Today’s ride was on Zwift’s Bigger Loop, a 53km jaunt taking in Fuego Flat, the Epic KOM climb, a zip around the Jungle, and then back to Watopia town centre for tea and crumpets.
This wasn’t my first ever 50km+ ride. It was my second 🙂
It was, however, my first category 2 climb. Previously I have completed Box Hill a number of times, though Box Hill is a category 4 climb, which sounds harder, but is actually “‘easier”. There’s a decent article on climbing categories here, if you are at all interested.
I started off the ride doing my best to build up gradually, pacing myself and being more than aware of the big climb ahead. I was pretty nervous about it, honestly.
One thing that caught my eye as I found my way on to Fuego Flats was riding past Shane Miller, the GP Lama. I don’t know many famous Zwifters, mainly GP Lama, Cameron Jeffers (who lives locally, somewhere), and DC Rainmaker. So it was pretty cool to see one of them online. I wonder how many Ride Ons they get on an average ride?
Being very sensible (read: I was in full leg preservation mode), I opted not to sprint on Fuego Flats. I put in a 0:54:56, which though I unfortunately didn’t get a screen shot of it, is actually only ~4 seconds off my pace when I’ve actually tried. I’m not too sure how I feel about that. Ha.
I think the new add-on is amongst the most beautiful locations to ride on Zwift. It really is good to look at, even on my crappy graphics settings.
Coming toward the end of the Fuego Flats, the mountains come in to view, and even with my largely gentle pace, I was really wary of how hard this ascent was going to be. As best I knew, I was heading up the one right in front of me in the screenshot below. And I would be heading to the very top – the radio tower.
As this was my first attempt at Zwift’s Epic KOM, and also my first ride of the “Bigger Loop”, I wasn’t quite sure of the route ahead, so didn’t know how quickly the climb would be on me. As it happened, it came around 15km into the ride
All that stood between me and the Epic KOM now was a long, cold looking bridge. I knew it was coming, and I knew it would be hard. But I wasn’t quite sure exactly when the pain would start.
At the end of the long bridge, the little blue line signifies the start of the pain. And right away it got steep.
I’ve messed up climbs before, by going too hard, too soon. Today, being completely aware of the length of this climb (9.5km) and the total elevation (414 grueling metres) I decided to use my FTP as a base line and work around that figure. On this ride, my guesstimated FTP was at 163w.
On these harder efforts, any distraction is gold to me. Leveling up? I’ll take the 10 seconds of mental break any day of the week. I still have to keep pedaling, of course, but my mind isn’t exclusively on “omg, what are you even doing?!?”
You know things are harder than normal when a 3% gradient starts to feel flat. After the initial effort, I knew from Veloviewer that you get a little rest before the next harder climb segment starts. Again, I held about 80-90% of my FTP, if I recall, not even going to a harder gear. Just keep those legs spinning.
A really nice feature was these road signs. Along the climb, there were several. Again, they served as a great distraction / motivator.
I distinctly remember looking at the road-side marker telling me I’d climbed 100m so far, and then checking my total climb for the ride, and moaning, quite loudly, about how I’d done 1/6th of the total climb and was already my legs hurt.
I feel Zwift missed a trick by not having an Oompah band playing tunes as you cycle through the village. Reminded me of World Of Warcraft in a way. Though with fewer orks.
One thing I’ve noticed with Zwift is that when reaching a corner of a climb, the gradient usually drops momentarily.
Then they dropped this beauty on me. 
Truthfully the lovely visuals were very helpful in distracting me from what was a significant real world effort. Good job Zwift. Making exercising fun.
Little did I know it, but the bridge would offer a short respite from the climb. Another all-to-brief leveling out would happen in the castle, not too far ahead.
Mostly, however, it was an absolutely merciless uphill slog.
The castle cobbles ricketted through the seat. Not so bad, actually, at least compared to how they feel on Richmond. Cobbles on the Tacx Neo 2 have a way of feeling deeply unpleasant, in my opinion.
The short flat didn’t last long. Suddenly another leg challenger of a hill was ahead, and I was thanking myself for having the forethought to pace myself more realistically. There is no way on Earth I could have handled this climb even just a few weeks ago. Box Hill has been good practice, particularly my mistake on Tuesday where I really stressed my legs.
Lessons learned the hard way.
Again, nice visuals from Zwift. Any little distraction like this just wouldn’t be available to me on a spin bike, or plain old exercise bike. I’d have been bored long ago, and given up.
The weather conditions, much like Zwift’s day / night cycle are something of a mystery to me. We went from light snow, to white out, to clear skies within the space of about 1km. However, I didn’t actually notice this until I looked back at the screenshots.
One of the best parts of Zwift’s Epic KOM Climb, for me, was the tunnel section. In my mind I pictured the F1 tunnel at Monaco. I bet this looks awesome on a better graphics card. The sun glared through the side of the tunnel, gave it a really nice feel.
As I saw the 300m altitude sign, I figured I still had another 300m to go. I was mentally prepared for the next half of the climb.
Shortly after this section we hit the bridge. A nice flat section once more. I didn’t stop pedaling here, but I didn’t change gears either, so was essentially spinning fast and light. My legs welcomed the rest.
