For this afternoon’s ride I opted for Stage 6 of the Tour de Zwift 2020, this time being the Long Distance group ride – or two laps of Richmond.
Originally I intended to do this ride tomorrow morning at 10am, but due to a family illness it meant I wouldn’t be out visiting this afternoon, so had way more free time than usual. Perfect for a little light Zwifting.
Only deciding to tackle this ride quite late in the day, I managed just 3km of warm up pre-ride, and that was really just about enough to get my legs from “stand still” to “aware they needed to move for about an hour or so”.
My plan here was simply not to do my warm up during the ride itself, as I have done in previous Tour de Zwift group rides. I was quite keen to find out where I might sit, in the grand scheme of things, if I put in a bit more effort at the start.
Ideally I wanted to stick to around 200w, or if at all possible, 3w/kg average. This would involve a couple of things:
- Not partaking in the sprints;
- Being a little more conservative on the climbs.
Not hitting the sprints is easy enough. Rarely does the moment take me during a race to nail it on the sprints. I know how much time it takes me to recover. Slow and steady wins the race.
Actually… it’s not a race, is it? Well, not officially.
More importantly was the climbing strategy.
Richmond has 3 climbs. Two are timed / KOM segments, and then the third is there for you when your legs are tired.
Typically I go too hard on the first two climbs, leaving nothing left for the that third ascent back up to the start / finish line. Today I planned to pace myself more conservatively, ideally aiming for ~250w / 3.3-3.5w/kg, give or take.
The Zwift gods were smiling on me today. Ahead of all the climbs on the first lap I managed to pick up a feather.
Managing to put my feathers to good use, I grabbed 20 or so places during the first two climbs, and whilst definitely tired, I wasn’t dead.
The strategy seemed to be working.
Probably the most challenging part of the first lap was getting back into the big ring after each of the successive climbs, without losing too much time in the process.
Coming to the start / finish line for the start of the second lap I was in pretty good shape. I’d pushed myself hard enough on the first lap to have maintained a good place (for me) and it was now all about keeping that position.
I managed to come into the start of the second lap with a small bunch of riders around me, and I was at the front of them for a while setting the pace. In doing so we managed to slowly but surely start to mop up more and more stragglers on the road ahead.
Building up the blob, combined with double draft makes for a speedier conclusion of all the hard work.
At least, that’s what I always think.
Things were slightly less intense on the second lap. My pacing had dropped off a touch for sure, more like 2.7-2.9w/kg instead of the 2.9-3.1w/kg on the first lap. But still, we were making good pace, and our ever growing peloton gave me several moments of welcome respite.
Coming into the second set of climbs, again I’d managed to pick up a feather after the second sprint and was therefore feeling fairly decent about my chances in the remaining ~8km or so.
My plan would be to hit the feather as we hit the first corner of the first climb, get as much value out of that as I could and then hope I was lucky enough to get another one for the short, sharp sprint-y climb at the next KOM point.
Things went better than expected in the first climb on the second lap.
I timed my feather fairly well, though hit a small flat spot meaning I was spinning at high cadence but low wattage. Typical Zwift climbing.
By the time I made it to the top I’d broken below 350th which out of 950 active riders felt pretty good by my standards.
But then, unfortunately, disaster struck.
I lost my chain whilst trying to go back from the little ring up to the big.
I attempted to put it back on whilst still clipped in, but failed. In the end it took about 5 minutes in which time I had to get off, sort out the problem (learned a lesson here), then wash a ton of oil off my hands, and then get back on and resume.
I badly mistimed my effort on the second hill, and then by the third climb I was totally thrown out.
Disappointing. In fact, my second disappointment of this Tour de Zwift 2020 so far.
Still, at least I finished.
Looking at it from a workout perspective, I managed over 670- calories burned (across two rides), and hit both my 3 hour riding goal, and 100km riding goal for the week with a day left.
I’m not sure what course I plan to ride tomorrow. It won’t be the Richmond race though, I do know that. Possibly a jaunt on RGT Cycling.
I’m potentially even tempted by a Sweet Spot Training session tomorrow. I guess it depends on how keen I’m feeling in the morning.
I guess today is all about what could have been.
