On we roll, very quickly in fact, to Stage 2 of January’s Zwift Flat Is Fast racing series.
This one would be on the Richmond map, covering 3 (and a bit) laps of The Fan Flats route. As ever, a good place to learn this route is over at Zwift Insider.
Richmond is one of my favourite maps. Don’t ask me why. I know a lot of people dislike it.
However, I prefer the climb-y part of the Richmond map to the flats.
The reason for that is the cobbles. Riding on the Tacx Neo, with the real feel roads surface turned on, they are not exactly pleasant.
However, when you’re travelling at speed, that is far less noticable. And we were travelling at high velocity today.
These races seem to throw in some less common power ups.
Today we had the burrito, the ghost, and a brand new one on me, the steam roller.
The steam roller is, allegedly, going to reduce the rolling resistance of a surface to effectively turn it into regular pavement.
On The Fan Flats / Richmond, this is best used on the cobbles.
But frankly, as far as I could tell, it made absolutely no noticeable difference whatsoever. Certainly when I look back to how impact the Anvil was in the last series, this one was incredibly meh.
Besides the power ups, there was really one major thing to look out for today, and that was: corners.
Now corners in Zwift have zero impact on the game, as far as I am aware. If you ever play RGT Cycling then you will have come across being auto-braked into a corner.
In Zwift you can just belt it. Which is quite comical, for example, coming down the Alpe du Zwift at 100kph hitting the switch backs. Real life it isn’t.
But today, the front runners seemed to be using the corners to launch a surge.
This caught me out so many times, requiring several hard and (perhaps) unnecessary high efforts just to keep with the pack.
I’m guessing that some of the front runners today were fairly experienced with racing on The Fan Flats as it did become obvious to me, on the last lap at least, that the reason they were likely to be doing this is most corners ended in a little uphill section.
Now, either they were intentionally flooring it just to keep momentum beyond the little riser. Or they knew what was coming and hoped to split the bunch.
Either way, it kept working. I wasn’t the only one to fall off, but more than most seemed to know the drill.
It was on the third and final lap that I got the hardest drop – but then I used my stinky butt burrito to make the two guys behind me have to exert just as much to get back on.
That was really the thing today.
If you saw everyone smash a Steamroller you could relax. Nothing would change.
But if several got a burrito, you needed to watch who you were drafting or it could very well mean you quickly started to drop off the back.
With 3km to go, I was surprised how quickly this one was almost over.
But as ever, I was around 190bpm just staying with the pack on that last lap.
I knew the effort was about to surge as due to the way the circuit goes on Richmond, you pull a direct U turn and head back to the start / finish line. I think that’s about 500m out.
Well, with the bend ahead, the front of the pack bolted, but I didn’t see this as I was already quite far back.
It was only as I saw the front guy turn that I knew how far back I was in comparison.
I tried my best to pick up the pace, maybe starting my sprint slightly too early. I couldn’t get a screenshot as I was wheezing over the line and, for once, actually fighting someone else for a spot.
Anyway, pleased as ever to:
- Finish the race, and;
- Stay with the front runners right until the end.
For me that’s a form of a win.
Almost a mini FTP test in itself.
For unknown reasons I didn’t manage to capture all four stats screenshots today.
I think the third one below is most telling. I was almost at my limit for this one. But again this comes down to ride management. I guess I shouldn’t be at my limit, or there’s nothing left for that sprint finish.
All in then, a solid workout.
Tomorrow needs to be some kind of rest day – Zone 2 – as Thursday will be my start of the Tour de Zwift.
On we go.
