For this afternoon’s ride I took on a race on Zwift’s latest map: Crit City.
Admittedly this map has been out a while, but racing isn’t something I have been that involved with, until the recent Tour de Zwift gave me the urge to do more of.
Eager to keep up the weekly routine of a full on race, I had been looking for a decent time slot to fit in a bash on Crit City. 16:45 on a Friday afternoon has been the best I’ve found, so I got involved.
As this was the first time I’ve ridden on this map, I expected to make a few mistakes.
And by far the biggest was going too hard, too soon.
Still, I had a blast making my mistakes today.
This one was well attended. 76 riders in Category C. All being well, I was hoping to finish inside the top 1/3rd. That would mean ~25th or better.
Things started far too well for me. Not really understanding the map (at all, zero recon), I went blasting it into the first lap.
Within the first 300m of the lap, there’s a little section I came to affectionately hate.
With four little bumps this one was an absolute death knell to the legs. Still, on my first lap I was not to know. By the time I came out of this little section I was, at one point, down in 4th place.
Oh mercy.
The delusions of grandeur were real.
After the little bumps there is a short, maybe 200m 1% gradient up to a sharp corner, then down into a descending cobbled section. This takes you past the 1km mark, and the half way arch. No power ups for me, ever, on this section, but passing through the arch was making the usual chime like I might get one.
The second half of the lap isn’t quite as interesting as the first half. There’s a bit of a descent, then it’s into a few more corners, one with a short ascent, and roughly it’s just flat back to the line.
Each lap is about 15m of climb, so it seems daft to moan about those little rollers. But they soon come round, and they soon add up.
Coming into the last third of the lap, I’d completely lost my bearings. Thrown off by the half way arch, I thought each lap was only a kilometer at this point, and did some, shall we say, inaccurate maths to assume I had about 14 laps left. Not so.
Each lap is 2km, and the arch you pass almost immediately after starting is the start / finish line.
By the end of the first lap I was still with this leading group. Could I maintain this pace for the remaining 14km?
Well, for what it’s worth, I maintained with this group for way longer than I expected. I kept thinking I would get dropped at any moment. But I guess the short laps, combined with fairly fresh legs allowed me to hold on a little longer than I ought to have been capable of.
With each passing lap taking more and more out of my legs, it was only a matter of time before I fell off the back. I knew it was inevitable as I was consistently on the rear of the bunch, and where I need them to slow down so I could get a little breather, they were only seeming to speed up.
I used a variety of power ups, one per lap, including an aero and two draft vans, but after 9km I fell off the back of the pack, and I knew there was simply no way I would be able to get back on.
Fortunately, there were four of five other riders around me who were, for me, at a more realistic pacing. Thank goodness for them, as otherwise I have no idea what I’d have done.
Unfortunately though, the best I could do with these riders would be 27th, unless we got really lucky and two or three riders in front fell off the back of the pack, too. This meant I’d not quite make the top third. Oh well.
As you’ll see from the time line graph and lap times below, my pacing slowly but steadily declined with each lap.
Not a lot I could do about this. I’m simply not fit enough to go faster.
The thought of being able to stick with that pack who dropped me is nice, but currently unrealistic. To give some indication, they finished a full minute and a half ahead of me.
Perhaps our little bunch could have pushed that little bit harder. The truth is, it’s hard to find motivation when the next guy up the road is uncatchable.
Anyway, I thoroughly enjoyed my first trip to Crit City, and all being well, it can become a regular Friday afternoon event. One things for sure, 27th or not, it was a solid workout.
I’m happy enough with my performance today. If the racing Gods had been smiling up on us a little more, we may well have been challenging for 25th. As it was, I’m pleased with the result. At the end of this one, Zwift tried to automagically bump my FTP up yet again. I forget exactly what – maybe 219w… it’s not true though. Every lap I was out of the saddle for them little rollers. I won’t accept it until I can do an hour at it.
Somewhat unexpected that the lap orderings are slightly out. It felt like each lap got slower, but clearly one was a bit faster in between. Over twenty seconds difference between what our pack was doing, versus what we were doing at the front. Madness.
It looks as though it was really close up front. And the watts / watts per kilo show how unrealistic my initial pacing truly was.
A truly solid workout today. Felt like more than 340 calories, that’s for sure. Certainly in the first four or five laps, anyway.
If you haven’t ridden Crit City yet, I strongly urge you to give a shot. It’s a really good course. Reminds me, in some ways, of Bologna. Graphically, anyway. More realistic than Watopia.
Not entirely sure what else I can do than keep doing what I’m doing and hopefully, gradually, push myself up to be able to hold 3.4, 3.5, 3.6w/kg. Feels like a looong way off for me at the moment. But then the thought of even holding 3w/kg a few months ago was a big ask, and now I have done two races back to back at 3.3w/kg.
So it is possible.
Not sure what tomorrow holds. Maybe active recovery. Not sure yet.
May hold off. May do something. May wait till Sunday and then hit a big climb. I’m quite fancying the idea of Majorca on RGT Cycling, though not entirely sure what’s involved in that route. Just the idea of some Sunshine fills me with joy. Pity it won’t be real.
