Today I took part in the fifth and final stage of this years Tour of Watopia. And I must say, I am absolutely wiped out from this one.
The route today was Three Sisters, a route I have done once before. For those unfamiliar, this is the Forward Hilly KOM, the Epic KOM, the Radio Tower, and the Volcano KOM. I guess the Epic KOM and Radio Tower are combined in to one of the sisters.
My plan was to hit each climb at 3.5w/kg average.
With finishing work at 3.30pm, and this ride starting at 4pm, I managed to get about 10 minutes warm up to loosen up pre-ride. This meant getting dropped immediately into the Forward KOM went well enough, and I managed to stick to my guns around that 3.5w/kg mark.
The only bad bit about this climb was the heart rate monitor was throwing off absolute stupid numbers, so once more, I question why I bother with it. Onto the floor it went. Wa-poo.
With that one down I managed to stick with a small group all pushing around 3.2w/kg, which I stuck with to the start of the Epic KOM.
Unfortunately, at this point I hit the same bug I’ve encountered three times now during these five stage event. Somehow the trainer locks into what I can only describe as like ERG mode. It’s not quite, but it’s similar.
This meant I was stuck in the granny gears without the ability to put out much beyond about 250 watts. This was extremely limiting and definitely contributed to what turned out to be an utterly exhausting hour and a half on the bike.
Actually, I couldn’t physically shift back to the big ring. It just wouldn’t go. And notching one gear either way either made it far too hard (talking 50rpm) or barely any easier (maybe up to 90rpm, but making awful cross chaining sounds).
In the end I resigned to this being it for the ride.
Still, I persevered.
What I was hoping to do was stay (slow and) steady. In my head I thought if I can stick at that 3.5w/kg average, I might lose some early places but I would claw them back as people inevitably burned out and slowed down. There’s always people who go too hard, too soon. Easy pickings, right?
Well, not so today. With my weird pedalling problems I was slowly but surely dropping back.
This was really demotivating. Several times I tried to switch back to the big ring to see if I could do anything about it, but each time I failed and lost a few more places.
What was hardest, both mentally and physically, was having zero coasting time.
I couldn’t put in a stint on the way down the Radio Tower and carry that speed through. I just had to keep relentlessly pedalling. Great for a workout, but boy howdy was it exhausting.
Perhaps the biggest mistake I made today happened way before I got on the bike.
I realised this morning that we had no bread. So no toast for breakfast (actually, no breakfast, just coffee), and then no sandwiches for dinner. Instead, I had a bowl of cereal for dinner.
And that was it. Cereal, coffee, tea, and a cup of decaff. That was my pre-ride prep for a 50km ride, after a full day at work and a bad nights sleep.
Surprise, surprise. I’m absolutely caned now.
Can’t say I enjoyed this one, but I’m happy with the performance, all things considered.
Looking at the graphs, this appears to be my best hour / hour and a half on the bike, so pleased with that. Also, 1200 calories on a Wednesday night? That’s good. But I’ve paid for it.
Gunna take tomorrow as a rest day.
Have to say I’ve found this years Tour of Watopia fairly uninspiring. I thought we might be taking a trip up the Alpe, but this was actually a welcome alternative.
However, going up the same climbs over and over… and over again? Come on now. How hard is it to add some new routes? Proper routes as well, not some piddling little 5km here and there. God knows they have the capital behind them at Zwift HQ at this point. Maybe… spend it?
I can see why so many people ditch it over summer. I have come out of this one feeling like I’ve seen it all and done it all hundreds of times by this point, and if that’s the best they can do to keep us interested, it’s pretty lacklustre.
Maybe I’m just exhausted.
