It’s Slightly Farther If You Go Backwards

Today is Richmond day as the guest map on Zwift. I don’t particularly like Richmond due to the cobbles. The Tacx Neo 2 vibrates / gives force feedback / rumbles when I pedal over different surfaces in Zwift, and the cobbles are fairly unpleasant.

I therefore opted to ride Watopia. And specifically, the Volcano Circuit Counter Clockwise.

What’s unusual, in my opinion, about the Volcano Circuit CCW is that it’s 0.1km longer than riding the regular Clockwise Volcano Circuit. How is that even possible? Zwift logic.

Anyway, a fun part of this ride is that in order to get to the start of the Volcano Circuit CCW, you need to ride about 2km. All good, but I’d not realised this, and had started “going for it” as soon as I’d entered the loop, which was a little too early. Whoops. By the time I hit the start line, I’d used up all my good energy reserves. Oh well, the only possible way forwards was to keep pedaling.

Along the way around this ride I noticed a couple of things. Firstly, my saddle is about 2 degrees of centre. Not anything significant, but the smallest of things can irritate the hell out of me when I’m exercising. So that bugged me no end.

Secondly, I noticed that most of my effort is coming from my right leg. I’m naturally right handed, and should I ever attempt to play football, I’d kick naturally with my right leg. It makes sense, in a way, that most of my power would be in that leg.

Once I’d taken note of this imbalance of power, I made a concerted effort to push harder with my left leg. That bumped up my wattage quite significantly, so this seems like something I need to work on in more detail. On this front, I was under the impression that the Tacx Neo 2 has a cadence sensor that should help with things like this. I’ve found intermittent problems with getting cadence data out of Zwift at the end of the ride, and it appears I’m not the only one.

Maybe though, I have misunderstood the difference between cadence and pedalling analysis. This video was quite helpful, but I don’t have the Tacx full software setup, and certainly dont have 10gb of free space to download a 1080p video to the iPad.

One interesting side note I found out last night is that Garmin have acquired Tacx, so who knows what the future holds. My current experience with Tacx has been that the hardware is great, but their website and product packaging lack any substantial detail. I’ve been forced to use 3rd party YouTube videos to learn about the device. Not brilliant on a product costing £1200, and don’t even get me started on the need to provide your own cassette.

Ride Along

One of the most enjoyable parts of today’s ride was having another rider – M. Lister (DACE) – alongside me at various points on the circuit. We would continually be taking over, and dropping behind one another. To be fair, M. Lister had done at least a full circuit by the time I joined the loop, so I can’t say I was matching this rider for effort.

Having M. Lister as a target rider really helped. My first circuit clocked in at 8:09.8, which put me, as best I recall, about 14th, out of 15.

Without realising it, on the second lap round, with my aim to try and stay on M. Lister’s wheel, I dropped this considerably to 7:57.4, which I was really pleased with. And shocked by.

On the third time round I could only managed an 8:19.8. In fairness, that’s the first time I’ve done three circuits, and overall it’s the longest ride I have completed yet, outside a dedicated Zwift workout.

Along the way today I rode 16.4km, which in old English money is just over 10 miles. That means I got a Zwift achievement: Can’t Stop Now – rode 10 miles. Nice.

Oh, and I also worked off a full slice of Pizza.

The Zwift man face gave me my best yet, a 64TSS which is still just OK! for him. I’ll take it. I’m guessing he changes his tune at 70.

The one downside in riding the Volcano Circuit Counter Clockwise is that there was no Sprint. Boo. I do love a good sprint. I’m almost certain the regular Volcano Circuit has a sprint. No fair.

I got an email from Strava saying a fellow rider, Covaci Vasile, had given me a thumbs up / kudos for my ride. Thank you!

All in all, a good ride today. I can still feel the workout in my thighs as I write this almost 9 hours later. Catch you all tomorrow.