520 so figured it was a deal. Couldn't get the KICKR below £800 or the Direto below £600 :cool:
 
Soldato
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Only from reading DCR's first look at it. Sounds interesting, certainly with their partnership with Xert, if that pushes onwards then they'll really be a competitor.

I can't see TR/Zwift easily giving up much market share to them as the customised training plan is TR's bread and butter, whereas Zwift have been trying to drive towards that the past year or so. I'm fully expecting a buy out or one of them to announce partnership with Xert.

Rode on my Flux for a couple of hours saturday. Jumped into 20 mins of a group training ride and did some keeping to warm it up, quit, ran the calibration and then attempted a 1 lap flat. Got my ass handed to me coming 9th in B (huge effort to hold the front A+B group came to nothing, except tired legs!). I've definitely lost power moving from the Vortex, not totally surprising as I knew it was over reading slightly. Still shaking the tail end of illness and feeling fatigued so it's still too early to tell just how much... Resting now until CVR on tuesday as drove to work in an effort to shake it. :)
 
Soldato
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http://www.onelap.cn/topic/OnelapIntro.html?lang=en

Currently free Chinese development version of something along the lines of Zwift.
Hopefully lots of the Zwift Chinese fliers head on over to it...! ;)

DCR mentions it at the start of his Virtugo first look above, along with RGT and will be doing a 'First Look' at each of them along with his thoughts over the next few weeks.

I've had nothing more than a glance at Virtugo, enjoyed pictures of RGT when the couple of guys on my Strava tried it out but when none of them rode it more than a couple of times I figured I wouldn't waste my time with it. Kinda helped that the Jungle expansion came out on Zwift around the same time this winter. I've still not ridden the London expansion!
 
Soldato
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*lost power on Zwift :p

I was wondering how your Zwift segments on Strava were so quick :p
I'll still be as quick as most of my times have probably come from racing in a group and trying to break away at said segment, I'll still be in the same groups and trying to same (mostly pointless) tactics lol ;)

I've technically not lost much power, only 20-40W or something. Just the delivery of resistance is less delayed so I'm unable to easily over power and spin up the turbo for the surges I could get with the Vortex. The power curve is more steady (and higher) so I don't/can't overpower it. Yet (luls).

Vortex: max 950W @ 20mph, 2kg flywheel
Flux: max 1500 @ 25mph, 6.7kg flywheel (25kg simulated)

Flywheel is brutal on the Flux, I attempted to spin it after putting some lube on the chain with it switched off at the wall and broke into a sweat! Had to put it on the lower chainring (& low on the cassette) to spin it up by hand lol
 
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Soldato
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Nothing worse than a smart trainer point blank entering 'DENIED' mode. Them feels :D

(Quite often with TR it's best to actually let the workout pause before trying to get going again as then it eases resistance to allow you to resume for a few seconds before reapplying the brake.

Otherwise it turns in to a tractor pull when you're actually just trying to get going again)
 
Soldato
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Some Zwift server issues for me tonight.
It took me 6 attempts to connect to the server, then when riding it kept getting stuck for 5-10secs and none of the riders had names, shirts or data. The number of people connected started at 5600 but had dropped to 3200 within 20mins.

Anyway, the first 10 miles got lost but my second 10 went fine.
 
Soldato
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Flywheel is brutal on the Flux, I attempted to spin it after putting some lube on the chain with it switched off at the wall and broke into a sweat! Had to put it on the lower chainring (& low on the cassette) to spin it up by hand lol
The Neo is the same, it’s very hard to spin by hand. Those Neo magnets sure do grip in. Simulated flywheel weight is up to 125kg
 
Soldato
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Nothing worse than a smart trainer point blank entering 'DENIED' mode. Them feels :D
Really feeling like that as my first rides on saturday didn't exactly boost my confidence! Was absolutely nails! I think I can handle the poor results better than the drop in power figures! ;)
Some Zwift server issues for me tonight.
Yeah tons of issues, not helped by the fact it seemed to hit at around 7pm GMT literally minutes before CVR started. 3 riders from WBR didn't get into B! Somehow the 5-7 others there bossed and dictated the race with our best coming in 1st, 2nd and 4th after forming an 8 man breakaway with 4 WBR in it soon after the start. Dominant! 1 didn't get into C (where I'm racing) and the two that did both under 20s before race start. Impressed they both finished in 4th & 7th considering no team around them this week (7 of us last week!). Various different reasons, mine because my lil dude had his last set of immunisations and wasn't feeling very happy all afternoon & evening.

Fully intending on thrashing myself tonight to try and recover some form. Really need a hard O/U set to start learning the feel of power ramps and kicks on the Flux.
Simulated flywheel weight is up to 125kg
It has to simulate that much for Fatties?! ;)
 
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