Today I tried my first meetup in Zwift. Here is a how-to from Zwift Insider if you want to try it out too. A couple of things I learned, if your friends are late even 1 second after start time, they will miss the ride. Also, I did our ride on a route that I had not yet gotten a badge for to see if I could do the ride and get credit for the route. The answer there is no. The route you choose on the meetup, you will not get a badge for. For visual learners here is a great how-to from the Lama:
Stage 4 of Watopia started yesterday. This ride is the shorter one at 18 miles. Some good elevation here that helped me towards my tron bike. My progress towards that bike has been and continues to be very slow. I’m just not a climber. According to the simple trendline added here, it looks like June or July before I get the tron bike.
This was a fun ride but a little too similar to the Absa Cape Epic Race that I did just two days ago which was two laps around the jungle. Today was 3 laps. Both on mountain bikes. Today I was forced onto one with the race started which is fine, thats the best bike on this route anyway.
I listened to the Zwiftcast that was recorded on 3/19 on this ride. It was just long enough as I’m a very slow rider.
Double XP for all Watopia Tour rides or races! This marks the 8th day in a row that I have been on Zwift. I have done stage 3, 3 times: 1 race and 2 group rides. This was one of the easier ones, the ride. But there is a climb up the volcano. Saturday stage 4 starts. Not sure what I will do Saturday as I’ve been Zwifting a lot.
I loved doing this stage 3 times. This was the climbs and the volcano equals about 600 ft climbing each time you do it. So I got about 1,800 ft elevation climb towards the Tron bike challenge.
Yesterday was a Zwift day. I decided to do a good ride, but a bit of a recovery day, as I’m starting to feel it in my legs. It was the 8th day in a row on Zwift for me. I usually have a lot more breaks, where I’m at the gym.
I wanted to get the Absa Cape Epic Race kit for doing one of the events. I was able to unlock, but after completing the Absa Cape Epic Mission, I wasn’t super excited about getting back on the super slow mountain bike again. That mission was 9,350 ft of climbing. I finished it earlier this month. But for doing it I received 100k drop points, unlocked the Scott Spark RC mountain bike and was entered to win the bike in real life. Worth the pain for sure.
This was a ride and not a race. It has a very long lead-in and then two laps around the lake.
My next ride will need to be another recovery ride. 🙂
Today was a race day for me on Zwift. So, depending on who you listen to Zwift Power or Zwift, you get two different stories about how I finished. I either finished in 100th place out of 132 racers in my division (Zwift) or 20th out of 29 (Zwift Power).
The race was on Watopia and was the “Whole Lotta Lava” Route. Which as you can see is 7.63 miles and 503ft of elevation gain (there is a lead-in, where you get the extra distance. I stopped immediately after the finish and collapsed on the floor :-).
Above is a map of the route. As you can see you start in the city, in the upper right of the image above and race towards the volcano, when you get there you start to circle up at an average of about 3.5% incline. You get to the top and power down all the way.
I pushed hard on this race. My average watts were 157, which is a push for me. In places, I pushed very hard, hitting 535 watts.
How did I do, again depends…
Zwift’s got me in 100th out of 132 riders. But not all the riders are on Zwift Power, which you have to sign up for. That is used as the official standings.
On Zwift Power, I got 20th out of 29. Not great, but a good effort for me. I pushed hard all 36 minutes of the ride.
But wait, there’s more…
Yoga is a great way to wind down after a hard race on Zwift or anytime for that matter. Describing Yoga as advanced stretching is probably underselling it, but that’s how I think of it.
Yoga is great because it is so easy to set up and you hardly need any equipment at all. Read this older post to see what equipment I use.
I’ve wanted to write about Zwift for a long time now. I’ve been using it for just over a year.
A Brief Overview of Zwift:
For those of you that don’t know what Zwift is, it is a game, that you playing using a smart trainer.
“#interbike2015 #wahoofitness + #zwift get connected and take your indoor cycling experience to a new level” by Glory Cycles is licensed under CC BY 2.0
The smart trainer (pictured above) sends information to a computer (desktop, phone, tablet or apple tv) that allows the Zwift program to know how fast you are spinning that back wheel and what kind of power (measured in watts) you are putting into it.
All this information from the smart trainer allows Zwift to simulate what a ride would be like in one of their virtual worlds. When you go up a hill the smart trainer makes it harder to pedal, when you go down descents, it gets easier to pedal.
