Zwift - Race: FRR Tour of Watopia Stage 5 CRP-GHT on Loopin Lava in Watopia 🥉

Zwift - Race: FRR Tour of Watopia Stage 4: CRP-GHT 7th

Zwift - Race: FRR Tour of Watopia Stage 3: ITT. Men Only on Watts the Limit in New York

Zwift - Race: FRR Tour Watopia CRP-GHT Stage 2. 🥉

Zwift - Race: FRR Tour of Watopia CRP-GHT on Fuhgeddaboudit in New York 7th

I tried to brute force this stage. It's the last time zone, so small field. Half the field are GHT. I wanted to try to break it in half. Unfortunately, the route is too darn flat. Even the climbs are only 5%-ish at the steepest, so everything is draftable. 

Things I tried:

Attacking into the Jarvis Climb, getting a 4s gap, and then doing a VO2 max interval. The chase held me to 4s and the people in the draft were doing lower wkg while they were dragged back to my wheel. 

Attacking into that dirt climb by the Italian Villas. Got a small gap again. Not much reaction at first, but I pushed it onto the descent, and then the gap started looking like it would grow. That got a reaction. Two riders attempted a bridge.

Eventually, one rider succeeded in bridging, but then he was a hop-on. I think he pulled through once. I was sitting at threshold for awhile. We were holding at something like 10s, but a rider behind, Rumplemann, was pulling for the main group and matching my watts. If I dropped the Watts to try to rest, he would too, but as soon as I was back on the pedals, he was matching me. It was a suicide attack anyways, and we were coming into Fuego Flats with the intermediate sprint. I figured I'd be caught by the sprinters anyways and this would be over in another few minutes, but I'd have spent that much more time at threshold, so I sat up. That interval was over 8 minutes off the front at 340 watts. And I got exactly nowhere. Would have preferred to do over-unders with the other guy, but oh well. 

Then I waited for the intermediate sprint, surfed wheels through it, and as soon as we got through it and I was pulled back up to the front, I attacked hard, full sprint. I figured maybe I could get some of the sprinters dropped. I really wanted a stage win today. This didn't really work. 

At this point we were too close to the finish, and I assumed the final climb was also too flat to make a difference, so I sat in hard. 

Coming into the final sprint I was feeling good and holding good position. A light rider attacked early, and I used him and a rider immediately behind him to start speeding up. Another rider attacked at a full sprint, but way too far out. We were holding everything in check and I was in P4. Perfect position. But then the three in front of me faded too early and I noticed too late. I got shuffled to the front right at the point I wanted to be opening things up in the draft. I saw the whole board go orange--everyone was sprinting, and I was leading it out. I tried to soft pedal just enough to drop backwards, but without steering, the algorithm was slow to bring me back into the draft. I was sitting off to the right with no draft while three guys were sprinting passed me on my left. By the time I got the draft I was still going slower than the front and having to accelerate with no road left. Was sitting in 5th but dropped to 7th on the line. 

It was a good race. Frustrating result, but fun nonetheless.

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John Bowers

Zwift - Race: FRR Tour of Watopia Stage 4: CRP-GHT 7th

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Zwift - Race: FRR Tour of Watopia Stage 5 CRP-GHT on Loopin Lava in Watopia 🥉

Zwift - Race: FRR Tour of Watopia Stage 4: CRP-GHT 7th

Zwift - Race: FRR Tour of Watopia Stage 3: ITT. Men Only on Watts the Limit in New York

Zwift - Race: FRR Tour Watopia CRP-GHT Stage 2. 🥉

Zwift - Race: FRR Tour of Watopia CRP-GHT on Fuhgeddaboudit in New York 7th

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