Today was my (late) start to the Tour of Watopia 2021. Having been outdoors all week, I left it until the last day of Stage 1 to get involved.
Sadly, I faced a couple of technical issues during this ride which whilst not ruining the ride for me, did make it feel way harder than it otherwise ought to have.
Being a being holiday weekend here in the UK, I guess a Friday off work should have been an idle time to get in the 11am slot, have a lovely warm up for maybe twenty to thirty minutes prior to the off, and then get involved with plenty of time to spare.
No rush. No fuss.
Alas, I left it until 10:50 to get ready, and was on the bike with 10 seconds to spare, and by the time we were off I still didn’t have my left shoe clipped in. A fine start.
By and large things went well enough to begin with.
I realised fairly early on that my Wahoo Tickr was having yet another bad day. Registering ~70bpm or so. I tried taking it off mid ride, resetting it, turning it upside down, wetting it again with my water bottle (both straps and chest)… no dice. In the end it got unceremoniously thrown into the box of trash / old computer boxes waiting for recyling that currently lives by my bike.
I’ve kinda had it with that Tickr to be honest. Junk.
Even so it was at the start of the Reverse Hilly KOM that things went … well, unusual, I guess.
Hitting the bottom of the climb, things got more intensive – as they are expected to do. I run my trainer at maximum difficulty, so expect a 10% gradient to feel hard.
But it never really did. It just went, I don’t know, like a grind. I’m convinced something went wrong with the software – either between Zwift or the Neo.
Whatever, anyway, after that climb the intensity never stopped. I was at a cadence of ~70-75 rpm for the rest of the ride, whether descending, climbing, or flat. Sucked.
Seeing this one out was therefore a total slog.
Harder, I feel, than it ought to have been.
Even so, disregarding the technical issues, at least I did manage to finish it. And the workout felt good enough. But I hate low cadence stuff, especially for that length of time.
Hopefully this was just a one off occurence. To be fair, I’ve never experienced this issue before.
After the ride I checked to see if I was paired properly, or if the trainer difficulty had changed. No issues there.
I’m less optimistic about the Tickr, though am still awaiting a support response regarding my on going issues on that front.
I believe Stage 2 kicks off tomorrow. Not sure what’s involved. I think I’m unlikely to do that tomorrow – possibly Sunday though. I’d rather get outdoors if at all possible, though the weather isn’t looking terrific, truth be told.
For now it’s nice enough to enjoy a beer and an ice cream in the garden – or it was till about 20 minutes ago when I came inside to write this post.
