Tonight was my first ride on Zwift’s new Yorkshire / Harrogate circuit, where I took party in the Zwiftcast Recon Ride.
This ride was very well attended – 300+ people – which is about half as many as last night’s recon ride (which I didn’t attend). Also this ride was covering the Yorkshire circuit in reverse.
For clarity, I haven’t ridden this circuit at all, forwards or reverse, before tonight.
Going into this ride I was skeptical as to how much I would like / enjoy the new Yorkshire circuit. This was largely due to reading a Reddit thread this morning – Yorkshire Sucks!
I’ll be honest, when it comes to graphics / visuals, I don’t expect the Earth from Zwift.
What I do expect is something fun, interesting (as in unusual stuff to see), and a general “feeling” of the circuit. I don’t expect AAA game tier visuals / photo realism.
With fairly low expectations, and a rather badly timed start (6:05pm, post my tea, which was pizza express pizza + few dough balls, just like what they eat pre-Giro d’Italia), I wasn’t sure what to expect from this one.
What I did know was that the ride was due to be 1.7-2.0w/kg.
Only, in true Zwift fashion, it didn’t start this way.
Right out of the gate we bolted, and I was left picking up the rear.
My legs weren’t in the mood for this, at all.
If it wasn’t for the Yorkshire map, I think I’d have taken on an “easy” FTP Builder session. Yesterday’s workout was fairly full on, and I’m really feeling tension in the tops of my thighs lately. Even foam rollering isn’t doing a great deal. But it does hurt.
I found myself way behind the beacon, and ended up going harder than planned (in my own mind) to catch up.
And then, somehow, I found myself way ahead of the beacon. I have no idea how or when that happened, but I really messed this one up.
In many ways the start of this ride led me to think about the Giro d’Italia course. In the town section things felt enclosed, the buildings close to the road, the hoardings making things feel tight and packed in. This was exacerbated by the big bunches of riders all around me.
Greenery is a big factor in this map.
In many ways it reminds me of Richmond. Except where Richmond feels brutalist, this feels leafy and relaxed.
And very British.
Dotted throughout are street lights, letter boxes, steam engines (this is Yorkshire after all), and all manner of posh Victorian buildings.
Yet it feels very different from London.
Well, if anything, it feels a lot like the Leith Hill area of London.
Without the price tag.
I’m not sure of the official distance for this one, but it includes both a sprint and a KOM.
Both of these being the reverse variations. This means I still have the forward variants to tackle.
The sprint is bendy.
The KOM is fairly short, and not overly steep.
On the out lap I definitely mucked up the sprint. I couldn’t see the start marker, and as we were on a group ride, I didn’t see a change to the HUD to denote the start of the sprint either.
As such my time was meandering, to say the least. Not to worry, I thought, plenty of time for another go.
With the KOM being longer, and of course up hill, I was all too aware that I was on a climb, HUD change or not.
I put in a decent effort on this one. It was a tad grindy, largely due to me not prepping my gears for the climb.
Even so, I put in a decent time on this one. At least, by my standards.
After the two main events, a long-ish down hill section gave some respite to the legs.
Again, like Richmond, the sprint and the climb come close together. I’m not too sure how this will play out in terms of racing, but it felt challenging enough on a free ride.
Once over the KOM, the resulting scenary really had the British countryside vibe about it. It very much reminded me of my jollys out in the car, plodding along country lanes, lots of open fields full of flowers and farms, and cows. And tractors.
I can understand why people might find it boring(?). If you’re not from England, maybe this sort of thing wouldn’t appeal.
As a native Brit, however, I absolutely loved this part of the Yorkshire map. It was amongst my favourite rides on Zwift so far.
Yes, dinosaurs are cool, and yes, I think Zwift should do more wild stuff like that – particularly in Watopia – but really nailed the feeling of UK country roads, in my opinion.
With this fairly long, fairly straight and gentle section, my legs were feeling somewhat like they might want to start working again.
Which was nice, as Zwift had a little something in store for us.
