thejanullrichdietplan

Yeah that would be good - his username on zwift is michael burke ivy

Michael Burke is doing some group rides on a Tuesday too and has put down a challenge - wheelers v ivy! if you follow him you'll get an invite. No sticky draft but a neutralised first lap of the volcano then 3 laps hard after that, about 20km in total. I may do that instead of the Renfrew bunch ride

60 minute group ride, sticky draft on so no-one will be dropped.

Remember to follow Johnstone Wheelers on the companion app if you want an invite

Before the event is due to start make sure you have opened up the game and can see your avatar and bike - you can ride about on any course or just sit waiting. When it is 5 minutes to the start of the meetup a dialogue box will appear on the bottom left of the screen  - select that and it will take you to the start of the group ride.

Route is Road to Ruins

Good ride tonight

There were some problems with the zwift servers which meant those that were online before they crashed were ok to continue riding but others couldnt join. It meant the roads were a bit quieter than normal and the messaging wasnt working for most of the ride.

With how busy the routes are at the moment it's easy to get caught in the draft with one of the other riders out on the course rather than sticking with the rider you are trying to follow. The official events and races are a bit better for this because generally the only riders on the map will be those doing those events.

Also the drafting model on the flat is more like a time trial sort of effort than the on / off you'll get in an outside bunch. If there are a few guys pushing the pace then you just cant ease off or you'll be dropped

Here is a power distribution from the last zwift race i did - virtually no zone 1 and 2. In a normal chaingang (even when its hard) id expect about 30-50% of the ride to be in those zones. Looks more like the distribution i get for a TT on the Georgetown

60 minute group ride, sticky draft on so no-one will be dropped.

Remember to follow Johnstone Wheelers on the companion app if you want an invite

Before the event is due to start make sure you have opened up the game and can see your avatar and bike - you can ride about on any course or just sit waiting. When it is 5 minutes to the start of the meetup a dialogue box will appear on the bottom left of the screen  - select that and it will take you to the start of the group ride.

Route is Muir and the Mountain.

With zwift being so busy im selecting the quietest routes so we dont all get lost in the mix - the downside of this is it rules out most of the flat routes!

46 minutes ago, Alan McLean said:

Thanks Iain, I tried to chase you after the end of the ride but you totally rode off into the distance! 

Alan Thompson tried to ambush en route!

I alternated easy/hard between corners which almost made it bearable.

I went too hard for that bit because by the time Darryl caught me i couldnt respond and finished at least a minute behind!

60 minute group ride, sticky draft on so no-one will be dropped.

Remember to follow Johnstone Wheelers on the companion app if you want an invite

Before the event is due to start make sure you have opened up the game and can see your avatar and bike - you can ride about on any course or just sit waiting. When it is 5 minutes to the start of the meetup a dialogue box will appear on the bottom left of the screen  - select that and it will take you to the start of the group ride

Route will be Fire and Ice and this goes up Alpe du Zwift. The 60 minutes will take us to about half way up the climb, once that is over the draft is off and anyone that that wants to have a habble to the top can. Last time it took about another 30 minutes and i regretted every minute of it!

32 minutes ago, George said:

Tried again tonight. Eyeballs out at start but Zwift showing speed of 14mph on what looked to be flat. Binned it. 

I think the number of riders was causing things to slow as it felt like pedalling through treacle at the start - got better after that though

60 minute group ride, sticky draft on so no-one will be dropped.

Remember to follow Johnstone Wheelers on the companion app if you want an invite

Before the event is due to start make sure you have opened up the game and can see your avatar and bike - you can ride about on any course or just sit waiting. When it is 5 minutes to the start of the meetup a dialogue box will appear on the bottom left of the screen  - select that and it will take you to the start of the group ride.

Course tonight is Richmond UCI

3 minutes ago, KarenG said:

Sorry this is a bit off topic, but has anyone got any tips for racing on Zwift? Is it fun? Never tried it before and wondering if I should do an FTP on Zwift 1st, or go with the figure they've given me? Also sounds like sprint carnage for the 1st 10 mins of every race-is that true?

