For yesterday evening’s ride I opted for Zwift’s London 8 route, which is essentially the Classique and Box Hill combined.
In total this works out to be about 20km + ~230m of climb.
As I couldn’t work out how fresh I was feeling, I decided that I’d take it easy and see how I got on. That usually goes right out of the window once I start riding, and this ride was kind of no different.
I somewhat regret the goal of pushing for 10km in 20 minutes or under, as it makes me go a little too hard, too early. Five minutes of easy riding / warm up would probably be a smarter idea, particularly at night when I have more time to play with.
As ever with Zwift, I got myself confused thinking I was on the London Loop. I kind of was, but at some point I’d turned off and gone down a different route. Not through knowing choice – that’s just the London 8 route I’d opted to ride. As Zwift know this, why do they show the London Loop timer on screen? Very confusing.
After yesterday’s Apple problems, things were going much more smoothly. And I was able to take screenshots, give ride ons, and generally muck around.
What I accidentally did, however, was click the wrong arrow key on the keyboard and turn myself around. At this point I thought I’d stopped the London Loop timer as a result, and was quite cross with myself. In hindsight, that was not the case.
This route takes me on the reverse Classique it would seem, which means I hit the Reverse London Sprint, a flat 0.2km / 200m dash.
For the sprint I managed a really good time, by my standards. Was happy with this, but completely knackered as a result.
9th overall – breaking the top 10 on a busy sprint. Really pleased with this progress. Likely be a lot further down on the forward variation. I know my limits 🙂
After the sprint I’d completely thrashed myself and took about 5 or more minutes to recover. I knew I had Box Hill approaching, though wasn’t quite sure how many more kilometers lay between the end of the sprint, and the start of the climb. I figured I’d get a few minutes rest and would need to go easy if I was going to put in a decent attempt at the climb.
Hitting the bottom of Box Hill, I quickly realised that now that I have to use the iPad for the Zwift Companion App, I would be really limited in how many screenshots I could take on my soiree up the hill.
Like the last time I hit Box Hill (properly) I went with my aim of standing up / getting out of the saddle for as long as I could – aiming for the first corner if at all possible.
I didn’t manage that last time, but this time I did.
When I got to the first corner, I kept my head down, dropped some gears and tried my best to push on as hard as I could. For such a (comparatively) small climb, Box Hill is exhausting.
There were all kinds of nasty sounds coming from the bike as I clunked and clicked between cogs. It sounded really bad. I’m not sure if that’s normal at all.
At the top I managed to put in my best time yet. Sub 10 minutes. Really pleased with this.
By comparison, the guy who ranked #1 put in a 6 minute effort. Yikes. Some way to go before I’m there 😀
After the climb I was essentially knackered and pretty much ready to call it quits for the night.
I hit the descent, taking in the two short sharp climbs that Box Hill throws in between the top of the KOM and the end of the lap. At one point my gear change to the small ring sounded like the chain was about to snap. Man alive. What a disaster.
I stuck it out for another 10 minutes or so, but with very little real effort. I’d enjoyed the sprint, and was happy with the climb time, but think a rest day might be a good shout if riding on both Saturday and Sunday as planned.
That said, I did rest on Wednesday night. And by rest I mean eat lots of food and drink beer at a lovely local restaurant.
This wasn’t a ride where I planned to set new performance records. The only real record I care about lately is my time average watts over 20 minutes. The best way to assess this is (obviously?) with a true FTP test, rather than trying to do ad-hoc testing on my own terms.
I’d quite like to take on Fox Hill. I have absolutely no idea why Zwift is saying I set a new PR on Fox Hill on this screenshot. I took on Box Hill, no? Glitch central.
I’m not quite sure how to get to Fox Hill though. That remains a mystery at present.
As it’s Richmond this evening, I may opted for another structured workout, rather than risk destroying myself like last time.
All in all, about 30 minutes real effort, a decent amount of calories burned, and that’s all that really matters to me at the moment.
Worth a watch: