For this afternoon’s ride I took part in Zwift’s Bambino Fondo #1 – January 2020. Apparently there are going to be three such rides, so if you missed this one then good times await in both February and March.
I had planned to ride this one at the 9:10am start, but due to a bit of a balls up, my kit was still wet. Therefore, whilst up, ready to go, and fairly well prepared for a Sunday morning, I ended up on the sofa early doors, watching Home Alone 2 with the kids.
In the end I took part in the 14:10 ride instead. I reckon I would have done only slightly better on the morning slot, but do expect to do morning rides for the remaining two Fondos.
For this one I opted for the Bambino Fondo. There were three options available: bambino, medio, and gran. The other two were longer and with more climb. This one was still 52km with 580m of climb. Enough for me.
My aim for this ride was simply to calorie crunch as part of the January 10,000 calorie challenge. I wasn’t expecting a stellar performance as lately I’ve just not felt fresh enough to truly crank out sustained high power. I don’t know why. Maybe I need a proper few days rest?
Before this ride I made two changes to my setup.
I adjusted the saddle – adding 1cm of height.
The other change I made was to my left cleat. I moved it back slightly. My right cleat was / is already as far back as it will go.
I think making two changes before a big ride was a mistake. One or the other. I have definitely gained knee pain now in my left leg. Going to see how this feels tomorrow, and then maybe move the cleat back. It was my right leg that I felt could be more powerful, but making two changes at once was, in my opinion, a bad idea.
For what it’s worth, the saddle height difference became very quickly unnoticeable.
As over 1500 other Zwifters were taking part, it was never difficult to find a group. Variously I rode with a good number of other Zwifters, but I experienced several bugs during this ride, one of which being the “no ride ons” bug I’ve hit before. As such I went the whole ride without getting a single ride on… until the end when I checked the app, and had received over 50 I think.
Sorry for no ride on’s back. I find it difficult to do in a “race” as usually I just spam the circle from the app, giving everyone around me a ride on as I go. No such option during a race.
This was not the only bug I experienced during this ride, sadly.
My plan was to ride at, or around my FTP – 205w – as steadily as I could. This included the climbs.
Typically on these larger rides it’s “easy” to claw back huge numbers of places by using this tortoise and hare strategy. Slow, steady progress will yield lots of place gains on the climbs.
Interestingly today I also used whatever power ups I gained from the arches to the best possible advantage. Usually I just use them immediately as I find them a bit pointless. But I’d looked at some of the 9:10 results and seen every rider had done 1000 calories or greater, so figured I’d use any “cheats” I could and likely still come out with a solid workout.
As ever with the climbs, the pack I had been riding with was quickly fragmented and on the descent I ended up with a bunch of new people around me. Whenever possible I tried to stick with packs, but did do some bridging today, particularly early in the ride.
I figured if I could stick with faster packs, I would inevitably be both dragged along in their wake, but also encouraged, shall we say, to ride that bit harder.
I felt I did a good job of this for the first 25km or so, but definitely began to struggle with this later in the ride.
We hit the bridge sprint twice, as best I recall. Neither time was I encouraged to floor it. That would have been a bad idea. There were several “fliers” / cheaters on during this one, so any jerseys would have been out of the question, even for the full gas guys and girls.
I still found the Esses difficult today. I’m wondering if the solution to this is to simply accept that with the trainer difficulty at 100%, these little rollers will always be a pain in the ass?
The climbs in this ride came in four forms. There was the hilly KOM, then the switchback approach to the Epic KOM.
After this there was the Jungle ascent, and finally the finish up at the top of the Volcano.
It was during the switch back climb that I first managed to make up a number of places. I used to really dread some of these climbs, but after doing the harder, longer Sunday climbs, these shorter climbs do not feel anything like they used to.
Descending into the Jungle for the first time since the pre-Xmas Jungle mountain bike patch, I was delighted to find the revisions have actually made the Jungle Circuit even less enjoyable.
I’ve tried to like the Jungle Circuit. I really have.
But for whatever reason, I find it one of the least fun loops on Zwift. I don’t know if it’s the scenery, or the fact it’s usually no-man’s land, or what, but now that they’ve made road bikes go about 10kph slower for the same power, it’s even less appealing.
The crazy thing was, people were stopping to change to a mountain bike for this part of the course, and then changing back when heading back out. I didn’t even know you could do that. Not that I have a mountain bike to try.
I clawed up a number of places during the long, slow Jungle ascent. But during this time I also really found my pace dropping off. After the first hour had passed I really, really began to feel it.
I tried my very best to keep up with a rider in front of me, but it’s never going to end well when I’m having to keep putting in burst efforts to catch him back up, and then gradually get dropped again as I recover, only to have to burst again – but further this time – to catch back up. Rinse and repeat a few times and it’s game over. Dropped.
Coming out of the Jungle Circuit I managed to catch a quick super tuck rest period before I found a fairly large blob of riders (20+) who all seemed to be going about my pace. This was around 150-175w, as I think we were all recovering ahead of the final climb.
Heading into the Volcano Climb I’d alt+tabbed to find some new tunes to see me through, only to suddenly feel the trainer resistance increase noticeably beneath my feet as I browsed YouTube.
Picking something I can’t even remember at this point, I switched back in to find that the group I’d been with had split apart and several of the riders were significantly far ahead of me. No catching them today.
As usual with the Volcano Climb I noticed drop outs where all the riders disappeared. But most frustratingly, without the on screen HUD thing telling me how many minutes were left, I went solely off the ride distance metric – which was out by over a kilometer.
Thinking I still had over a kilometer to climb, I had paced myself completely wrong and as such when I saw the finish arch I was really annoyed. Not the way I wanted to finish the ride, but judging from some of the other rider’s complaints, I wasn’t the only one.
When I did get to the top the ride results popped up and were completely messed up. I tried to screenshot them but they auto disappeared by themselves. The times above are taken from the app.
I’d not set out to win, but I think I could have finished inside the top 400 if the distance marker hadn’t completely thrown my pacing. Disappointing.
Still, I think at best I’d have shaved about 30 seconds off my time. The killer of my ride had been the slacking off as we came into the Volcano Circuit. That’s what let me down today, I feel.
OK, so burning over 1100 calories is a brilliant step towards the 10k calorie challenge.
It feels like I did a solid ride today, but I feel an hours hard climb would have been a more efficient workout and in some ways, a bit more fun, too. Maybe I’ve simply ridden the roads of Zwift once too many a time by this point.
With this ride done, it puts me at 187km on the week. I think this is the largest distance I’ve covered in a single week on the bike. I’m certainly feeling that way right now.
Cadence, power, neither of them were fantastic today.
Heart rate, however, I am happy with. Averaging 166bpm feels like I’m moving in the right direction. Looking at the end of ride stats doesn’t have my heart rate standing out like a sore thumb. It’s still higher than most, but it’s much lower than it used to be.
My hour performance wasn’t great today. My overall performance wasn’t, either.
However, I think I’m being a bit harsh on myself. I finished the ride. I’ve done two 50km+ Bambino Fondo rides in a week, and this is the second of those in 5 days.
I’m definitely up for the second Fondo in this series, so see you all on February 9th, if not before 🙂
