Today’s rides were chalk and cheese. I had a very long, low intensity Zwift workout, and then shortly after I had a bit of a hair raising very short real world ride. More on that below.
What I will say is that Zwift’s kilometers are somewhat questionable. I’d honestly never given it a huge amount of thought, though I have had comments previously that have suggested that kilometers on Zwift are very much easier / incomparable to the real world.
This was made obvious in two ways during today’s Zwift session.
Firstly, I’d give anything to be able to cruise along at 2.5w/kg outdoors on a flat road and be nailing 34kph. Try more like 24kph.
Secondly, the Garmin was like, err no, try 26km instead of the Zwift reported 34km when I got off. I actually trust the garmin. I know Zwift gives you freebies for downhills, but it’s a tad ridiculous.
I did this ride around Zwift’s new France circuit. Sadly I didn’t get to watch the Tour whilst riding. I don’t have Eurosport. I’m having to make do with the 5 minute highlights available on YouTube.
Anyway, as this one was an active recovery ride, I got through it without any incident, aside from the above outrage at the achieved speeds. Makes me wonder what my weekly distances would be if all I did was indoor rides for a change.
Once I’d done on Zwift, and promptly stripped off all my sweaty kit (yeah, even on an active recovery ride gets me moist, eww) my wife came in and told me I needed to take the car to the “local” garage for repairs.
Now, given its a bank holiday here in the UK, and this was about 5.30pm (as best I recall), I knew that this particular location would be… hairy. It’s not a great part of Preston, and Preston is not a great part of the world.
So, me being me, I figure I’d pop the bike in the car, go in my kit, and ride home.
Of course, getting the bike in the car means taking the wheel off, and my kit makes me look like a bit a spud. But I would rather look all spud like than walk home.
And so as I rock up at the garage, closed as it is on a bank holiday, its busy outside with a ton of yoofs on mountain bikes and looking rough af. I’m there trying to get my cycling shoes on, in my lycra long John’s, phone clearly visible in my Jersey pocket… Then on with the helmet and locking up the car, posting in the keys, and clipping in. All the while being watched like a hawk by these kids. I fully expected to get mugged. Or worse.
Anyway, credit where its due, they left me alone. I couldn’t have bolted faster once I was on the bike. No looking back. Bet my car has been put on bricks or sold for parts at this point though.
Just another day in paradise.
