Good afternoon race fans.
You’ve heard of the Formula 1.
You’ve likely heard of the Grand National.
But have you ever heard of Zwift’s Race London series, and its world renowned solidly middle of the pack B category riders such as yours truly?
What do you mean, no?
Outrageous.
Well, Tuesday lunch times. 12:10 GMT. Online. That’s where these races go down. And today we were hitting 18km’s of one of London’s flattest routes, by way of the Classique. In reverse. Because, you know, variety.
At 5.5km per lap, and only 15m of elevation in that time, this one had “full gas” written all over it. Actually the more unusual part of this route was that the lead-in was practically as long as the two laps of racing proper. How bizarre.
Even with the lead-in, the total climb for this race was only ~70m, and at the speeds we were at, we were able to get the whole thing done in under 30 minutes.
Which for a lunch break is bang on.
Due to work commitments, I got no warm up.
In fact, I had to get the bike ready – by which I mean lube up the chain, along with getting my kit and shoes on, Windows booted, logged in to Zwift, and ready to roll – in about 5 minutes all in. It was pretty frantic.
By the time I got on the bike I had less than 20 seconds to spare. Just enough time to rev up for a surging start.
I’m pretty used to Zwift racing pace now. I used to think that the front group kept up their silly speeds for the whole ride.
Let me tell you: that is not the case.
Pretty much every race goes out of the gate at some silly high level of intensity that is well into anaerobic, but within 0.5km or so things begin to settle down. That’s not to say they ease off, but if you can hold about 3.5w/kg for upwards of 20 minutes then you should be fine.
My problem is that I can hold that, but I’m at the higher end of my capability, and as such I get decimated when it comes to any higher effort stuff.
Now, as I’ve said, today’s circuit was flat. So that meant that the true attack would come at the very end.
That actually led to two fairly uneventful laps. There was a little dig in during the lead-in, with a surge up the Northumberland Avenue Climb (up to the roundabout near the Mall) but beyond that it was fairly casually paced.
That is until the end.
It was always going to be about who would go early. And who would have it in themselves to catch them.
The power ups today were Burrito and Ghost. But they never really seemed to play any significant part. Personally I never got a burrito, just a couple of ghosts. I don’t have the capability to make much use of them, so they never really impacted my race.
But towards the end, within the last kilometre the real work was done without power ups. Few seemed to use them.
At about 1km out, someone made a push, and then several followed.
I was out of the saddle at about 800m to go, which is … frankly, ludicrous. There’s no way I could hold that, and I do remember regretting my life choices around the 300m to go marker, when I realised that would be the usual point I would be standing up for a last gasp effort.
Anyway, somehow I managed to come across the line in 24th (according to Zwift Power), which for me is a really good result.
I really enjoyed this race. Tiring, for sure, but just pacey enough to stretch me without killing me.
I’m not sure what Stage 3 Short ride entails for the Tour of Watopia, but I am hoping to do that tomorrow lunch time. That’s the plan, anyway. Let’s see how it goes.
