Massively appreciate it; I actually had noticed some check boxes were disabled in email stuff when running into an issue with the wahoo challenge.
I do follow ZwiftInsider, but usually only am seeing things about the bigger weekend events, which I do actually look into when they’re posted.
Other than doing an event and figuring out if it’s what I want to do or not. Like the “chase” races (OTR?), I think those are fun, but I have to blame event creators for failing to link their own groups, for example that last OTR event I registered for said “join us on discord” I’ve searched everywhere I can, and find nothing relating to OTR or Hare & Hounds on google or anything. So it’s a struggle and confusing for someone very newbie on the events side of Zwift.
I hugely appreciate your advice though, I’m looking at TFC (seems to be reasonable for my timeline), and definitely will search LOW and see what I can find.
It’s a serious struggle how hard this stuff is to find and understand in Zwift; especially when just opening the companion app and seeing several hundred events every day.
Just wanted to say I did my second cat enforcement race today and knowing what to expect made it more fun than the first. I knew how fast it would start, I knew how fast the pacing would be and I knew my only hope was an early push to the finish!
Got a great result I’m happy with, and I’m looking forward to Richmond tomorrow!
I thought the first 2 mins of the race was the warmup. It warms me up anyway
Hoping to do the test race tomorrow on Richmond but I’ve got an appointment on Leith Hill first which might be messy. Go easy on me @Gerrie_Delport_ODZ (think I saw you were in the pen too)!
Just finished my second of these races. Far smaller field this time, with less than a fifth of the entrants. Different feel to the race as a result, and also because it was a different route of course. Maybe because I was more rested this time, I felt in with a really good chance of winning instead of just hanging on. I didn’t though, and immediately I am questioning my tactics and feeling slightly disappointed, which is the opposite of the other day.
I just finished my second race on the Seaside sprint.
I noticed that some racers were dropped right after the start. That can’t be fun.
A group of about 20 formed at the front. It turned into a group ride with some half-hearted efforts into the volcano. I tried to go off the front a few times because I got bored, but there were no one interested in following.
It ended in a half-hearted sprint (for me). 18 of 22 finished within 10 sec. I averaged 3 W/kg.
My feeling after my two races, is that in B we are now missing racers that can make the race dynamic. DD and flat courses could be to blame, so I need more data points before I can conclude.
Congrats to @TheBandit with the victory. Well done!
I think that some are still a bit afraid to push the limits. Give it a bit of time, there are a lot of good racers that are not entering these tests out of fear to upgrade.
This is almost verbatim what I said I wanted to ultimately attempt and achieve with making racing more fair.
The race should be decided by the quality of your performance alone - tactics, fitness, moves, etc. - and not uncontrollable egregious factors like people cheating.
For the record, I wasn’t looking to have people feeling disappointed, it just means that you were invested in the race itself.
In my C races I think it’s been DD and flat courses to blame, possibly with inexperience from those of us finding ourselves near the front for once. On Monday me and some others pushed hard for a breakaway, but there was no chance with DD. Today, no-one really went for a break but the hills at the end gave an animated finish, where I did much better than expected - probably because I expected the usual thrashing!
Tomorrow in Richmond I guarantee it’ll be different, because I’m better on the hills than flats, and I’ve got the confidence to properly go for it!
i finished one today, and won the A cat double draft sprint lottery… but i would personally like to see some tests done without double draft on courses like maybe the london pretzel, leith hill afterparty, or one of the french routes including the petit kom
my reasoning is that double draft races are generally pretty hard to get dropped from which i think is altering people’s expectations a little, and also those courses would test the 5-8min power boundaries because the climbs are all about 5-8 minutes long
On a side note, I was scanning the folks signed up in the test race I’m doing tomorrow and this guy is signed up. What is going on with his ZP profile?
The double draft is definitely a dampener on race tactics. I used to have it for all ZHR races but immediately saw the difference and removed it except for group rides/races (e.g., Hare & Hounds).
IRL, breakaways would form and work together to stay away. Many are pre-planned between teams. That’s difficult to do in Zwift, so most attacks end up solo and impossible to sustain against a big pack on DD. Add to that a flat profile and it will become a bunch sprint.
Removing DD from flat courses would help, as well as using more challenging race courses such as Innsbruckring and Richmond UCI (among others)
