This morning I took part in Zwift’s Off The MAAP Tour – Stage 4.
This was 1 ‘lap’ of the Road To Ruins route apparently.
Looking back at my previous rides, I did take part in the Road To Ruins stage of the Tour of Watopia 2019, but that was 8 laps of the Volcano Circuit… so I’m a bit confused.
As it happens, the last time I did this circuit was the very first stage of the Tour of Watopia 2019, which was called Glow In The Night.
For reference, my time on that day was 58 minutes 27 seconds.
This ride was well attended, as best I could tell. I’m not sure how many riders there were in total. At the time I registered for the event yesterday evening, there were 190 registered riders.
I wasn’t sure how I would be feeling for this one. With only ~5 minutes warm up, pulling out of the starting area I felt well enough. I had a rough idea of the route, and figured it would involved a fair amount of climbing.
With the forthcoming climbing in mind, I tried to pace myself as best I could around 190w.
Going a little too hard, too early, I paid the price on the climb towards the Epic KOM. The group I had been riding with for the first 5km promptly dropped me at this point and I went solo for a short while.
However, a small group behind me were catching me fairly quickly, and by the time we hit the descent into the Jungle Circuit, I was back in a pack, and trying to catch a little active recovery whilst on the descent.
Part of me figured as soon as we hit the climb back up the Jungle Circuit, I would once again get dropped.
However, I was able to keep with this small group, though it was pushing me to around my FTP (195w) to do so.
I think it would have been easy to give up without this small pack around me. As it was, I was able to keep going hard enough to keep up with them to the top of the climb, and then we all split apart on the bridge.
Heading back out of the Jungle, I found myself riding alongside S. Airey who kept me working at a good pace. I definitely find it easier to be with at least one other rider.
We stuck together on the descent back down the approach to the Epic KOM, and then managed to catch up with a bunch in front.
I was absolutely dripping wet by this point. It’s not been as hot today, thankfully, but I’d opted to ride earlier “just in case”. Even so, it felt very humid and was hard work keeping between 180-200w by this stage.
In short order I managed to level up – hitting level 17 – and reach my weekly riding goal of 3 hours.
All good stuff, but still a long way to go to hit the 100km weekly goal. This is due to riding (part of) Alpe Du Zwift twice this week. I’ve spent a while on the bike, but not really putting out any distance. Oh well.
Heading towards the Volcano, I was eagerly watching the km’s ticking down.
Again, the small pack I was with kept up a decent pace. I was working hard, but thankfully the pace had eased somewhat from the first half of the ride.
It was the two climbs into the Volcano that split our small pack.
I really enjoy that first climb up the Volcano, so went at it hard. Also putting in a second effort to break the back of the second short climb, before descending inside the Volcano.
Typically when doing these short bursts, I find that I need to drop back for a breather. This was also the case today, but I was able to hang with the two riders in front of me from this point on.
I’d resolved to make a sprint for it with 300km remaining.
Unfortunately I blew up wayyy too early on this one.
The two riders in front of me steamed away, but I wasn’t even close in keeping with them. I pushed and almost immediately was like… nope. Ahh well, I tried.
During this ride I was trying to think how my FTP Builder workouts have been helping.
There’s a lot of time spent at 140w in those exercises, but maybe keeping to 160w would be a better goal for me. 6 repeats of 6 minutes at 160w seems like it would be much more beneficial “in the real world”.
Dropping to 140w in these types of rides means I get dropped. Hard.
But at 160w I can hang with the pack typically much longer. Something to think about.
I finished in 51 minutes 39 seconds. This is a major improvement over my first attempt at this circuit. But then, it really should be as that was about 5 months ago at this point.
It makes me wonder whether I’ll be breaking below 50 minutes in another 5 months time. Hopefully.
The first half of this ride felt much harder than the second half. Not sure exactly why that was, but as a casual observation, that’s where I’m at.
I enjoyed this ride. The Off The MAAP tour was, I think, just four rides over the course of this (and maybe last) week. I wasn’t able to take part in any of the others, but this one in isolation was enjoyable.
I’ve signed up to ride a 100km on Sunday morning. Looking at this ride – 30km in ~50 minutes, that puts me at about 3 hours 30 minutes riding time. There’s no way I could keep up this pace for 3 hours. It’s just not going to happen.
That said, I have promised to do some family stuff on Sunday, so how realistic that century attempt is is yet to be seen. It’s one way I’m going to reach my 100km riding goal.
I don’t think I’ve reach the L’Etape Du Tour Mission climbing target at this stage. Must be less than 100m remaining on that goal. I have two more days to achieve it, so should be able to finish it off tomorrow, or Sunday. Good stuff.
All in, an enjoyable one. I’ve felt tired ever since though. Certainly a fun way to start the day.
