Lunch Ride

Zwift - JOIN: 4x 10 min tempo on Knights of the Roundabout in France

Zwift - Race: Tour of Watopia Stage 8 - CRP-GHT - 🏆

Flipping Cold

Lots of 🦌 on Buck Jam

After two third place sprint finishes, I was really gunning to go out with a stage win this tour. Today was a day with the kids, so I had to race the last possible time slot. Only 14 competitors signed up, which could be good for a stage win; but this is the queen stage of a Flamme Rouge Racing tour, which means everyone is a competitor, there's a huge climb, and in a small field there's no hiding in any draft if things blow up on the climb. I looked at the signups. One name, Fitzy, jumped out at me. He had been in both sprint finishes where I took 3rd. The first one, several stages ago, he got the jump on the front group in the last three quarters of a mile and soloed to victory with the sprint behind playing catch up. In the second, he played the same move, but two of us from the previous podium chased him early and I was caught on the line. 

I checked everyone's TT times. I was one of the stronger TTs, but also one of the heavier riders. Fitzy was my main worry, in part because I had seen how good a climber he was on the Volcano KOM and knew he was a savvy racer. (Turned out there were a few others I should have been more worried about as well.) The course is like a proper TdF mountain stage--long flat with four intermediate sprints leading to an epic battle of a climb with a 17%+ punch in the face at the end, but then a long descent to the line. I assumed things would not stay together on the climb. My plan was simple--try to stay with the front on the climb. If I am at the radio tower with a small group, tail gun sprint into the descent. It's so steep it's almost impossible to close a gap so you if you pop past someone onto the descent, and then just sprint every little evening out on the descent, a heavier rider like me is going to hard drop any lightweights. 

Beyond that, I knew most of my competition was lighter than me, which meant I needed to use the flats to make people tired, so I'd play agent of chaos in the opening salvos. 

Plan basically executed perfectly. Through the first intermediate sprint, the GHT sprinters blasted through the group, and I chased in the draft at a lower wattage. Fitzy popped off the front with the sprinters, but as soon as they crossed the line, they sat up. I used my momentum to get back to the front and attacked drawing one rider with me into a break with a 6s gap or so. The group behind had to chase, with Fitzy leading. Excellent. We were caught via the second intermediate sprint. Third intermediate sprint (in my memory) ended right before a little rise, maybe I'll play this game again. I sat in and waited. Again I used the sprint to slingshot to the front and started tapping out threshold. This time the group reacted a bit faster, but I hadn't realized there was a long period of flat and then a descent before the rise, so I never really got real separation, though people were working. For the final intermediate sprint, I had planned to just sit in--we were getting close to the climb. But then I noticed halfway through, as I was chasing GHT sprinters, Fitzy had dropped 2s off the back (sorry Fitzy, I had to do this). I went to the front and started hammering. We broke the front group. Several of the sprinters said goodbye, and we had a group of 4 in the lead, with a chase of 3 (maybe?) with Fitzy in it behind.  I wasn't going to take this break to the climb, that would be suicide, but I definitely wanted to make them work for it, so I took took a few turns to get the speed up, then sat in while things came back together. 

The climb was epic. I had planned to do a shock-and-awe VO2 max attack at the base and settle into threshold if I got a gap. This did not work, because I wasn't the only one to do that. The start of the climb was so hard, I was sure I was going to be dropped soon. It was all I could do to sit in the draft. It settled down slightly, but we climbed *hard*. I switched to 60-70 rpm climbing mode. The JOIN cycling strength intervals at 60 rpm are really paying off. I can switch down to a standing, high resistance, slow turn that moves the power production off my cardio and onto my slower twitch muscle fibers. Staying with the other 3 at the front, I did my best 30 minute power ever (and got myself an FTP upgrade detected in Zwift from 329 W to 341 W, I don't think this is real, because I don't think the slow RPM really tests FTP, but I digress). This would be a slow way to ride a bike outside, since it has the aerodynamic profile of an elephant, but man can you produce a lot of power for a long time. 

At one point Fitzy put in a huge dig and dropped us moving out to 8s gap, but our group didn't panic, and we slowly reeled him back. Once we got towards the top of the main section of the climb, I took the front to keep the pace high enough to discourage any more attacks. Coming into the final section of the Epic KOM, Fitzy and I dropped the other two, and then Fitzy dropped me again. I think at this point Fitzy made a critical error. I'm pretty sure he could have left me there, but instead he sat up on the flats and allowed me back to him before the Radio Tower Climb. Pete (spectating) gave me encouragement at this point via text--less than 6 minutes to the top. I shifted down again and lead Fitzy out up the climb. He took the KOM at the top but only by dropping me in the last few meters of the climb and then he sat up. Now was my chance. I took a breather on the flat by the radio tower, then sprinted into the descent. From there it was a full on chase with Fitzy behind, but my descent plan worked flawlessly and by the bottom of the descent I had 40-ish seconds gap. From there it was just a 10 minute TT to the line for the stage win. 

I hope this moves me up on GC. I was 13th coming into the stage and its highly likely at least some of the top ten lost lots of time today. 

Also, I rocked the Mondrian/Team Look/La Vie Claire socks Katherine got me for Christmas that match our SVBC in-game racing kit choice. So that probably added 15 watts.

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John Bowers

Zwift - Race: Tour of Watopia Stage 8 - CRP-GHT - 🏆

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Zwift - JOIN: 4x 10 min tempo on Knights of the Roundabout in France

Zwift - Race: Tour of Watopia Stage 8 - CRP-GHT - 🏆

Flipping Cold

Lots of 🦌 on Buck Jam

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