The Indoor Riding/ Zwift/ TrainerRoad etc. Thread

Soldato
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Last year I was doing almost 320w for a 20 minute TT.

For an hour, more like 275w. I simply wasn’t training enough to maintain that power for an hour and would die a death after 35 minutes if I did.

The best home comparison rather than doing an FTP is riding the Alpe du Zwift, you can feel pretty peppy at the bottom, but that last 10-15 minutes is always tough.

I did Tour De Zwift race stage 1 tonight in B. Made the front in every split aside from the rollers right at the finish (wattopia flat course). Came in 12th, 6 in front of me rode 4.1w kg or higher... not sure on the rules there, normally that’s an upgrade or DQ!
 
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Soldato
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Zwift racing categories are a mess, most races aren't on steady inclines and most last far longer than 20mins, so to split purely on W/Kg based on 95% of your best 20mins is farcical.

A few months back I managed to do an hour that pretty much matched 95% of my best 20mins at the time (hardly Froome-esque, a modest 271W iirc), but then a day or two later I improved my 20mins MAP and they've remained ~20W apart since. But then I rarely try 60min sustained efforts.
 
Soldato
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95% of 20 mins to get your 60mins is so old hat and pointless now. FTP is not even defined as being 60mins these days so it's a bit old hat.
Very, very few people could do 95% of their 20mins for 60mins.

Then when you apply it to zwift and have guys that are 5/10min monsters but would die an actual death if they had to ride at thresh for 45 mins it becomes even more silly.

Very rarely can I do mad watts near 300+ like my FTP.

I did 303w for an hour once and it was pretty hard :cool:

Most of my riding involves having to sit at silly watts as some strong lad takes a turn and smashes the bunch to bits. Then it's a normal turn to recovery then a dougie Watson turn on the limit, then a normal turn. The change in pace is the killer.
 
Soldato
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Take this one then boys.
Last season I done 342w for 20 mins and my best 60mins was 294w.
4 weeks ago I managed only 312w for 20mins and a week later done 300w on the nose for the full hour. 96% of my 20min best for the moment. I'm not so much getting at the % of 20 thing, more so my 20mins is mega watts down on when I was race fit but how one earth my 60min has come on is beyond me.

It all depends on your training. Previous training. Base and what type of rider you are.
TT guys should in most cases be right night on that 95% of 20mins best but the likes of @Jonny ///M who train in bunches loads and for RR's are going to have a very strong 20mins but struggle hugely to do 95% of that figure for the hour.

Same as with Zwift. It's more alike to crit racing or fast bunch riding. 99% of races on the game favour people with exceptionally strong 1-10min power figures. Threshold peeps such as myself who can do high W/KG for very long periods is almost wasted in Zwift as much as it is almost wasted in most road races in the UK.

I think Zwift need to adopt a race performance based system rather than being based on FTP. There are probably people in the top 25 zwift in the world that I have a higher FTP WKG than but they absolutely mash me in races. So your CAT should be based on how you perform against other ranked riders and race results IMO.
Eric Min won a B race the other week for example and done 4.1W/KG average. But the race was only 19mins.... so he was over CAT limit in the sense of 4.1 but it was less than 20mins so technically didn't breach the rules of the CAT. That's totally stupid and one good highlight why it's not a good basis for categorisation.
 
Soldato
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Meh even when the 3r series had a TT one week only 30 something riders showed up.... whereas the races each side of the TT had hundreds including all the top guys out there.
These losers all just want a flat run with a sprint. It's why I call zwift the fat lad sprint simulator :D
 
Associate
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Stage 2 race done this morning

2w off best 5 min and 20 min efforts , managed 7th place in group (ZP cos i ignore the full list as some stupid numbers in there). 5 in our group held off bigger group from the top of Titans , they did get within 3 secs but we pulled away near the end
 
Soldato
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Meh even when the 3r series had a TT one week only 30 something riders showed up.... whereas the races each side of the TT had hundreds including all the top guys out there.
These losers all just want a flat run with a sprint. It's why I call zwift the fat lad sprint simulator :D
Doesn’t work for me, as I have my height matching IRL, I have to do decent watts to even sit in the bunch most of the time!
 
Soldato
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Have any of the training platforms done anything special for those now stuck at home or do you think that will happen once the US gets locked down? I’m going to be at home soon so am thinking changing to mid volume on my TrainerRoad plan and / or adding some strength workouts in. Could be a month of serious gains!
 
Soldato
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Did the Tour of Zwift stage 3 B grade “ride” it might as well have been a race as it was full gas with almost 100 starters.

I was riding close to 4w all the way to the base then way over 4w/kg when we hit the base of the volcano climb and all the way up. The lead group strung out and I was riding OK, in a group, there were maybe 3 off the front chased by about 8, I was in a group of 5 about 8 seconds behind them.

Few guys cooked themselves, I got within 4 seconds but couldn’t close, then on the flatter section before the top they opened the gap. Over the top I couldn’t get on and had to sit up and wait for a few to come back. Downhill to the finish almost then.

