Zwift - Tour Of Watopia 2021

[HdB]

Lined up for ST4 longer ride now, going to attempt the bike-swap in the jungle, apparently the MTB makes a big difference. (Sigh.. the things we do to shave off seconds)

Did the short one last night. Picked the Cervelo gravel bike from the start (frantically, I might add, as I was very nearly late. Again. As per usual).

 

For the longer ride, will probably also try a bike swap. Now watch my bluetooth keyboard have other ideas

[thebob]

Went for the Cervelo as well. Can't be bothered to swap bikes mid ride

[HdB]

Went for the Cervelo as well. Can't be bothered to swap bikes mid ride

I'll wait for RocknRolla's feedback, he's 26km in - the Big Loop has quite a lot of tar and the Epic KOM (but thank *bleep* not the radio tower). So you'd have to switch twice, which will cost you over 30s.

 

Otherwise I'll just stick with the Tron for this one

[JA-Q001]

You lose 40 to 50 sec with the stop and change, but win almost 2 to 3 min. Especially if you push a little harder while on the gravel. 1stop should be just after the starting pens (going into the jungle) stop at the slowest point and use the downhill to latch onto any road bike groups going into the gravel. This will give you a super momentum boost and you should catch the guys you were with before you stopped at the junction. Then you score all the way from there. Stop for change again right where the gravel stops and power up the climb to make sure you have a small group to follow to the finish.

 

Even if it just make the ride more interesting its worth it

[RocknRolla]

Well that escalated quickly.

 

Ja-Q001 summed it up perfectly.

 

I did not time the stops, but I did swap to MTB right as you hit the dirt (should have done at the start pens.)

 

Get on the power, and it really makes a huge difference  on the jungle loop. I went into the jungle at around Position 88. After the swap I was about 97 (small group that passed on the swop) caught them very quickly, and that motivated me to push quite a bit on the jungle loop. The time gap on the riders in front dropped very quickly.

 

By the end of the jungle I was in pos 70. stopped just as I hit the tar, just grabbed any bike (spez venge in this case) and hit it on the climb. Small group that I passed caught me on the climb, but I held on to the finish, where we had a little sprint for the finish. 

 

During the second switch, I lost the position/rider name indicator on the Ipad app, so not sure where I ended exactly, but must have been upper 70's. (Pos 52 on Zpower).

 

In summary, If you not going for position, just grab a bike and ride, but it certainly is very exciting to do the swap, and make it work.

[RocknRolla]

Thinking about it now, I'm wondering if there really is an advantage. 

Sure, on paper MTB on the Jungle dirt is faster. but the stops should equalize some of this gain, unless you really put in effort on the jungle circuit to get maximum gain from using the MTB.

 

The question is, Would i have made the same amount of gains position wise, if I stayed on the roadie, and put in the same amount of effort as I was pushing on the MTB? Were the groups and riders I caught just cruizing through the jungle after the KOM to get the ride done?

 

Zwift tour stages usually has me in tempo, but this ride ended up being threshold, which could explain the position gains...

 

The dude from Zwift Insider, seems to think the MTB makes a big difference, lots of riders do it on the mega pretzel to shorten the time spent suffering on that route. 

 

I for one should probably rather spend my efforts on work, that researching bike weights, and wind resistance factors of a virtual world...

[thebob]

Stage 5 short ride done! Was supposed to be a chilled ride, but then I started making good progress on the Epic KOM and the red mist descended. Joined a decent group on the descent and we worked together all the way to the finish. Will do the longer route in the catch up week and the stage 2 shorter route as well for a full completion of the tour. Not looking forward to the stage 5 long ride tho 

[RocknRolla]

Short ride today. 
Was not fun, the radio tower hurt a lot. I did end up making some good progress position wise, so kept the effort up on the descent.

 

Will see if I can do longer ride during make up week. Other than that, I think I need to do stage2 longer ride, will have to check back. 
 

edit:

need to do stage 4 short and stage5 long.  And whatever else I feel like for double xp. Only managed to close my level progress bar halfway (which is still great, as it would have taken me twice as long otherwise)

Edited April 21, 2021 by RocknRolla

[Harryn]

With work hours and pressure in the last week or so, this has translated into slackness on the bike. Or more accurately, off the bike.

 

Which did not bode well for stage 4, which I did over the weekend. It was tough. After reading about it from other hubbers, I tried a change bike strategy on entering the jungle. And then change back to road bike afterwards. I probably lost 2 minutes in all. At first I thought it was counter productive to stop, but after a few km after changing to the scott mountain bike, I started to catch people, and lots of them, all on road bikes. I made up 60 places, though i doubt I passed 60 people. I find one is promoted as the long rides drag on due probably to the rate of attrition as people get gatvol and dnf.

 

Tonight I did stage 5, after a long day, and suffered like a pig going up to the radio tower. It was a long evening in the saddle, and the garmin app announcing my average speed and hr every 3 minutes through my bluetooth speaker started to make me the moer in with the thing.

 

I still have stage 3 to do, but will have to wait for the make up days. I hope its not as long or tough as 4 and 5 were.

 

Question for the informed. If you re-do stages, do you still get the double xp points?

[thebob]

Yup, double XP for any TOW event you do

[HdB]

I only need to do the longer stage 5, I think. Might consider doing it tonight, but doing all that climbing, after the short one last night, will not be fun. Should probably take it easier (hahaha! Ah, the lies we tell ourselves!)

 

Not sure I'd redo many of the stages next week - maybe stage 1 and stage 3 short versions, the rest I didn't enjoy, just did them to get it done.

[RocknRolla]

I only need to do the longer stage 5, I think. Might consider doing it tonight, but doing all that climbing, after the short one last night, will not be fun. Should probably take it easier (hahaha! Ah, the lies we tell ourselves!)

 

Not sure I'd redo many of the stages next week - maybe stage 1 and stage 3 short versions, the rest I didn't enjoy, just did them to get it done.

 

 

Yeah, I enjoyed last years TOW a lot more than this one.

[Harryn]

Yeah, I enjoyed last years TOW a lot more than this one.

Me too, though for the life of me I can’t figure out why. Maybe it’s becoming old hat?

[thebob]

Too many trips up the Epic KOM! Hopefully there are some more areas added to Watopia in future to break the monotony

[RocknRolla]

I liked the choice between racing and riding.

 

Perhaps it was the Stockholm syndrome with being in lockdown...

[thebob]

Done done done! All long and short rides completed. Will do one more this evening for some XP to get up to Level 27. After that I don't want to see Watopia for some time!