This morning I took on the first stage of the Tour of Watopia 2020. This was a super well attended ride / race, probably the most well attended event I’ve been on in Zwift.
With over 4,000 riders across three different category (long / short / women’s only), this is a strong sign of how popular Zwift currently is, and has grown since the last big tour.
Starting at 10am GMT, I had hoped to have a fairly relaxed morning, maybe getting in 30 minutes or so as a pre-ride warm up. This didn’t happen quite as planned. I did get on before the start, but only managed about 5 minutes of light pedaling around the Volcano Circuit before I had to transfer across for the start of the event.
Unfortunately Zwift lost my warm up data. No big deal. But as I was so late on to this event I didn’t get chance to screenshot the starting line, which was a really tightly packed peloton. I’ve never seen that before.
As above, there were three categories to choose from:
- Category A was a long ride at 42km or so, with about 400m of climb.
- Category B, which was around 20km and I don’t think that one had a climb.
- Category C, women only, which was like Category B but with a trip up Box Hill.
I opted for Category A, and with over 2600 riders in my group this, I believe was the most well attended of the three.
This ride consisted of a fairly meandering route, covering Greater London Flat, then the reverse classique, repeat that again for lap 2, then lap 3 started with the Greater London Flat but veered off across the bridge and up Leith Hill. The finish line was the top of the KOM.
My game plan for this one was to sit as close to FTP (206w) as possible, but I definitely struggled with this. I figured I’d get swallowed up on the flats and maybe claw back some places on the little climbs each lap, and then ideally several 10’s of places on the final climb.
That didn’t really go as planned.
At best I managed to get down to the low 1000’s, though never breaking 4 figures. This was probably to be expected, in hindsight, as at best I am placing in the middle of Cat C, so given the attendance figures, slightly above middle of the pack sounds about right.
All the same, it was fairly disheartening to be almost consistently falling back from ~1000th to over 1200th in the first 15km or so.
I’d gone into this one not expecting to truly push myself, but once the ride started I found I was definitely going harder than I’d planned.
One interesting achievement was to do a sub 15 minute 10km:
Due to the sheer volume of people, for the first half of the ride it was almost impossible not to find a (double) draft. Of course this really helped with meeting the above time goal.
As things continued, the long snaking stream of riders began to fracture apart. Where possible I found I was trying to bridge to the next bunch, but this became harder and harder as the ride went on.
One thing I’d found prior to starting this ride was that it was hard to get an accurate description of exactly what this ride entailed. It was only after the event that I managed to find this page that would have been useful ahead of today’s ride.
Not having an understand of the route ahead made pacing myself more difficult than it ought to have been.
Naturally, I seemed to find myself falling into a large (20+ riders) blob of people pushing ~2.7w/kg. This is about my sustained riding pace for longer rides currently.
I’m ever more aware that I need to get back into the habit of weekly Sweet Spot Training at my new FTP. Working through that new level of suffering is the only way I’m ever going to improve.
I was definitely happy to hit the half way point on this one, and whilst I knew the climb ahead was going to be no easy feat, I felt a confidence I might not have had if I hadn’t have spent so many weekends by this point doing vastly more difficult climbs.
After the half way point I managed to start clawing back several tens of places. This was helped by the steady pace of the pack, along with the double draft, no doubt. If you fell out of the draft today you became easy pickings for bunches behind you.
There was also the riders who had perhaps bitten off more than they could chew, or gone too hard, too soon. I find these rides a real challenge, and I hit Zwift (or similar) 4 or 5 times each week. I can’t begin to imagine how this ride would be if you only hit the bike once every so often.
Pushing on, the third and final lap had us heading off the Greater London Flat route and right, over the Thames.
At this point, as is so often the case, our small blob disintegrated as some riders pushed the initial blip up and over the bridge, whilst others (myself included) held off slightly, ahead of the bigger push awaiting ahead.
My memories of Leith Hill aren’t pretty, but I have at least done the climb a few times before now. I’m not a fan of not knowing what lies ahead, and Zwift’s HUD doesn’t do a great job of giving a near term indication of what lies ahead.
My strategy for this climb was simple:
- Easy gear
- Aim for 80rpm or greater
- Keep turning the pedals
- Maybe push hard at the end
Things started well enough. The lead in to the harder climb is gradual, at worse around 9% but only very briefly.
There are also several sections of 3-5%, which feel almost flat after a short time, and even a small descending section. Gearing, as ever, was a constant challenge. I’d rather just go up, and stay going up. None of this undulating nonsense.
I should also say that I was heavily aware of some horrendous sounds coming from my gears when in the easy gear at the front, and the easiest gear at the back. I’m not quite sure what’s happening here, and whilst I could have a bash at fixing this myself, I may very well get the mobile mechanic to come and give my bike a service. I’m sure it’s in need of some love and attention at this point.
Soon enough the bottom of the Leith Hill KOM marker was upon us. My plans to claw back positions on the harder part of the hill were a few long minutes behind me.
I settled into the best rhythm I could find – about 85rpm – and pushed as hard as I could muster. Unfortunately, it seems many others had a similar plan, and my aims of clawing back positions became simply trying to hold on to whatever position I had.
With about 500m to go, I was aiming for a sub 1200th position, but the riders around me were simply too strong. There was no way I was catching those ahead of me, though I did push as best I could for the final 100m or so. Still, not enough on the day.
I’d gone into this one with no aims of grandeur. I’d adjusted my goals whilst on the road, and although I didn’t quite make it into the 1200’s I am happy enough with how I performed today.
Certainly I could have gone harder. However, I had a race ahead of me on Tuesday night so needed to at least leave something in the bank for that one.
Also, given that I started the week late on a bad knee, I’m satisfied that I managed to hit both my 3 hour riding goal, and do over 100km or more.
The top 10 were in a different class to me altogether. The winner beat his closest rival by 3 seconds, and 12 seconds on third. That’s pretty much 20 minutes faster than me, over the same distance. By the time I’d finished those guys were likely showered and sipping a nice cup of tea.
Speaking of which, it was the very thought of a nice hot cup of tea that was most prominent in my mind as I pushed those final 100’s of meters up the climb. Whatever gets your home.
Finishing the week on 838 calories puts me at something like 5200 calories of the 10,000 January Calorie challenge done. Super happy with this. Truly salvaged what could have been a disastrous week, and one that I could so easily have used as an excuse.
One frustrating thing was coming in at 47.6km, but not completing a half century.
I was going too, but Zwift’s painful UX made selecting an alternative route overly difficult. In the end I found myself going back up Leith Hill again, then did a U-turn and it wanted me to go up Keith Hill instead… I couldn’t find a way to get back to London town, so gave up.
All things considered, I think the timeline looks decent today. Very little blue – and what blue there was was predominantly caused by either mistimed gearing, or simply not knowing the course well enough. Can’t say I wasn’t pushing.
Also happy with the critical power chart for this one. I hadn’t thought I’d been pushing at almost my personal best. It certainly didn’t feel that way. Somewhat skewed, of course, by the higher wattages put out during a climb. I honestly can’t remember when I did the 195w hour.
Anyway, a great start to the Tour de Zwift 2020. Really looking forwards to my next event, which will be the London Classique Race on Tuesday night at 5pm GMT.
Following that we head into Innsbruck for another fun ride of ~38km and 600m of climb. Bring it on.
