Shall we start with the whoopsies today?
Yeah, why not.
I mean, there’s a few to cover. So let’s not delay.
Whoops #1 – The races are NOT part of the Tour of Makuri Islands
Easily the biggest whoops of the last few weeks is my incorrectly held belief that the Race Makuri series is linked to the Tour of Makuri Islands in any way whatsoever.
It’s not.
I wondered why the stages were out of sync. But because I’d been doing the group rides and races concurrently I’d wrongly concluded you could do either. Where I got confused was because the race stages have aligned with the Tour stages, but the dates are out.
Err… whoops.
Well, I know now. There are 6 races in the Race Makuri series, albeit with the final two both coming under Stage 5. Strange, but better that I found this out now rather than by the time it’s make up week.
Actually, I may still be wrong on this. It’s so confusing because Zwift haven’t announced the full route set. But the final stage of the Tour does finish before Stage 5 of the race events… so surely they can’t be the same? So confusing.
Whoops #2 – The game crashed, and I think I know why
Last night, very late last night in fact, I just so happened to check Strava and saw that someone had completed their Stage 4 ride.
So, Stage 4 is now available, is it? Perfect.
Well, up until that point I’d had in mind that I’d go for a Zone 2 ride today. Something easy after yesterday’s race.
When I spotted that a Stage 4 ride was available I decided I could probably do something a little more intensive. Maybe sit at 200-220w and get the event done fairly quickly.
However by sheer stroke of luck I found out today that Stage 4 hadn’t just become available. It had been up since Monday 14th. Today was the last day to get this one done. Whoops.
But anyway, knowing this I was signed up and ready to go on the Neokyo All Nighter route. As I got into the game early I joined up on one of the Pace Partner rides. Immediately it prompted me to join the group ride but I wanted some warm up.
Dismissing the on-screen prompt, I did 1km and then only had 3 minutes left so decided to join the group ride. I accepted the prompt I still had on the companion app, and I think that’s where the bug was. Anyway, the game crashed… and I missed my event.
Can we no longer join late? That’s twice now that I’ve had issues and haven’t been allowed in. Sucks.
Whoops #3 – Who doesn’t love 5 FPS?
I’ve never yet used Zwift to world change after a ride.
What I mean is I’ve never ridden in Watopia, then exited that ride, gone back to the main menu, and swapped to another ride in Watopia or anywhere.
I’m a one and done kinda guy.
But today I had the crash above, then I started the game again. Went into Richmond on an SST workout, then realised I could actually complete Stage 4 of The Tour of Makuri Islands by doing the SST session on Neokyo All Nighter route.
So I went back to menu, changed my workout to Makuri and went back in.
At that point I thought everything had broken. I was getting about 5 frames per second. Basically like watching a slide show. I have seen people use Zwift on YouTube like this every day, but honestly it made me feel sick.
But whatever. I wasn’t going to exit again and restart my ride. So that’s how I rode today. 5 FPS. With Zwift graphics. Man alive. Welcome to 1995.
Whoops #4 – I very nearly missed Stage 4
Yeah I guess I covered this already.
I’ll accept responsibility for not reading up on whats happening.
The Ride Itself
After all that my ride was pretty tame by comparison.
I’ve had SST sessions at my current FTP that have felt really hard.
Compared to the recent races and harder rides, it felt comparatively easy. Well, like a 7/10 ride.
I was concerned that with all my issues I wouldn’t get the Tour stage completion for doing this as a workout. But props to Zwift, I did get the email a while after the ride to say I’m all good for Stage 4.
Anyway, tomorrow’s a rest day then it’s into the weekend where Stage 5 only runs from tomorrow till Sunday. Madness.
No rest for the wicked in that case.