And then came this little roller coaster section. First a steep climb up, and then, visible in the distance, a down hill segment. I didn’t really want to go down hill, being honest. I wanted to keep going up hill, relentlessly until the beast was conquered and I could go down hill for a good long while.
Then things got me confused. I thought I had 300m of climb left to go. Zwift popped up the Epic KOM leaderboard and showed me I was on for a ~38 minute time. I was wondering how Zwift expected me to climb another 300m in the remaining 1.9km, and somehow do that in 8 minutes given my current pace.
I stayed steady at my pace, which had remained around 160w the whole time, give or take. No point pushing harder now, I still had another ~30km of ride to cover even once this beast was done and dusted.
Feeling very confused, I saw the Zwift Epic KOM finish arch approaching around the bend. But I still thought I had 200m of climb left on this mountain. Alas, I was wrong.
I figured I had misunderstood. That whilst we would be going up to the top of the mountain and visiting the radio tower, the Epic KOM segment ended here, but not my climb.
I could help it, I pushed a bit harder to reach the line faster than my originally predicted 38 minute ETA.
I was happy to have completed Zwift’s Epic KOM climb. I was ready to keep going up. And I guess I knew I could likely do a bit better the next time I was mad enough to try this climb again.
Cool, I thought, first bit done, let’s just nip up and see the radio tower, and then hop-skippity-do back down into town for a glass of lemonade.
But for whatever reason – my mistake seemingly – Zwift didn’t turn me onto the radio tower path. No. And I felt really narked when I realised what had happened. I was mentally ready to do it. To reach the top. And I feel like I got cheated. Taken 3/4’s of the way, and then not allowed to finish.
It seems a bit daft, and perhaps I should be content with what I achieved, but it took away some of the feeling of achievement I had expected.
I loved the descent as an experience, however. It’s amongst the fastest I’ve ever ridden on Zwift, and how the rider had the guts to take those potentially icy corners at such speed, well… The motionless screenshots sadly do not do it justice.
It felt as though I’d climbed for 36 minutes and reached the bottom in about 2 minutes. In truth the descent took about 6-7 minutes, but it was such comparatively easy riding it just flew by.
And then we were at the entrance to the Jungle.
Aside from a jolly round the jungle in the Tour of Watopia Stage 1 I have never ridden on the Jungle. I think it only opens to you at level 10?
Of all the locations I’ve ridden on Zwift, the Jungle felt the most game like. It reminded me very much of World of Warcraft. The art style is very similar.
This route didn’t include a true full circuit of the jungle. Therefore I didn’t set a time on the jungle loop. I will come back and ride the Jungle Loop at some point. It was a pleasant ride.
Exiting the Jungle involved another climb. I remember looking at the total elevation gain for the ride and knowing it was ~670m total, I knew I must be both nearly done, and have a bunch of long gentle down hills ahead.
The ride wasn’t quite over yet. Zwift decided to take me on a whistle stop tour of the Volcano. Another short climb, why the heck not?
Look mum, I climbed that (well, most of it). 
Around this point my legs were really starting to feel it. My previous longest ride had lasted 1 hour 49 minutes for a total of 51.9km. I still had ~6km left at this point, and whilst I knew I could keep going and see it through, I was wondering how my legs would feel afterwards.
I was feeling very tired by this point and trying my best to retain 140w. My kids came in and were talking away, asking questions, and generally playing about – a welcome distraction. I knew I was nearly done, but as a side effect I forgot to take any screenshots in the Volcano. Here I am, leaving the circuit.
It really wasn’t long from this point before I was heading back in to Down Town Watopia, and towards the start / finish arch I was using as my basic marker.
And that was essentially me done. I did a couple more KM at this point to gradually spin down my legs. A new distance record, a new time record, and a new “climb in one ride” record.
Overall I’m really happy to have completed this ride. I can likely improve on my Epic KOM time on my next attempt, as I feel I paced myself conservatively. I also really want to go right up to the top / the radio tower.
My heart rate, most of the time, seemed to be around 160bpm. I have no idea how I can work to improve this. More reading required.
I’m glad to have switched from “Ride California” to the “Climb Everest” overall achievement. I got in some good climbing meters on this ride.
It’s really hard to see on this screenshot, and it’s a lot more visual in the game, but the length of the Bigger Loop is pretty crazy. There is simply no way I would have ever done 50km+ on a plain old exercise bike, or a spin bike. It just wouldn’t happen. Zwift makes it fun.
One thing I learned from watching some YouTube videos yesterday is that cadence is key on a climb. You need to be at 80-100rpm or you end up “grinding” which is how you end up going slow / struggling. This is definitely something I can work on. Always things to improve. Early days yet.
Though I wasn’t expecting it, I was happy to see my guesstimated FTP has increased. I feel fairly comfortable with this number.
All in all, a great ride. I’d like to have done this ride with a small group. I think my time would have been better. Maybe next time. However, for a first time on a category 2 climb, I’m super happy just to have completed it – and without ever stopping pedalling.
I hit on a couple of issues with phantom shifts and a knocking / loose left pedal towards the very end of this ride. Bit of maintenance required.
I will definitely be taking a rest day tomorrow, and maybe even on Tuesday too. We have the May Day Bank Holiday weekend ahead, so can get in another big ride next weekend. Who knows what that will be. It’s always fun to browse the Zwift routes and pick one out.
Until next ride!