You can add additional sensors to get more information and make the ride more real. There are also trainers that don’t touch the rear wheel, but instead connect straight to the chain and you need to remove the rear wheel, these are called direct-drive trainers and are more expensive.
“Rollentraining mit Zwift auf Canyon-Bike” by wuestenigel is licensed under CC BY 2.0
In regards to the current situation with the COVID-19 pandemic. Zwift is here at the right time with a great tool to keep people fit and active. This tool allows a bicyclist (and runners), to continue their training or just get on for a quick ride or workout.
Eric Schlange of Zwift Insider writes more about this in his article, “THE UNFOLDING STORY OF COVID-19 AND ZWIFT“. Eric mentions that those who are part of group rides in real life can now invite their group to a group ride online, so they can continue to ride together. No, this isn’t the same as the outdoor ride with your friends, but it is much better than nothing at all.
Also mentioned in Eric’s article is the fact that as we have seen many, if not all bicycling and running events canceled throughout the world, there is a place for these events to happen on Zwift. No, it’s not just like the real thing. Of course not, but it is a great alternative to nothing at all.
Zwift is a great alternative to an outdoor ride, the gamification of it makes it even more appealing to old gamers like me. If you are a cyclist a runner, or just someone that is now confined to your home, Zwift is an excellent solution to getting some exercise and having some fun. I hope you can get a trainer because like everything else, these are no in high demand. Ride on!
I rode this today. It was awesome! I had my Apple TV hooked up to a different TV and the resolution was much better than the TV I had had it hooked up to. It was 11 miles of brand new scenery. At my speed it took me around 40 minutes. Lots of fun and awesome to ride a new route in Zwift. Below are some pictures that I took along the route.
On Saturday morning I had some food that didn’t agree with me and lost a lot of exercise time. I was never able to complete the circles on that day.
Sunday was better with a long walk before church and then played some basketball with Samantha. It was a lot of fun but lead to a sore ankle and toe. Monday lead to a dr. Appt to look at toe. Seems to be more arthritis. Not very happy about that, but don’t plan to let it slow me down, I’ll just have to minimize impact on my right leg as much as possible.
Monday was better than Saturday with a 1 Mile walk with the girls and almost 9 miles on Zwift.
Yesterday was the best. I ate well and with step class managed to close all my rings and also get 14k steps. Good day!
Today is Yoga class so I will need to fit in some cardio as well. I have had overnight oats both mornings this week. Emily helped me make mine last night and she did a great job!
Ride the worlds is a mission in Zwift this month. The first mission I have tried. I don’t think I’ve ever done 15 miles in one sitting on Zwift. My seat is just not comfortable enough. But Innsbruck doesn’t show up much. It will only be available twice more this month, including tomorrow.
So I settled in and started. I was in no hurry and thought it would take me more than an hour. Actually it took just over that. On the downhill on the flat track, I finally hit 15 miles. I got the pop-up below.
But it didn’t go away. Zwfit had froze! So now I didn’t know if I had gotten credit for it or not. I skipped the gym today so I would have the energy to ride this today. I did end up getting the email saying congratulations for finishing the mission, so I’m very happy about that.
Tuesday’s step class was rough. Lots of squats, but I made it. Wednesday I was really sore but determined to hit my fitbit goal. I ended up surpassing it by hitting the treadmill and elliptical before Yoga. I got 18k steps yesterday.
Today I will be lucky to hit 10k steps, as it was all about the 15 miles in Innsbruck today. I’ll have to make up for it tomorrow.
Two workouts today. I had some trouble with my Apple Watch today. It quickly drained down to 13% power all before noon today. So I had to put it back on the charger. I had already tried resetting it three times prior since this has happened a lot this last week. Today in addition to a restart I also unpaired and then re-paired it to my phone.
Somehow when I did this it messed up the tracking. I got the Zwift workout fine, since that is sent from Zwift to Strava then to the Apple Watch automatically. So the watch really doesn’t do any tracking. It is all Zwift. But when I did my Yoga workout pictured above with the cards, which are great by the way. The Apple Watch says Yoga 0 Cal. So it didn’t capture any calorie burn on there. Maybe because the health app needed to be reconnected. I’m not sure, but I did do that. We will have to see what happens on my next watch workout.
My Zwift ride today completed my Richmond 15 mile requirement for eh Ride the Worlds Mission. That means only one more world to go. But it is the one that is available the least this month. It is only available on the 21 and 22 of this month. That means I will have only those two days to get 15 miles in that work to be eligible for the mission sweepstakes. Wish me luck.
