Working from home is a wonderful thing. I had a fairly busy morning, given that it’s Christmas Eve. But I also was able to structure my day such that I could get in an extended hour (very late) long dinner hour ride on Zwift.
For this ride I opted for New York City’s Knickerbocker Reverse loop, which is about 20km, with ~320km of climb as best I recall.
I wasn’t in a particularly grafting mood, but figured a few hundred meters of climb may go some way to alleviating the amount of incoming over indulgence during the next few days.
I knew I had an hour here, so was hoping to get in about 30km in distance. This would be fairly standard midweek fare at this point, but not usually involving so much climb.
That said, Zwift’s NYC climbs are all short and steep, so nothing overly killer here.
With about a 10km warm up, the reverse KOM was upon me. I didn’t go hell for leather today, and this can be verified by the Strava personal bests:
As usual I kinda struggled on this climb as it’s up, then “flat”, up, then “flat”… and I really find the gearing to be difficult. I went for higher cadence, i.e. easier gears, rather than lots of torque. If this had been another day, I wouldn’t have opted for a climbing ride after doing one on Sunday.
I wasn’t sure if I was going to get time to hit this climb again. I also wasn’t sure if this was the only true climb in the route.
It turns out the answers were no, and yes, respectively 🙂
If I had had time to hit the climb again, I don’t think I would have improved on my time. The desire wasn’t there today. However, the sweat was.
Once at the top, I eased off considerably. So much so that I decided to alt+tab out of Zwift for a bit and watch some videos instead.
I did this for a while, until the kids came home from visiting relatives, and normality resumed.
I should mention, I do not expect to be back on Zwift until Friday, but on Friday through Sunday I am hoping to do some longer rides as a result.
I wonder if there is an achievement for logging in on Christmas Day? Not gunna be finding out.
That said, I think Zwift could have done a touch more to Christmas it up a notch. There was, to the best of my recollection, nothing Christmas related on the NYC map.
OK, so 30km done in just over an hour. Not the world’s best time, but a fine way to spend a dinner hour.
Glad to near 600 calories burned for the week. Not going to do a huge amount towards the intake I expect to be incoming tomorrow, but it’s better than zero.
As I mentioned in the weekly review I really don’t understand average watts at this point. At no point during this ride did it feel like I’d done 20 minutes at an average of 191w.
I suspect this was due to some short stint sprints. As such, I think the average watts graph is going to have to go. It’s useless to me.
I’m wondering if I’m going to hit the 100km Zwift goal this week. It’s going to be a messed up week in terms of exercise.
100km should be done, but I want to do a few more longer rides on Tacx Software before my free trial expires.
Have to see how that pans out.
One thing that I’m not so thrilled with today was my cadence. It was all over the show. Most of the smaller roller hills were a total grind. I even lost my chain late on as I struggled to shift from the little to the big ring after a small climb. A near total fail, had I not been able to put the chain back on with out dismounting. Still, mucky fingers.
On that note:
How often should I be oiling my chain? Do you have any chain oil you can recommend? I’ve never oiled my chain since I bought the bike :/
It was nice to see so many people wishing each other a Merry Christmas along the way on today’s ride.
And I too, wish you a Merry Christmas 🙂
