As a heads up: I have now updated the Zwift Climbing Difficulty page to include the Scotland climbs.
A new week and a new route for today’s race, this one being The Muckle Yin on Zwift’s Scotland map, as part of February’s Zwift Race Scotland series.
I did pretty poorly on Stage 2 – Glasgow Crit Circuit, so was hoping for a better result today. Or at least a better performance.
Heading into this one I did a little route recon via WhatsOnZwift, seeing we had three climbs in store. Those would come around the 9km, 18km, and 22km marks. I could also see the third and final climb of the day would be the Clyde Kicker, the one that Clyde Kicker-ed my arse last week.
Fortunately though, only once up that little swine today, albeit right at the end of the ride.
I think The Muckle Yin means the big one, or something like that. My Scottish isnae that good. But the reason I think it means that is because, again, I think this route covers all the Scottish roads, although not completely in both directions.
Even for a Tuesday dinner time, these Zwift branded race events have been well attended each week I’ve taken part. Every race has seen more than a hundred riders in the B category alone. Pretty good numbers.
Today was no exception, with a good 100+ in the ride by the time we set off.
As usual the pace out of the gate was fairly high, and within the first 100m or so a group of 70+ had formed up at the front.
I wasn’t expecting a break neck pace today. After all we had 23.6km of racing ahead. But there’s always a bit of fire in the start of a Zwift race and I was determined to get on the front bunch and try my luck.
The first little test came around the 4.5km mark with a dig up one of several of the corkscrews that seem to be everywhere on the new Zwift maps. I think someone in the level design department got a little copy / paste happy after looking at the Makuri Island’s map if I’m honest.
From the tight knit ball going into the corkscrew, we came out as a snake and I was somewhere in the middle of the tail. But we just as quickly came back together again.
The pace slowed a tad after this as we transitioned over to the first of the climbs for the day.
The first climb en-route was the Sgurr Summit North. I’m guessing that’s pronounced “sugar summit north”?
Sweet, though, it isn’t.
Or at least it wasn’t for me.
This climb isn’t crazy by any means. It’s only 1.5km @ 3.7%, but with a further ~14km of racing ahead once you reach the top, there is a modicum of control required.
What that meant, of course, is that whilst I feel I paced my effort well, I was very much dropped from that front bunch by the first turn of the two corkscrews.
As a climb, it’s as though someone drew a doodle in, twisting quickly back and forth, the mini-map spinning all over the show which I found very disorientating.
It was a bit disappointing to fall off the front within the first third of the race, but had I really pushed I would have inevitably blown up before the top.
So after that, it became a race against whoever came out of the top of the Sgurr Summit climb with me.
You get about 1.5km of decent from the top of Sgurr Summit North before yet another corkscrew climb awaits. Nothing quite as hard here, but I had to dig in to stay on the wheel of the back of the little group that had formed up around 55th to 60th spots.
That was basically what I would be fighting for. Hardly in the medals, but still more than good enough to keep me honest.
I tried pretty hard to ease off in the transitions between the short, sharper climby parts, and then the not-long-enough flat bits.
Knowing another climb lay around the 18km distance was useful for sure, but I lost track of this a little during the ride and ended up going off the front of the little bunch I was with, burning too much energy around the 16.5-18km markers.
Silly.
With a bit of regret, I turned the corner into the Sgurr Summit South climb, saw the uphill and thought… oh. Bugger.
But actually it wasn’t that bad.
Early on in the effort I lost the wheel of the four or five guys I was with.
Very fortunately I held an aero power up and, even more fortunately the climb really isn’t that long, nor steep. Several sections are flat enough that with a decent dig (and a judiciously used aero power up), I was not only able to get back on, but get past the front of the little bunch and carry the momentum in to the latter half of the climb.
The decent from Sgurr Summit South is long.
But the pressure never really let up.
Having dropped the trainer difficulty to ~20% or so pre-ride, I was able to keep those watts at a decent level and never really had the risk of being dropped.
After the Sgurr Summit South descent it’s almost immediately into the “down town” portion of the map – aka Glasgow Crit Circuit.
Power ups came thick and fast on this route, and I had an aero once more going into the Clyde Kicker.
Feeling decent, I dropped this one a little early, hoping to build the momentum on the flatter part which I aimed to carry into the steep bit.
That didn’t quite work as planned, and the stamp I put in to get up wasn’t enough – leading to an out of the saddle effort to keep in the bunch.
The Zwift Gods were clearly smiling on me today, giving me yet another aero over the top of the Clyde Kicker.
I was aiming to drop that with somewhere between 300-200m to go. Of course that might have gone out of the window if anyone had made a dash for it.
Around the 500m to go marker, two guys dropped power ups and I held my nerve, but increased my effort.
Somehow, I still had enough in both the legs and the head to feel like I had a chance to sprint. For once.
Unfortunately as a result of sprinting, I did not get any screens of the final 500m or so.
What happened is a little hard to say. I dropped gears, stood up, and went for it.
I do know I only saw one guy ahead of me as I just about reached the line. And I also know I felt like I was going to die and hoped it was all very close to being over… but no, I still had 100m left at that point.
The pain was real.
But overall, a really good result for me.
Mentally, at least.
I mean, I really tried. And I feel like I paced it well. It’s not often I have anything left for a sprint, but with a little better ride management I was there today.
Also a new 35 minute PB.
All good.
As I said, have said before, and will no doubt say again: I am never going to be competing for medals here. Top 10s, not likely.
But as far as solid workouts go, this was up there.
Very happy today.