Oh, you’ve done a KOM, have you?
And that’s enough, is it?
Hell no. Have another whopping gradient!
Before I knew what hit me, a 16% climb was dropped upon me like a stone.
Wrong gear? Check.
Horrendous noises coming from the bike? Check.
Sudden huge pack of riders all tight together? Check!
Fortunately the 16% part eases off fairly quickly.
It isn’t quite as bad as the Radio Tower.
But this climb is no joke, either.
It’s shorter than the KOM, I think. But it definitely feels more brutal.
I certainly remembered it – and planned more thoroughly for it – on the second lap.
Again, this echoes Richmond.
Yes, Richmond is a lot flatter. At least, initially.
But those short sharp hills. They are great spots for racing, from past experience. I’m really looking forwards to racing on this circuit.
I managed two laps tonight.
Each lap took about 30 minutes.
Again, as best I recall, this is similar to Richmond. I did see the top guys / girls were doing 23 minute laps. It’s always nice to be reminded of my inadequacies.
After the brutal climb, there is a steady descent back to town.
I can’t really picture how this would play out on the forward circuit, so am very much looking forwards to riding it.
And again, I’d want to ride it “properly” first. A true free ride, no workouts, nothing to take away the full experience.
As such, I’m not quite sure when I will get to do this. Hopefully over the weekend.
Before I knew it, I was back at the line and with 26 minutes to go, still had plenty of time for another mosey around the circuit.
That said, I didn’t quite have the legs for the second attempt.
What I did try to do was save myself for the sprint. Well, sort of.
As a side note, I’ve highlighted the above as it’s an interesting part of the circuit. You kind of meet up with riders coming the other way, which was disconcerting on the initial experience.
On the second attempt up the KOM I really thought I’d done enough to beat my first time. Without the HUD I had no idea, so was totally blind.
~4 seconds off my previous lap. I was disappointed not to have done better. Even so, I gave it a solid attempt so can’t feel too disappointed in myself.
Again, just like Richmond, it feels like the sprint / kom are very close together, and if you exert yourself in one, then by the time you reach the next, you’re going to be struggling. At least, I am.
With a bit of ride management I was feeling fairly fresh (all things considered) for the second sprint attempt. And I dramatically improved my time over the first lap.
This was partly due to the fact that I really tried.
But also partly due to the fact that, as mentioned, on the previous attempt I wasn’t even aware I was in the sprint :/
Unfortunately I didn’t capture my personal times for both attempts.
For the record, my other time was a 55.71.
I didn’t take too many screenshots on the second lap. Instead, I let myself enjoy the ride without worrying about playing photographer.
When the scheduled ride finished, I was 2.3km away from completing my second lap. And also on a hill.
I decided to see out the lap, and really forced myself to spin hard on that last climb.
My legs were aching. I was chugging away around 65rpm. And then I somehow found it within myself to jump back up to around 90rpm. It hurt like hell, but I did enjoy watching my man motor away past a bunch of people in front of me.
Of course all that pain was worth it when I put in a new PR for the lap 🙂
This ride was way more strenuous than I had in mind for the day.
Interestingly this ride ranked a 163 TSS on Training Peaks, compared to a 169 TSS for yesterday’s Zwift Academy workout.
With both rides being 59 minutes long, it’s interesting to see how they compared. This one felt harder, but possibly that’s due to not being fresh from yesterday?
I’m happy to have put 2 hours in already this week. And at 56km, with a fair chunk of climbing, I’m on target to break the 100km riding goal fairly early in the week.
I do expect to ride tomorrow evening, earlier if at all possible, and with less pizza in my belly.
The plan is still to race on Friday, so tomorrow’s ride will definitely be a blue zone ride. I’ll likely pick from the FTP Builder workout.
With all of this said, if you haven’t ridden Zwift’s Yorkshire map yet then do give it a shot, particularly if you like the English countryside.
This has to be one of my favourite rides on Zwift so far.
Great job Zwift!
