Today was the acid test. A work day, a Monday, and an earlier start than I am used too. I decided to get up at 7.30 and do ~20 minutes.
I found myself awake at 6am, and then snoozed and tried to get back into proper sleep for the next hour and a half. I’d somehow managed to convince my brain that I wanted to wake up early, and in doing so would be rewarded with fun. Silly me.
Crucially I left all my kit out. The bike, of course, is already set up and ready to go. I made sure my shorts and vest were next to the bike, and my heart rate monitor, fan, and iPad were nearby. Getting dressed takes me about 2 minutes, so before I knew what was happening, I was on the bike.
One thing I mentioned yesterday is that Zwift has a 7 day limit, or 25km. Well, I had already clocked up 20km, so had my credit card ready and raring to go. But then Zwift happily informed me that I had another 19km remaining… so I don’t know what happened there, but I didn’t have to pay to play.
The day’s alternative map was New York. I decided to give it a go. Sorting the available routes by Elevation, I selected the easiest one and got pedalling.
For some reason I had imagined New York would be largely flat. Instead, I was met with my hardest climbs yet. At one point there was an 8% gradient, which thankfully only lasted for a few seconds. That was killer. Apparently that’s the average gradient for the Alp d’Huez. I’m not quite ready for that, just yet.
There were also a couple of fast downhill sections, and the Tacx Neo 2 eased off on me whilst I powered down the first one. I managed to get up to 25.6mph, which was great fun, setting a personal record and giving me a badge (or an achievement of some kind) on Zwift. Unfortunately I have no idea how to find my awards / achievements on Zwift.com, so you’ll just have to take my word for it.
Overall I enjoyed the ride. I think I would have preferred a more 2019 look and feel to New York, rather than the futuristic graphics, but maybe that’s just me. I’m looking forward to trying out the London map, though not sure when that will be next available.
My legs feel a bit hammered, but not blown out. I’m really striving hard to not go too hard 🙂 Oh, and I earned my first slice of pizza:
As a last point of note for today, I have signed up to Strava, and manually uploaded all my ride data from Zwift. I’ve hooked up Zwift now (I think) so it auto-uploads to Strava after finishing a ride.
At the end of a ride on Zwift, I get a really nice graph with all kinds of interesting metrics. Once I have reviewed the data, and closed the screen, I have no idea how to get access again to that graph. Frustrating. Strava seems to offer something that’s comparable, but not quite as visually exciting. Maybe I’m doing something wrong… very possible, I’m quite the expert at making mistakes.
All in all, a fun indoor cycling experience.
Happy days!