FTR Race Report 2015-04-24

7 riders were able to start today’s FTR after a trip across the dateline to Watopia from Zwift Island. Four race-speed ascents of the Mur de Watopia were on the agenda for the day. With a small field and a longer climb it was clear that time trialling skills were going to be key for the day.

KM 0 was at the base of the first bicycle totem. Ossi Vuola immediately showed his strength by opening a gap. The rest of the pack rotated through and managed to mostly close the gap, but this was not to last as Vuola set a pace up the climb that rode all but Charles Le Gall off his wheel. The pack was spread in groups of one or two across a time spread of about a minute after the first climb.

There was some coalescing of groups over the rest of the lap, but the second climb shattered the pack for good. The rest of the race might be described as a “slogfest” as individual riders tried to make the best time possible around the course. Le Gall realized on lap 3 that a race after a 4 hours of training the previous day was probably not the ideal timing and hopped into the team car. Shortly thereafter, Jonathan Lemon had to pull out due to schedule constraints. This left the remaining four riders to finish their rides on their own.

As expected Vuola took the win with Christian Wiedmann and Alan Willey rounding out the podium.

Next week’s ride is posted on the Zwift Facebook homepage already. This should result in a record-sized field and hopefully mean that everybody will be able to find others to work with in a breakaway or chase group. See you then!

Results:

  1. Ossi Vuola 1:04:37
  2. Christian Wiedmann 0:03:46
  3. Alan Willey 0:07:36
  4. James Gill 0:09:21
    DNF J. Lemon
    DNF C. Le Gall
    DNS F. Garcia (Mechanical - Ant+ Dongle Disintegration due to Foot Impact)

Not placed because I could not find the Strava activity: J. Dickerson

Great plan,

I want to join you on your next race! Maybe an idea to plan races on set times twice a day, so riders can meet up.

What time zone are you in?  There’s a training race tomorrow (Tuesday) at 3pm PDT (22:00 UTC) 6 1/2 laps and then Friday at 17:30 UTC (10:30 am PDT) for 4 1/2 laps.

These races pretty much kill my legs for two days so I can’t lead more of them, but it’d be great to get regular races going for other time zones that can’t make these.

i’m at Central European time. Friday’s are best for me, or rainy weekends :wink:

i’ll leave a message on the Zwift racing Facebook page too. Races are meant to hurt. But 6 1/2 lap on the new course is madness! 3 1/2 or 4 1/2 would be great on Watopia. 

How can I find out about rides/races, times, etc if I don’t have a Facebook account…and don’t want to get one?

 

Thx.

@G 2 I generally also try to post announcements to the Strava Zwift club. I set the permission to the event listings to public so you don’t need a Facebook account to read them.