Confusing.
This is the second Tour of Watopia 2023.
I had forgotten this, but then I was wondering what to call the category to put all these new posts under, and it turns out I already have a Tour of Watopia 2023 category.
But apparently this is different. This is Tour of Watopia 2023 Ride. I guess the Ride bit is the important differentiator.
Regardless, I believe the Tour of Watopia 2023 Ride officially got underway on Monday night UK time. I saw a ride with 1500+ riders when looking at the app. Today’s Wednesday lunch time ride was attended by far fewer, something around 240. Not bad
These rides are billed as group rides, not races. But we all know that on Zwift, all rides are races.
Unsurprisingly, the bolt off the line was typically race paced. Somehow or other I ended up at the front, which was unintentional. I do literally mean the front. First. Albeit very briefly.
My plan was to stick with the front group until the first hill.
Then I’d let them drop me.
Very kind of me.
It’s better to think that way, rather than the reality of it being that I have no say in the matter.
The reason I wanted to stick with the front bunch was simple: speed.
Being my lunch break, I only had ~50 minutes realistically, in order to be able to get a shower after the ride, and eat some food.
In that time I needed to also cover the ~30km distance, including a trip up the Hilly KOM, both ways.
The good thing about these big rides is there is usually someone, or several people, to group up with.
That wasn’t so much the case going up the Reverse Hilly KOM. I was isolated for a bit from half way up, through to about 1km afterwards.
From there I got in with a smallish group of about 5 other riders for a good chunk of distance. We finally got caught shortly after the bridge sprint by a much larger group.
With those, we made our way up to the Hilly KOM Forwards, which would be the last big push of the day.
At the time, my Hilly KOM attempt felt good. But looking at Strava, I didn’t even get a third place PR listing. Absolutely outrageous.
After that it was a grind home to the finish line.
Of course the group I was with bolted, but I wasn’t in it for a sprint.
Honestly I was really pleased with this, overall, as a solid workout.
Wednesday is usually my recovery-ish day, and I do think I have absolutely thrashed my legs on this one. I’m sure I’ve done myself no favours for tomorrow’s race.
But whatever. It was a good ride.
I will complete the Longer variant of Stage 1 on Saturday as planned. I think that’s the Three Little Sisters, which would have been too much for a lunch time. I’m expecting that to be 1h 15m ish.
Anyway, a good start. Hopefully it keeps up.
