I’m going to try to be positive about this ride, but it’s going to be difficult.
A mandatory ride as part of this years Zwift Academy 2021, I had this one ‘booked in’ as being nice and easy, though couldn’t find much about it ahead of the ride.
Setting off, things seemed fairly standard. The ride leader said they would be keeping at 1.6w/kg for the ride which I thought sounded about right for recovery. It took me a little while to get on the beacon, but I managed it and then settled in at the advertised pace.
As ever on these things, there was a bunch of riders who bolted off the front and did their own thing. Fair play. Not everyone wants a recovery ride, and this one being a mandatory affair to complete the Zwift Academy, it doesn’t surprise me people turn up but ride at their own pace.
Where things got silly was in the choice of route.
What kind of active recovery ride takes in a KOM?
Yup, up Titan’s Grove we went. I’d already lost the beacon as they suggested ~2.0w/kg on the climb out of Fuego Flats, and I figured I could either push it and… err, not do an active recovery ride, or I could do what was intended by the ride and stick at my own pace.
So, in short, I got dropped. On an AR ride.
Ridiculous.
Which ultimately begs the question why people complain about those bolting off the front?
And also what was the point of this one?
I just don’t get it. Let me ride it solo if you’re going to essentially offer a group led free ride.
The start times for these rides haven’t been great. Not like the workouts that begin on the hour, every hour. This was less frequent.
Just all round not impressed today.
Anyway, we move onwards to the next workout.
Hopefully there aren’t any more of these rides in the mix. If so, I would just as likely alt + tab out, put youtube on, and simply ignore the whole beacon concept. It didn’t work today.
