Hi, I did a race yesterday, entered in the A race as required by ZP (event ID is 2771206). My w/kg was 4.5+ ish the whole race , as was one other A grade who ended up in a group with me, but we were hugely dropped by/hanging on with guys with B beside their name after the first climb, and whose w/kg never rose above 4. I ended up finishing far behind a load of B’s - I’m ok with that but looking at their power data I can’t figure how. I’ve entered a few races previously under B and been UPG’d because I’ve had to put out this type of w/kg just to keep up.
Even on the climb, when I was hitting 5.5+ I couldn’t drop these guys who were doing 3. I’m no expert but assumed that w/kg was a big factor esp on climbs.
Legsnapper is not a climb, it’s a punchy hill that takes 30secs-1min of hard effort. Look at the 1 minute and 30 sec power of the top B riders and compare them to yours. You will find your answer there.
Yeah, I get that. But I was watching the w/kg while on the climb and there were no 30-sec/1min power increases - just a nice easy 3.5w/kg and dropping me while I pushed more… ah well, just interested really.
Hi Dean, thanks for the reply. This image doesn’t really show the full story as I know it’s a snapshot, but my w/kg was 4.5+ ish the whole race (I’m J.Sanderson (Buxton CC)), as was one other A grade you can see in the group with me, but we were hugely dropped by/racing/hanging on with guys with B beside their name, and whose w/kg never rose above 4. Even on the climb, when I was hitting 5.5+ I couldn’t drop these guys who were doing 3. I’m no expert but assumed that w/kg was a big factor esp on climbs.
Ok, not a gravel bike, I think it is caused by your weight, you are very light at 59 kgs so you will need to put out a lot more power on flat roads to stay with the heavies. Comparing you to the winner, who is lighter than you, their 1 min, 30sec, and 15sec power is much higher than yours so they can respond better to surges and attacks.
This is where you should do some focused training to improve your VO2 max.
Thanks. The part I couldn’t figure out was on the climb, each time I was 5.5w/kg and struggling even to hold the wheel of 3.5w/kg. It goes up to 9% in parts and thought that weight was a help in that regard.
Suggest you check your power curve. How long a time did you really average 5.5 for? It’s easy to fool yourself by taking quick glances at just the right time. I suspect at 5.5 you were accelerating relative to the others, but maybe not for long enough to notice gaps changing.
Even on slopes lightweights need a bit more W/kg (your bike is a larger proportion of your weight) but it should only be about 0.2
Your 15s, 30s power is by far the lowest in the race - on Innsbruckring with that pesky bump, that tells me people were hammering up there and you were staying steady. If you see the normalised power bars, the higher up you go the bigger the bar - that’s what seperates everyone on this course.
Next up is drafting. If you sit on the front doing 4.6 then lots of people will happily sit there below 4 behind you, and then scoot off when the hill comes. They are then drafting each other and heling each other down the hill.
Looks like you’d smash an iTT, but need to learn how to race on zwift for better results. Maybe next time purposely sit at the back and try to draft the whole time. Look out for surges and try to go with them. It takes time to learn
@John_Sanderson_7330 here is your power curve (black line) compared to the winner. Let me know if you want me to delete this picture if you aren’t ok with me sharing the data (but anyone can look at it on zwiftpower, so…) Notice how flat your line is.
