This morning I took part in Stage 2 of the Tour of Watopia 2019. This was the Road To Ruins stage, or 8 laps of the Volcano Circuit.
I managed to start about 10 seconds late. I had planned to get up with plenty of time to spare, but in the end, I only just made it onto the bike as everyone else was already underway.
I really liked the continuation of the theme – finishing at the Volcano last time, then spending more time there for this stage.
My aims for this ride were as follows:
- Ride the whole ‘race’ / event 🙂
- Don’t stop pedaling the whole time
- Keep an average of 150w or more
- Set a new personal best on the volcano circuit
I was fairly confident I could meet all four goals. But I missed one of them, unfortunately. Not by much, but it was 3 out of 4 this time. Keep reading to find out which one I missed. Ooh the excitement is palpable.
Ignore the fact that taking screenshots from my phone has a horrible orange tinted overlay, and look to the number of riders registered for this event. 916, with 7 minutes to go.
Then look at the early stage of the event, which says I’m placed 545/684. What gives?
Fortunately riding on Zwift on the iPad means the information is so small on screen from my position that I simply can’t read it. Or I would have been outraged. Outraged, I tell you.
Unlike in the previous event (stage 1), drafting was enabled (afaik) for this event. Unfortunately for me, I couldn’t find a pack of riders that seemed to be going at my pace. Intermittently, throughout the event, I would stumble upon a pack either going slightly faster, or slightly slower. As such, I never stuck with a group for the whole event. Drafting definitely had an impact on some laps though.
Fairly quickly I managed to set a new personal best on the Volcano Circuit.
Slashing almost a full minute off my previous best seemed a decent way to get started.
The personal victory was somewhat dampened by getting lapped on my second lap by the pack of leaders.
Once the flood gates were opened, the whole peloton seemed to come through.
There was a really nice end to each completed circuit. A big count down was at the side of the road, and lots of people were achieving new personal bests. Rides Ons all round.
One downside is how difficult it is to give a ride on in the app. The easiest way was to lean over and click the thumb icon next to the rider’s name on the iPad itself. Not great.
I was initially uncertain as to whether Zwift would keep track of my lap times. I was happy that it did. And each subsequent lap I tried to get a picture of my 30 Day PRs:
Bit alarming to be 15 seconds off my previous lap. As mentioned earlier, Drafting definitely played a part in some of my lap times.
On each circuit there were two parts I really enjoyed. The first was the finishing line 🙂 And the second was the hill climb.
Unfortunately it would appear that I didn’t get any screenshots of the hill climb. This is likely because on each attempt, I was stood up pedaling like hell.
Much like in my previous longer rides, I found the first 15km to be the most challenging. After this, my legs kinda just got used to it and began grinding it out.
My lap times all seemed to be in the 7 minute range. This was a marked improvement in my previous rides on the Volcano Circuit. Happy about this.
I leveled up. Looking forward to level 10 when I can ride some of the new Watopia unlocks.
Before I knew it, I was half way there.
On that very lap I set a new personal best again. No idea how I did this truth be told. I don’t remember the lap being any different to the others, so again, I feel like this was likely influenced by draft.
Feels like there is a bug in Zwift there. Surely the ordering is wrong?
A couple of interesting metrics for me from this ride:
- 10km in 18 minutes 7 seconds
- 20km in 35 minutes 28 seconds
The three remaining laps became a regular routine. Once I’d passed the start / finish line, I’d set my mind up for the climb, perhaps catch a little recovery just before it, then try and grind it back to the line where I’d repeat the process again.
And before I knew it, I was on to my final lap. I remember my wife came in at this point and I made her double and triple check that yes, I was definitely on the last circuit. I was pretty knackered.
For my last lap I gave it everything I had left. Which admittedly, wasn’t much.
And then it was there. The finish line.
As soon as I crossed the line, the event results were displayed.
Oh yeah, sorry, I wasn’t in the top 10.
I managed 528th out of who knows how many riders. A time of 63 minutes 22 seconds, at an average of 154w. This is above my FTP, which was a guesstimated 147w prior to this event.
Overall really happy with this. The one thing I did poorly, twice, on this event was to stop pedaling after a hard climb. This was only momentarily, but not a habit I want to get in to. I’d rather keep a slower grind and not stop than go too hard and have to stop. Maybe just me being weird.
I gave it a short wind down before I wanted off the bike. Not sure exactly how short. I know I quit when I reach the top of the volcano climb, which suddenly felt ridiculously easy. No idea why.
I put in a decent effort by my standards on this one. It felt good to ride, and even better to finish. Much the same as last week.
Really pleased to have wow‘d the TSS man:
I earned back 2 slices of pizza from last night’s restaurant meal. I had pasta then, so will have to substitute this for 2 slices of garlic bread.
And lastly, for my troubles, Zwift bumped me up from 147w to 153w guesstimated FTP. Chuffed.
All in all, a lot of fun, and a great way to start my Sunday morning. I’m really looking forward to the next event. Thanks to Zwift, and to everyone who took part.