This morning’s goal was to ride 15km, and I wasn’t in the mood for climbing still so opted for the Tick Tock circuit, a clock-wise loop of Fuego Flats and a bit of the undersea pass in Watopia. In total this circuit is 19km with only 59m of total climb. Ideal.
Given that Fuego Flats is the latest addition to Zwift, I’ve found it to be amongst the most populated / busy routes, even at 7.30am on a cold Wednesday morning.
One small complaint I have with Fuego Flats is that the sprint comes too early in the circuit Dropping a sprint on me encourages me to go hard, and without a proper warm up that could be a very bad idea. Can you get warmed up in ~2km? I shouldn’t have pushed. Not that my times are anything to write home about even when warmed up 🙂
Somewhat annoyingly, yet again I have encountered a loose left pedal. On each rotation, as the left pedal is at the bottom of the stroke, a knock is felt in the right pedal. It’s soooo frustrating. It only occurs at certain tempos, or certain amounts of power.
I’ve given up on the pedals supplied with the bike and have ordered a set of Shimano R540 SPD-SL pedals instead. This will be my first set of proper road bike pedals, so we shall see how they fare.
These pedals come with some yellow cleats. I believe these are best for beginners, so hopefully I’ll be ok with them. We shall see.
In order to use these pedals I’ve also had to order some road bike shoes. I’ve gone for a pair of Specialized Torch 3.0 shoes, because they were one of the few pairs I liked the look of in my size (42.5 european / 8.5 UK). Find a half size was a real pain in the arse. I’m hoping to God these aren’t too stiff. The Specialized Torch 2.0 seemed more suitable for me, but they were significantly more expensive. Kinda weird. Anyway, free returns, so worth a shot
Oh yes, now where were we? Sprinting around Fuego Flats. My time wasn’t great. I didn’t give it my all, admittedly, but it was only good enough for 3rd out of 4 attempts.
Here we see my in real life representation of me, a baldy, riding along in my basic Zwift kit. Every time I do a Tour of Watopia event, Zwift resets my kit. I’ve given up swapping back.
I have, however, changed my name to include the URL of my blog. Why? Well, a little self promotion never hurt anyone. And I saw a guy doing it advertising his cycling chalet holidays, so I figure if he can, I can.
One thing that’s different about the Specialized Allez in Zwift compared to the real life bike is that Zwift insists on having a colourful flourish on the forks. No idea why. I’ll update my rider to set my shoes to match my new pair, if I can. And if they fit, etc.
I managed 10km in under 20 minutes today, but only just. I felt quite tired this morning. My right shin feels like I’ve pulled a muscle in there somehow. Fortunately my lower back pain has eased somewhat. No riding for me later this evening as I’m off out for food with a friend.
One thing I find super encouraging when riding on Zwift is the incoming Ride Ons. I add anyone who gives me a Ride On as a friend, so I’m accumulating lots of fellow friendly Zwifters as I go. Thanks to everyone who has ever given me a Ride On! It really helps.
I was planning on only riding the given 19km loop today, but also kinda forgot how far it was. I thought, for some reason, it was a 16km circuit, but here we can clearly see I wasn’t back on Fuego Flats at this point. Zwift could add some extra info to the HUD to indicate whereabouts the rider is on their journey.
At this piont I knew I must be coming up to the end of my circuit. I had little time left before I needed to get into the shower so I could start work at 8.30.
One thing I’ve found with early morning exercise is that it clears my head. I start the working day fresher than if I’d recently rolled out of bed and schlepped upstairs to fire up the computer. The bike gives me time to think, and plan the initial activities for the day. That’s been super helpful, and I think, a genuine productivity booster.
Pushing for 20km definitely gave me less time than usual to finish up, and jump in the shower. I guess one advantage of being a baldy is that there’s very little hair to dry, so the whole process is super quick!
All in all, an OK ride this morning. The TSS man agrees (see below). I certainly didn’t push too hard this morning. Probably a bit harder than last night’s ride, but not by much.
I’m really looking forwards to getting the new pedals on. I still have a phantom shift issue that I can’t seem to resolve. The pedal issue, and the phantom shift issue, both started up again as I got to the end of my previous big ride.
I’ll take 40 minutes exercise before work any day of the week. This is a massive improvement over what I was doing 2 months ago (i.e. bugger all), so I’m happy just to get a ride in. The fact I earned myself 1.2 pizza slices (about 350 calories in English) is a really nice way to start the day.
I will ride again in the morning. Not sure where, or what, but definitely a ride. And with yet another Bank Holiday weekend ahead, I’m hoping to get in another big ride too. Whether this will include any hills, I do not know. I need to check what guest map is on Zwift over the weekend. I’d love to ride Innsbruck if doing a climb
Ok, so that’s it from me today. I received a new training top through the post, and some new FDX cycling bib shorts. Got a bit of colour co-ordination going on with this set. I’ll post pictures up tomorrow. Riveting, I’m sure.
Also I’ve swapped from listening to music to listening to audio books on my past two rides. This has been an interesting experience, and again, I’ll write more about this on future rides. I’d like some alternatives to this – maybe being able to watch movies, but my current setup won’t allow this.