Today’s ride was exciting for many reasons. It’s always great to get back onto the saddle after a rest day. Even more so when I have many new bits and pieces to put to the test.
First up is the new TV stand.
Alas, I do not have a TV to put on this. Yet. Actually, that’s misleading. I do have the TV I will be putting here. But currently that TV is in the lounge, and the kids would lose their minds if I stole it.
As such, I have to wait until pay day until I can buy a new one for the lounge, so I can half-inch the lounge TV to use as my Zwift TV.
I’m unsure yet just how close my head is going to be to that screen. I was momentarily worried last night, but then realised I spend all day about 1ft from three monitors, so if anything, I’ll probably be a touch further back from this screen. No danger.
On the downside, the little stand thing that I had envisaged sitting above my wheel, it won’t fit. Sad panda situation. My wheel is just too darn big. I’m going to see if my future brother-in-law has a spot welder and some spare metal, and maybe we (read: he) can do me a bit of DIY.
For £50 this TV stand was a steal. It was really well packaged, with idiot friendly instructions provided, and all the tools needed. The only thing it didn’t come with was scissors to cut open the labelled plastic bags.
Zwift Friendly Phone Mount
Up until today, I’ve been putting my phone either on the window ledge to my right, or on the table that I also put my iPad (down, and to the left). Neither option is great. The window ledge is slightly preferable, given that I can more easily reach up and grab the phone, should I wish to change tunes, check emails, or whatever.
A better option was needed.
I opted for a GorillaPod GripTight phone mount. It wouldn’t be any use outdoors, but for indoor cycling it has so far been OK.
My gripe with it is that it’s not gripped quite as tight as the name would have you believe. Pushing hard at either extremity will cause the phone to move. Not the end of the world.
The headphone cable was more easily managed. One thing that drives me nuts when I’m sweating and pushing is the feel of the headphone cable brushing against me in any way. I find it extremely irritating. My mind often drifts to thoughts of Apple’s AirPods, but they have a different set of drawbacks. Chiefly, sometimes I need to pull one earphone out so I can hear my wife, or my kids. I wear Shure SE215s, which hook around the tops of my ears, meaning I can pull one or both out, and still be hands free.
That said, it’s hard to fully recommend the Shure SE215s, as I’ve had to replace both drivers, or the bits that make the sound, to you and me. Having paid £100 for some headphones, I was miffed to have to spend a further £30 to replace the right ear driver, only for the left ear driver to break in exactly the same way. Fortunately, the lady at Shure replaced the second one “free” of charge. They sound decent, but I question their build quality.
It was nice to have the phone where I could see it. I could muck around changing YouTube videos very easily, blasting my way through various tracks by the Motley Crue. They’re a new one on me, thanks to Netflix. Normally I’d whack on some techno from mixing.dj, so this was a fun change.
The one downside was around the towel position. I drape my towel over the middle bar, and across the handlebars. With the GorillaPod taking up the middle section of the handlebars, the towel was not as “secure” as usual. About half way around, the towel slipped off. That’s the first time that has happened. I guess I need a bigger towel. Hopefully that’s the answer
Towards The Correct Saddle Height
Setting my saddle height, as a cycling beginner, was not the easiest of feats. With no one locally available to tell me whether or not I had done it correctly, I ended up taking a wild guess.
And that turned out to be really quite wrong.
In short, I ended up finding a YouTube video by Clint Gibbs (follow the link above) which recommended the 109% method. I gave it a shot, and the resulting change felt completely different.
What I still need to do is make a physical mark on the stem / bar that holds the saddle. This way, should my wife have a ride on Zwift, I can quickly and easily get back to my correct (or at least, improved) riding position with little effort. In this regard, a dedicated exercise bike would have made much more sense. Oh well.
Whilst I knew the riding position felt notably different, I had made the adjustment late in the evening on Tuesday night, and had a quick test peddle wearing my slippers. It felt a lot more comfortable, but with my knee going all funky, I had a frustrating wait to see how it played out on a proper ride
Ride On
This morning I took a ride around the Zwift futuristic New York Central Park Perimeter Loop. It’s a 9.7km circuit with 125.2m of climbing. There’s a circuit overview on Zwift Insider though their figures don’t quite match up to what I see in game. It’s highly possible the Zwift devs have made some alterations to the map since that article was published.
I think, though am not 100% sure, that this is the hilliest route I have ridden so far. It certainly felt hilly in places. One of the climbs was 8%, though mercifully it came in the first half of the circuit.
There are some nice, cruising downhill segments to enjoy on this one. Taking some inspiration from this awesome Chris Froome Analysis video I watched, I tried not to stop pedalling regardless of whether I was going up or down hill.
I’m sure I’ll be getting the call from Team Sky soon. Though most likely that will be to ask that I don’t relate my efforts with theirs in any way whatsoever 😀
A really fun part of the ride this morning, and one of the coolest parts of Zwift (in my opinion) is that for a while, I was grouped up. In our small group, we all seemed to be riding about the same speed for at least a minute or so, and knowing that other people were out there, somewhere, getting their early morning sweat on was a great motivator to keep pushing those pedals around.
About 3/4s of the way around the circuit, as is seemingly fairly common on Zwift, there is a timed Sprint section. This one being a 100m sprint. One criticism I have of my current set up / tiny iPad screen, is that I am frequently caught off guard by the start line of the sprint. I don’t see it until it’s too late, and by that point I am often either going quite slowly in preparation for the sprint, or am in the wrong gear. I still frequently shift the wrong way when changing gears.
I was happy with my effort this morning. I managed a 12.65s time, putting me at 210th out of 435. Solidly midfield, which I will take any day of the week right now.
More impressive, from my own personal point of view, was that I managed to find 476w as my peak power for the sprint, and that’s with having already covered 3/4 of the circuit. This averaged down, as best I understand it from the screenshots, to 448w.
To me, this is impressive, as on my first day riding the bike (and coincidentally, my first day on Zwift), the best I could do when completely fresh was 465w. Whilst still under that, all things considered it’s a definite improvement.
I managed to get the Zwift post race ride face to give me an “OK!” which is one sign of reassurance that I gave it a good effort. I have no idea what else he says. Sometimes he doesn’t say anything, which makes me feel sad.
Lastly, Zwift bumped my FTP today from 137w to 140w. Great, now the game gets harder.
Overall happy with the ride today. I feel like I could have ridden longer, perhaps even a second loop around the circuit. Maybe one for the weekend. I enjoyed the climbs more than I expected. And most of all, I’m glad that my knee pain seems to have subsided. Result.