Off we go with the Tour of Watopia 2022, and as ever I had a bit of anxiety about this one. God knows why, but I’ve got to the point now where I psych myself up for these events, looking forwards to them several days before, but on the day I get nervous. It’s not like I’m ever going to come first, or even challenge for a top 50 spot, but I get it into my head that I must perform to ever higher standards, work to ever increasing intensities…
Anyway, I tried to plan the ride so I’d get a warm up. I did get ~15 minutes of prep, but that equated to about 4 minutes on the bike before the countdown reached zero and we were underway.
Oh well, warm up en-route.
The route for this ride is was a new one on me. Called the “three little sisters”, this one started in downtown Watopia before immediately heading up the Hilly KOM. From there we took on Titan’s Grove KOM, then back through downtown and off to the Volcano… up we went, then back down, finishing in downtown.
Throughout, my plan was to hit each climb at FTP – 245w.
I feel I did alright on that.
The bigger challenge for me is (and was) sticking with the group on the descents particularly. I’ve noticed on several occasions that I can get hard dropped if I’m not careful. There’s nothing quite as demoralising as putting in a solid climb only to get left for dead as the pack pull away on the descent. I think it’s a weight thing.
I was super cautious today during the descents. There was no let up, I’d just crank it hard enough to stick with the bulk of the group, even though I definitely wanted a break – particularly after Titan’s Grove.
However, that did pay off, and I did manage to stay with a decent pack for the whole ride.
There’s an interesting dynamic in this Tour of Watopia – all power ups now last 2x as long.
Unfortunately I only managed to drop two power ups of any use – both aero – with all the others being experience.
Of course I then dropped a feather at the top of the Volcano KOM… so I think the Zwift master computer was having a joke with me there.
That said, I do feel like the recent changes and tweaks are a little more confidence inspiring. There was a subtle UI change to the power ups to indicate something different – and it was nice that the yellow ring there matched the yellow Z on the back of the ToW kit.
But more interestingly the latest patch notes suggest some bigger changes, and that might indicate that Zwift have hired some more capable devs or finally got the QA under control, so fingers crossed that we see some even bigger changes in the next few months.
I knew the big bunch I was with for the latter half of the ride would be blown apart once we hit the Volcano KOM.
Sure enough, that happened. Rather than be tempted to stick with them, I found my own pace and did alright. Better than usual, actual, considering the tiredness by this point.
I dropped my aero power up somewhere close to the end of this climb. That was probably my biggest mistake of the day. Rather than keep it steady, I ramped up above threshold and thrashed myself. All the ‘gains’ I’d made there were swiftly lost as I slumped back into an endurance pace to get the heart rate down.
Again on the Volcano descent it was as much about sticking with a pack rather than taking a rest. I stuck with a smallish group and plowed on to the finish line.
Surprisingly few took part in the sprint finish. I say sprint. I mean… my kind of sprint. I was feeling better than usual considering, and for me I put down one of my better finishing performances. That was thanks to the tempo pacing of the final few kilometres leading to the finish line for sure.
All in all then, a solid lunch time ride.
I have no idea what the next few stages hold, or when Stage 2 begins.
I’d kinda planned to do some of the running during this tour, but haven’t got any running shoes and don’t want to mash up my knees wearing my crap trainers. Oh well. It was a nice idea whilst it lasted.
Tomorrow is a well earned recovery and then, ideally, I will be out Saturday and maybe / possibly Sunday. So I better check when Stage 2 starts and ends, as I don’t want to miss that.
Will the nerves return for Stage 2? No doubt.