Yeah its fun, sometimes type 2 fun though (miserable at the time, fun in retrospect )

The figure they use if you haven't done an FTP test is based on the best 20 minute power you have done in the game during general riding. It's a good starting place. For the races then the first 3 to 4 minutes are hardest, it does settle down a bit and then will get hard again going up the climbs. For races then there are a couple of different setups - one where every category starts at once and the results are given by category at the finish, and the second one where each category is separate and starts at minute intervals. The separate starts make for more fun racing because the riders around about are the ones you are racing against plus it means the starts are a little less crazy.

Most of the races are mixed male and female, which can prove a bit unfair on the flat courses because guys will generally be heavier and 3 watts/kg for a 100kg rider is going to be alot more watts than for someone that is 30 or 40kg lighter - but on the hilly courses this levels out a lot more.  There are some women's only races - the British Cycling series has some (plus has staggered starts so is probably a good place to start) and the Tour of Watopia has some too. There are a few other women's only series, and also some of the mixed races have a women's category too.

9 minutes ago, DavidC said:

Iain are you still organising a run for saturday morning?

I was going to do one on Sunday this weekend about 10am

It would have started tonight 😭

Only upside is at the moment for the 2020 season i am so far undefeated up the Clune and the sprint finish

Sorry guys just seen these messages i cant seem to send another invite once the ride has started.

Clocks are forward so mudguards can now come off

2 hours ago, XXX said:

When’s the next one 

Monday 6.30 i’ll send the invites on the app later

I’ve sent the invite again will hopefully show up in app

60 minute group ride, sticky draft on so no-one will be dropped.

Remember to follow Johnstone Wheelers on the companion app if you want an invite

Before the event is due to start make sure you have opened up the game and can see your avatar and bike - you can ride about on any course or just sit waiting. When it is 5 minutes to the start of the meetup a dialogue box will appear on the bottom left of the screen  - select that and it will take you to the start of the group ride.

Thanks for the heads up.

Also saw this....Jason may be an orthopaedic surgeon now but he is pretty clued up on this sort of thing and was a doctor with Team Sky in their early years so worth listening to.

Anyway think i'm going to knock zwift racing on the head for a bit and stick to the virtual group rides and steadier efforts.

Logged on tonight and noticed Murray, Alan, Fabian and Billy all online. Although i think Spartacus must have had some connection problems as he didnt join the meetup in the end 😂

2 hours ago, Darryl Gunson said:

Well, that was fun. First Zwift ride done. I have to admit I hadn’t a clue what I was doing! It seemed a bit quick to me- is that the normal pace for the social ride? My 60 min power was over 240 watts (whatever that means 🤪).

Also, I didn’t notice any effect drafting or downhill. I presume this is only with a smart trainer.

First impressions are that it’s fun, but I need to get the hang of it. At least in real bunch you can sit in if someone is smashing it! 
 

When’s the next one😅

I set up the meetup with the sticky draft effect so no matter what power riders in the group are doing the group stays together.  That neutralises the effect of drafting etc - however even without the sticky draft then drafting isnt like on the road.

The powerfile of a race (or chaingang) on the road will have lots of peaks in power but also a lot of it going really easy and freewheeling and zone 1....on zwift a race or fast group the power file  doesn't have those bits of zone 1 it ismore like a TT effort (with a big spike in power at the start) then some over / unders depending on what is happening in the race.

Anyway 240 watts is good particularly for your weight, looked like you were sitting above 4 w/kg for most of the hour. Thats a right good effort!

60 minute group ride, sticky draft on so no-one will be dropped

Remember to follow Johnstone Wheelers on the companion app if you want an invite

Also before the event is due to start make sure you have opened up the game and can see your avatar and bike - you can ride about on any course or just sit waiting. When it is 5 minutes to the start of the meetup a dialogue box will appear on the bottom left of the screen (plus on the companion app i think) - select that and it will take you to the start of the group ride.

For about £600 i'd be looking at direct drive (so rear wheel off and you attach bike to a cassette on the turbo) .

No experience of either of these but Tacx Flux S and Elite Suito are in that price range as are a few others.

You can get wheel on smart trainers for a bit cheaper