Last week I thought we were done with racing on the Scottish roads. But alas no, I had clearly forgotten that a good week remained of August. Wishing my life away?
For the fifth and final race of Zwift’s Race the Worlds series we would be taking on City and the Sgurr.
It’s less city, and more Sgurr.
The ride notes said it would be two laps. City and the Sgurr is a climbing lap. It’s a short lap at just 5.9km, with 103m of elevation spread over two climbs. That would be the Sgurr Summit South to begin the lap (sort of), and then the Sgurr Summit North to end the lap.
Only, it’s a little misleading.
There are five climbs in this race, even though it’s two laps with two climbs per lap.
The lead in is an ascent of Sgurr Summit North, and then the race begins.
That, of course, meant I got dropped on the lead in. Bloody hell. Savage.
Fortunately I wasn’t the only one. That actually made for a more interesting race, in some regards, than usual.
Making sure to pace myself, I aimed for between 240 and 260w on the five climbs.
For the Sgurr Summit North you’re looking at 60m ascent at 3.8% for 1.6km, which doesn’t sound like much but at race pace it’s enough to leave a mark.
The shorter of the pair is Sgurr Summit South, which clocks in at just 34m ascent at 3.3% for 1km. That one definitely feels the easier of the two.
Even so, I was looking at around 4m 20s for the North climb, and 2m 20s for the South climb.
Repeated five times with only a short respite between, it felt biting.
In terms of power ups, I was lucky to get an Anvil on a good number of the descents. For a lightweight like myself that is a decent little boost, giving some chance at sticking with or even catching a fast rider or two.
However it couldn’t keep me with the faster riders as we progressed. The best place I managed in the ride was 30th, but only the final climb I lost two places and ended up 32nd according to Zwift, but a more appealing 26th on Zwift Power.
Whichever way you look at it, I was 4 minutes off the pace, which is pretty crazy over the short length of the race.
Overall though I’m fairly happy with the performance. I held 3.6w/kg average for the 28:30, which I’m pleased with.
Could I have done better? I don’t think so. Not currently. I gave it a solid and well paced effort. I didn’t have anything left in the tank when I crossed the line and I don’t feel like I made any big mistakes.
Also I never gave up on any of the climbs. I never eased off or took it easy on any of the climbs. All in all about as well as I could expect.
For September we are looking at a brand new series called Get Rolling.
Apparently this is where the official ZRacing series started last year. For whatever reason I didn’t take part, can’t remember why.
What this means is that September’s races are more beginner friendly. Shorter, flatter races… with the first being one lap of the flat route reverse. That’s 10.7km with only 60m of elevation through. Heck, I might even be in the bunch sprint at that rate!
I’m glad to get off the Scottish roads.
Until next week.
