For this morning’s ride I resumed my “Sunday hard climb” routine, today opting for Zwift’s Alpe Du Zwift. I was somewhat surprised yesterday to realise it’s been 4 months since I last made this ascent.
On my last attempt I made the climb in 1h 11m 44s, and my goal today was to do anything under 1h 10m.
There was one difference between last time and this, however. Last time I did AdZ as part of a race, and completed the Tour of Fire and Ice route. Today I opted to hit the Road to Sky, which means the ascent times are not directly comparable, in my opinion.
Anyway, let’s see how I got on.
Aside from the sub 1h 10m ascent goal, my other big goal today was to average my FTP for an hour, or ideally longer.
This would mean maintaining 206w, or greater, for the entire climb.
And this would also mean no out of the saddle action, at all.
This would be the first time since my last FTP test that I have actively tried to maintain my revised FTP figure for 1 hour or greater. If you’ve read any of my blog posts, you will likely know I’ve been skeptical as to whether I would be able to do this.
Just before I hit the bottom of the climb, I stopped, had a quick toilet break, and also remembered to turn on my fan. Again, this skews the figures against the race / the last ascent.
Hitting the bottom of the climb I was immediately in the little ring, and the easiest gear.
This was different to previous attempts where I have tried to initially push hard. I figured I’d rather just be consistent, even if that meant a slower time. Again, a big goal today was to average 206w or greater for the hour+ of the ascent, so blowing up early would be disastrous to that goal.
Keeping under about 230w on the first few corners was a real challenge. I was somewhat concerned about yesterday’s SST session last night, but honestly I completely forgot about it as I began today’s ride.
If anything, I felt really fresh.
Another thing I did today was to have my iPad on a little painting easel, so I was able to watch YouTube concurrently. I did this for a good half an hour of the entire ride, and I have to say it really took my mind off things. But being able to quickly glance at either screen as needed was much easier than alt+tabbing between the two.
Please excuse the terrible picture of the most important part – I cut off most of the easel. Silly me. Anyway, I have no idea what the stand is. Maybe it’s a sheet music stand. I really don’t know. I found it just lying next to my bike… it’s something my wife must have owned for a while, as it was covered in cobwebs.
Whether it was for painting or for music, it worked really well for the purpose of holding the iPad. It wasn’t secure, so as and when my little kids were nearby I was constantly concerned it would get knocked over, but that never happened. Basically it was something like this.
I think I only used, at most, 3 gears during this whole climb.
As above, I was largely in the little ring at the front, and the easiest gear at the back, most of the time.
The few times I dropped gears was as and when things got flat… or down to like 4-6% and I needed to maintain a higher average.
Maintaining that higher wattage was not quite as consistent as I’d have liked.
Several times I would find the shorter 300-500m corners were bursting up to 250w, then I’d ease off, let the average start to creep down, and then put on a bit more pressure to maintain anything about 206w.
As best I recall, I only had one corner where I averaged 206w exactly.
The first 10 or so corners went by really quite quickly. I’m not sure if this was because I was concentrating predominantly on YouTube, or because I was just feeling fairly decent still.
The video I’d chosen was completely unrelated to cycling. It was a wood working video. Something I’d quite like to get into, if I had either the time, the money, and / or the space. Alas, I barely have space for a bike, and all them sharp saws and stuff with my kids… likely a terrible idea. Plus… the dust?!
I think the constant SST sessions really started to shine through for me on this one.
One thing that being in the easier gear had done was meant that early on I’d been down fairly low in the RPMs. In order not to whack out big (by my standard) wattages, I’d found I was spinning around 70-80rpm, but the pacing was easier than I was expecting.
Towards the end of the ride I was able to push higher RPMs, and that really helped maintain higher wattages. There were several times I was above 90rpm, which felt … great! Amazingly.
Coming up towards the final few corners my ego started to get involved.
I was around the ~50m mark with only three corners to go. Could I break through the hour mark?
Well. I was strongly considering saying to heck with my 1h FTP effort and getting out of the saddle to try to break 1h. That would have been really something.
But, I’m kinda glad I didn’t.
What I didn’t remember / realise until I hit the final corner was that whilst the corners are marked down to 1, the final corner / the finishing straight is not marked. So, had I actually gone for it, I’d still ahve had to push through that final several hundred meters of extra fun.
Fortunately, I saw sense and stayed seated and on target.
That’s not to say I didn’t put in a solid stint on that last part of the climb to the finish line, breaking through 300w for the first / only time in the ascent. But it wasn’t enough to come close to 1h.
Coming over the line I got the magic wheel of fun. That’s the first time, as far as I am aware, that I have ever got to spin the wheel on Alpe du Zwift.
Today I won the Lazer Bullet Helmet. I’m not sure what the other prizes are. I did see gloves. But anyway, the helmet turned out to match my kit with its red and black colouring, so I’ve switched it from the red cap I’ve had on since forever.
Coming over the line I knew I’d smashed my 206w average for the hour, though I wasn’t sure by how much. The lowest segment I’d had was at 206w, with every other segment being higher, and several being well over 210w.
Amazingly, I was still feeling decent. Yes, I was sweaty, and ready to get off the bike, but I wasn’t feeling dead. Certainly not like previous attempts. I think being consistent had really paid dividends.
Oh yes, on the way down I hit my 100km weekly riding goal. That’s Zwift only kilometers, of course. I am at 135km on the week including other platforms.
So the big question remained: how many watts had I averaged over the hour?
I knew I’d beaten my previous 1h 11m time by a considerable margin: 1h 3m 14s. Really pleased with that.
Strava gives it away concisely.
214w for 1h 3m 15s.
I’ll take it. I’ll take it all day long.
Honestly, I’m amazed at myself for this. I’d have been happy to hit 206w. To be 8w higher is a fantastic result for me.
I decided to pedal down the AdZ, purely to give my legs a bit of an easy cool down. No silliness.
Except, well…
Yes, I got kinda bored pootling down the mountain, so by the end I did 3 micro bursts, pushing high 700w’s each time.
Daft. That could have ended in disaster, and I don’t mean my virtual cyclist falling off the cliff.
I mean blowing up my legs doing stupid stuff.
The one confusing thing today:
No FTP rise.
I have reset my FTP to 206w every time Zwift has given me a guesstimated bump.
Not today. No guesstimated increase. Yet this would seemingly be the most accurate assessment of my FTP – as in, the average power I could hold for 1h or greater?!
Silly Zwift.
Anyway, at this point I think I’m going to bump it manually. I could do a true FTP test but really what am I going to gain that I haven’t already just proved?
You know, the only downside today? Less than a 1000 calories burned. OUTRAGED!
Right, I’m off to re-heat last nights curry and get stuck in.