Felt good though after a couple of days off. Put the Kinesis on the trainer to run a power comparison.

It was tracking about 2% lower than the Neo, I had two power spikes though where the Garmin read 0w for a second then approximately double the correct watts for the next second.

Funny as I did 3 hrs at the weekend and didn’t have the same issue, maybe too much Ant+ going on inside which causes a drop out.
 
Soldato
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If you do workouts in Zwift select the Alpe or hilly courses and that will help you towards the Tron as well.
Yeah, but when you consider I started the challenge long before the Alpe was even there...! :D

Most of my riding previously to 2018 was races and until quite recently they where always generally flat courses, nobody rode hilly courses (there were not even that many race course options!). I hardly ever do free riding or training sessions, so those times when jumping on and I don't have a plan on what to ride I'll see what popular races are on around the same time and jump in one, not many of those are hilly. A few more now and I really enjoy them, but jumping in a hilly 'race' when there's 10 other people is rarely ever enjoyable, so I go for the 'busy' races.

95% of 20 mins to get your 60mins is so old hat and pointless now. FTP is not even defined as being 60mins these days so it's a bit old hat.
Very, very few people could do 95% of their 20mins for 60mins.

Then when you apply it to zwift and have guys that are 5/10min monsters but would die an actual death if they had to ride at thresh for 45 mins it becomes even more silly.
Totally agree, but equally it's a 'known' standard and one of the only few that seems to cross platforms. You don't see Suff's 4oD or whatever it's called anywhere else. I think Technically an FTP score from a test should be the full 60 minutes? It's only recently people (coaches?) have come up with the 20 minute test as a rough and easy way to calculate an approximate 60min FTP without the time/TSS/stress a full 60 minute test takes, so is more repeatable.

Zwift racing categories are a mess, most races aren't on steady inclines and most last far longer than 20mins, so to split purely on W/Kg based on 95% of your best 20mins is farcical.
Yup, but how else do you do it! FTP score was never meant for competition or as a measure between riders.

4 weeks ago I managed only 312w for 20mins and a week later done 300w on the nose for the full hour. 96% of my 20min best for the moment. I'm not so much getting at the % of 20 thing, more so my 20mins is mega watts down on when I was race fit but how one earth my 60min has come on is beyond me.
Really great post buddy. It's the Zwift racing and just the nature of riding/competing on Zwift. We're getting more conditioned to riding at threshold for these race periods which are usually now 45m-60m long.

Before you might be getting more conditioned to your training for 10m TT's at shorter 20-25 minute efforts. The 20min test for you was quite accurate back then. But equally riding outside with all the other factors - weather, corners, junctions, traffic, wind and such, just means you can't sit at an absolute 'wattage is everything' with your full focus on it for as long as you can 'going nowhere' on your bike in the garage/living room. No steering required. No/little balance required. No awareness of outside factors required.

Best Smart Direct Drive trainer around £500 at the moment? Suito/Direto X/Kickr Core Reconditioned? What about the Zumo? (£430ish)
All of the above, but I'd also include a Flux S in there. These day's any of them can have problems, but most manufacturing issues on the long standing are resolved. The newer ones maybe... But not heard much about them, especially the Zumo.

With the (probable) supply/shortage problems Covid-19 is bringing (unsure how effected stocks are right now) you might find brands like Tacx in stock and able to supply, smaller ones less so.

Funny as I did 3 hrs at the weekend and didn’t have the same issue, maybe too much Ant+ going on inside which causes a drop out.
I find some days better than others on Zwift. Always blamed my Wifi to some extent but after other riders also in the same events having similar issues I just wonder how much of it is actually server side. Some day's just seem 'bad', or you get a period of time when it's bad, yet fine before and after.

Side note: Zwift recently only really started taking racing seriously. Until probably 2019 it was something Race organisers and ZP where running on there with very little help/functionality or input from Zwift themselves. Now there's real money and huge promotion opportunities through it they're totally buying in, so time will tell on how they will evolve it. We just have to wait and see. I hope they don't throw out the huge amount of information, history and such from all the work put into it so far, but they do have a habit of thinking a little too far out the box and missing the ball completely, then having to bug/feature things for months afterwards...
 
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Soldato
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Yeh I use my Macbook Pro. I have an Ant+ dongle too, as the main HRM I use on Zwift doesn't have BT.

Sometimes it can be confusing if my Wattbike is connected via BT or ANT+, but never had any real issues.

Cool thanks, my dad is thinking of a trainer incase he gets locked down!

He usually does about 20 hrs a week so will go crazy if he’s housebound.

Was going to get him a Tacx Flux 2. As I understand the first versions had sone issues but all solved now plus they are still available!
 
Caporegime
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Best Smart Direct Drive trainer around £500 at the moment? Suito/Direto X/Kickr Core Reconditioned? What about the Zumo? (£430ish)

I'm thinking suito just now, I think inside riding is the best option now. I don't want to risk putting anyone in danger (NHS etc). Hang the mtb up for a while :(
 
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