For tonight’s after work ride I got lucky – it was Innsbruck, one of my favourite maps.
I opted for a climb, taking on the 2018 UCI Worlds Short Lap, a 23.6km route taking in both the Innsbruckring and Innsbruck KOM, a 7.4km climb with an average gradient of 5% over 400m.
To begin with, however, I had a bit of a funky warm up. Having just finished work at 5, I needed to get the cooker on, and the tea prepped. This meant I couldn’t settle into a proper ride until the cooker was suitably warmed up, and my tea was in and cooking.
As such as soon as I set off, I turned around and cycled a bit out from the line – interestingly you can do this route as a full lap. Maybe next time I hit Innsbruck for a climb, this is what I’ll do.
Along the way I hit the reverse Innsbruck sprint for the first time. A 200m flat sprint, I mucked up the run in and so can probably do better than this. According to the stats, I hit 501w on this sprint. Certainly not my best effort. But not bad for ~5 mins into the ride.
It must be over 30 days since I last rode Innsbruck as I’ve lost all my previous 30 day records sadly.
On this front, I have had a very quick look at extracting my data from the .fit file that Zwift creates. I believe, with a bit of jiggery pokery, I can get all my archive / old data, and make some nice graphs and charts. And leaderboards. So that’s quite exciting.
However, it’s another tech project, and not one I currently have immediate time for.
Turning around I started back towards the start / finish line, as I figured by the time I got there, the cooker would be warmed up and I’d be good to go.
I hit the Innsbruck forward sprint along the way, and whilst I don’t have my previous stats to go on, I’d be surprised if this was a new personal record.
By the time I got to the line, I messed up a bit, went over, had to double back again, then get off the bike and sort out the tea.
With that done, I could finally set off on the climb.
The long story short version of this climb is I felt like it was a really strong effort on my part.
I aimed to stick as close to 200w or greater as I could. Perhaps I went a little too hard at the start.
I tried not to get out of the saddle if at all possible, thinking I’d save that for later in the climb as needed.
Mostly I got my gears right on this climb. There were some segments where I messed up, but overall, a decent / improved performance over previous attempts.
I was predominantly in the small ring, aiming to keep over 80rpm if at all possible.
At one point I got over taken by R. Allan. This was similar to last time up the climb with Mr. A. Gibbs, with me trying my best to stick on his wheel for as long as possible. Mostly this involved him taking off in front of me, and then me getting out of the saddle and chasing him until I got back on his wheel, and dropped again.
I didn’t manage to stick with him for long – he was a vastly stronger rider than me – but it was a good motivator for effort.
It’s somewhat of a motivational killer when the ETA board pops up and tells you there’s still an estimated 10 grueling minutes ahead.
After doing Alpe Du Zwift, however, pretty much any climb feels easier by comparison.
Sweat was absolutely pouring off me on this ride. I ran out of water. That was bad. Fortunately it happened pretty much as I got to the top of the climb.
The whole bike was drenched. Lovely stuff. It’s never been outdoors but I can feel rust coming on.
I find it absolutely crazy that the effort I put in on this ride was deemed lesser than yesterday’s ride. This one felt like I’d put in a solid 20+ minute effort, easily among, if not bettering my previous best.
Finally, after what was a dripping wet 30 minutes, I managed to crest the hill and put my time on the board.
Having checked my previous attempt, I managed to shave ~3 minutes off my only other attempt. Happy with that.
Once at the top I kinda forgot about the whole UCI Worlds Lap overall time and somewhat took my foot off the gas.
I am always aware that the best strategy after a climb is to keep those legs turning. Get used to putting in effort on the down hill as much as the up hill, as this is a way to a better average speed.
Even so, I’m just a beginner. I do my best.
I did manage to get into the big ring for the down hill, and zipped down alongside S. Skerratt, who I had just watched fly up the hill next to the person who claimed the KOM jersey. Fair play.
Reaching my 3 hour riding goal in only my third ride of the week was a good feeling.
With all my earlier problems this week it’s definitely been a good feeling to get plenty of time on the bike, and comfortably so. Happy with my latest adjustments to position.
Once back down, I really did ease off. I knew I had another small hill climb ahead. That’s always fun.
No silly business on this hill. Just as high a cadence as I could muster, but no real pressure on myself. Nice and easy.
Coming round for my second attempt at the Innsbruck forward sprint, I doubted whether I could best my previous attempt. And my doubts were proven correct. A couple of seconds off the pace, on fairly tired legs.
Getting back to the line was a bit of a slog. I did what I could. I perhaps could have done better. No regrets though.
Again, checking my previous records, I can see I slashed 3 minutes off my previous UCI Lap time. Basically all the time saved on the hill.
Solidly… average.
Even though I thought I’d put in my best ever Zwift effort on this one, I seem to have come up short pretty much across the board. Oh well.
It’s strange in that sometimes the best performances come from average feeling rides. A bit like interviews. Come out feeling like it went badly – get offered the job. Come out feeling like it went well – never hear from them again.
Over an hour on the bike after work. Really good stuff. Always nice on a Friday, get to pump out the music and put in a good sweaty ride.
600+ calories done. Nice. Happy with that. Heart rate not too crazy either.
Again, so weird about the 20 minute performance. It felt sooo strong.
Anyway, it is what it is. Zwift still has Innsbruck on rotation tomorrow. I’m not sure what / when I’m going to get to ride. If I do go on, it might be a Watopia route. It might be the reverse Innsbruck KOM. I really have no idea. Maybe a structured workout, or heck, a last minute group ride. I’d love to get into one of them.