Today’s ride was the eighth and final stage of this years Tour de Zwift. It’s been a busy four weeks, cramming in two rides per week to get all of the stages done in time. I’d still like to finish off Stage 1 Longer Ride (no idea what that is), so for me the Tour may not be entirely over just yet.
What I would say is I have definitely seen an uptick in power / fitness as a result of these regular harder rides. That’s the positive.
The negative would be I feel super fatigued at this point. But all is fine as I have planned myself something of a recovery week, not this week ahead, but the week after. As I say, I still want to see out the Stage 1 Longer Ride, so I can’t quite call time on this one just yet.
Going into this one I wasn’t quite sure what the route entailed.
Spoiler alert: It’s three laps (sort of) of the 2022 Cycling Esports World Championships Route. This is a new route for regular Zwifters, added in December just gone. Even though I say it’s 3 laps, the official way of measuring it shows it as one lap. Which is kinda weird.
Essentially you head around Central Park three times, with three trips up the New York KOM.
This ride comes in at ~55km with ~950m of climb.
On the surface of it, it sounds like all the “going up” of Stage 2, with all the “going long” of Stage 6.
As such I set out with a plan of riding at 3-3.5w/kg on the flats, and to climb at 3.5-4w/kg.
However, that didn’t really work.
My plan kinda went out of the window during lap one.
I didn’t gun it at the start as at 50km+ I was well aware I might blow the heck up if I did so. Instead I set off at about 200w, and thought I’d slowly but surely settle into my rhythm with whatever group formed around the same power output I was aiming for.
During lap one I found I struggled to meet the power output I had in mind for the flats. I was going slower, but the reason was the surface undulation – lots of little climbs and long descents. Sticking with a pack meant adjusting my riding accordingly.
I found myself regularly out of the saddle and well above 4w/kg on the climby bits, only to massively ease off once we reached the peaks. This was obviously most evident on the approach to the KOM, and the KOM itself, but also in the little climb to the sprint, the lap start / finish, and a few other places.
It took me to the end of lap 2 to realise we were essentially repeating the same loop. I’d asked on the chat where the climbs were coming from, as in my head I had us down as hitting both Forward and Reverse New York KOMs.
Not so.
This route only takes in the Forward KOM.
For me, it would have been nice to throw in the variation of the Reverse KOM on the last lap.
Somehow or other my climbs were almost identical between first and second lap. Strange, because the second lap climb felt significantly harder. I can’t remember if that’s because I managed to drop and pop a feather on one of the two – I definitely did on one of them – so must have worked harder on the other. Hard to remember the details, even with the screenshots.
Several times on the flat sections I found myself falling off the back of the group. At one point I needed to use my sprint power up just to get back on. And on another occasion I popped the draft van, only for our group to get swallowed by another, faster group from behind, and I found myself having to stomp the pedals to match their speed. Wasted opportunities.
I felt I was slightly over reaching myself with the group I was with, but they were keeping me at a brisk pace and I was determined to keep up as long as I could. Ideally to the end.
Heading into the last lap I was supremely tired, but the group seemed to have really eased off, saving itself for the inevitable last climb of the day.
By the time we reached the bottom of the third and final climb, the little roller into the sprint had split the group to pieces and off we went.
I’d fortunately dropped a feather on the sprint line so was at least one step up.
In we went, sticking in the big ring for the first part then dropping to the little ring for the true steep bit.
However, absolutely disaster for me on that last climb…
Very evident above in that third screenshot is the ~30 second gap where I fell off!
Oh my.
Out of the saddle, straining for not a whole lot of power output, I could feel the bike rocking fairly wildly under me, but I didn’t concern myself with it. I just thought I was knackered.
And then the bike tipped!
Very fortunately it tipped to my right, meaning I fell towards the wall / window ledge, so was able to save myself from a real disaster.
Even so, I got chain lube all over my pristine white shoes (nooooooo!) and had to unclip / jump off and hastily fasten my bike back to the turbo.
Good Lord.
Well, there’s a first time for everything.
If you look super closely you can even seen uptick in my heart rate (if that were at all possible) as the bike tipped and I stopped pedalling 🙂 Crazy times.
Even with the thirty seconds of ‘rest’, I struggled like crazy to put out anything more than I might have done, had my bike not tried to escape.
That third and final climb was therefore a total write off.
I’d say it’s a fairly fitting way for me to end the Tour proper, as I have had my fair share of bodges during these eight stages.
I’ve also learned a big lesson today: make sure the bike is securely fastened in. I am very aware I got lucky really, if it had tipped to my left it would have been much, much worse. And of course, no helmet on the turbo.
Anyway, that’s that. I’m off to the pub now to destroy all the good work with a big roast beef dinner. Hard off, easy on.
