This afternoon I took part in Zwift’s L’Etape du Tour Stage 1, which was a single lap of the “Mountain Route”. Or more simply, a climb up the Epic KOM and radio tower climb, then back home to finish in downtown Watopia.
In truth I probably wouldn’t have done this one today had it not been for the Tour de France integration. I was eager to see what, if anything, Zwift had done to jazz up the visuals for their TdF tie in.
I feel Zwift haven’t done a great job of explaining what’s happening with their Tour de France setup. It seems they have some kinda of miniature TdF going on currently. This seems to include some existing Watopia routes and then the much anticipated new France map.
That’s all good for the pros. But there’s seemingly two different events for us mere normals. There was this L’Etape du Tour group ride I took part in. Then all week there are “preview” routes for the Tour itself. I’m confused.
Anyway I was a little disappointed to learn that today’s ride was not on a new route. I found that out yesterday so knew ahead of time today. But I had heard this ride would take place on Watopia France variant. Well, if that was the case, it was the most minimal variation on Watopia they could possibly have gotten away with. A few flying gophers, a couple of crowd sections, branded archways, and a bit of road graffiti. Underwhelmed.
What was nice to see was over 4000 riders taking part in this ride. That was massive for what is after all, a fairly challenging route. 650m of climb is no joke, and the radio tower is hellish. I don’t care how big your pack is around you, that thing is a beast.
I had planned to take part in this one at 9am. That ride had over 6k people registered.
Madness.
I wasn’t on an alarm for that, it was just going to be the case that if I was up, awake and ready, I’d go for it.
Instead I was rudely awoken at 9.23, which is not something I’m overly sad about. Better than 7am like usual.
Sunday is my only lie in a week.
I couldn’t do the 11am ride as we were out for our first restaurant meal in 4 months at 12.30.
As a result I did this ride on a belly full of pizza. Good times.
My plan for this one was to climb at or around 3w/kg. In the race yesterday I pretty much thrashed myself so was conscious of not going stupid today. I feel I went too hard in hindsight, but it is what it is.
Coming off this one I managed to finally get GTA 5 downloaded in the background whilst doing the Zwift ride. This should mean I can get involved in some GTA 5 Bike rides later in the week. Looking forward to that, but still not got it setup so I bet its not entirely straightforward. Fingers crossed though.
Before then I have signed up for the 5pm GMT Tour preview rides on Tuesday and Wednesday. This makes it a fairly intense week ahead. But it also means I don’t need to think about what I’m riding, which is always nice. Maybe I’ve misjudged it and these next two rides are where Zwift have put their new designs into Watopia France. Something to look forward too, though I’m not building my hopes up too high.
At this point I’m feeling more than ready for a rest day. Even though its not been my hardest week ever on the bike, it feels like it’s been pretty full on. I’d really like to get in at least one outdoor ride a week, but the weather right now is utter garbage. Lots more turbo work awaits.
