I am surprised NYC world from a flat reality changed in a climber happy virtual reality. There isn’t a route where I could race and stay with the peloton at my 80kg. I am a B category rider but most fellow B-ers seem to weight around 60 kg and at 12% climb they hold 6 to 6.5 w/kg happily. Yesterday in a 70 ks race considered “flat” and long for Zwift world I was dropped while holding 4.8-5 w/kg. On Watopia or London climbs I could have stayed with the rest, on longer flat races, but not on NYC world where all routes seem to feature 12% climbs. I think races type Asia 120 cannot happen in NYC without causing peloton fragmentation.
I’m B grade and 78kg. Those 12% climbs are pretty short. You need to work on increasing your FTP. At the end of the day if choose races with climbs the light guys are always going to have an advantage hence the reason I focus on TT’s in RL where it’s more about raw power and getting aero.
The problem is I do not chose races with short steep climbs intentionally but this was categorized as flat race by whoever organized it. And in real world 80 kg on rolling hills is an advantage for me because I can preserve momentum. Not in Zwift raiding though and not on NYC world which does not have any flat routes. I can race with these feather cyclists up to 7-8% but I cannot compete against them at 12%. Also I like racing in order to improve my anaerobic performance but when I do anaerobic effort these little riders are probably only warming up.
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