All posts by Mike

Zwift is hard. Life is easy. I wish.

Tues/Thurs 7:45am ride

Another morning on Zwift. Got to get those rain bikes back in action, but perhaps I’m meant to really suffer, in a pointless sort of way. Because obviously there’s a point to getting dressed up in layers of clothing that weight a few pounds dry, but probably 10 pounds more by the time you get back, and braving the wind and the rain just because you can. And yes, you get back from rides like that and celebrate the transition from wondering why you’re an idiot out there in such conditions, to feeling like you did something a bit heroic and noble.

But this morning it would be the trainer. 2nd Zwift ride in three days, which gives me 3 rides in 3 years I think? Whatever I learned from that first ride, three years ago, was long ago lost. But this time, I feel like I’m getting the hang of something, that there’s a learning curve and I’m actually learning.

What am I learning? That there’s no taking-it-easy on Zwift. Your heart rate gets up and stays up. Even on the descents, you’re still pedaling because… everybody else is, and they’re getting away. You can’t tuck into a more-aero position and fly past them, they furiously pedaling, churning air in an inefficient manner, while you show them how it’s done. Nope. Descending in Zwift doesn’t work that way.

And yet, descending is your only opportunity to climb off the bike for a quick adjustment, or grab a bottle, let the dog out (or in), because at any other time, you’re going to be dropped off the back. At least, when descending, your bike’s in auto-pilot, maybe capable of 80% of the speed of someone really trying to hammer. That’s a lot better than zero.

Even though today’s course (through New York) featured less obvious climbing, it was still pretty brutal at times. Partly because you’re already pretty wasted by the time you hit the climb, since drafting isn’t nearly as easy on Zwift as it is in real life. And yes, there’s this odd thing that makes you feel a bit funny drafting behind someone you don’t know. Which is also why it’s more difficult, because they aren’t riding as if they’re in a group; their speed can be erratic, and erratic speed makes drafting not-so-fun.

And when do you stop? You set your goals for a given distance or time, but it’s not like a “real” bike ride, where you have a defined end point (getting back home, or to a car or something). You can stop anywhere, anytime, you wish. Does that encourage you to ride further, or less? Today, it was on the “further” category. The Zwift-suggested route was 20 miles, but since that’s quite a bit shorter than the usual Tuesday/Thursday-morning ride, that seemed like cheating. So I kept going, refining technique a bit on my “bonus” miles, while thinking about an obvious time to stop. 28 miles seemed reasonable. Why? Why not continue just 2.4 miles further, to duplicate the actual mileage Kevin and I ride on Tuesday & Thursday mornings? Believe it or not, my thinking was that, in the rain, we probably would have skipped the West LaHonda section, because we’d be riding slowly and running out of time.

What’s the future for Zwift and I? Bigger than I’d initially thought. You can definitely get in a very hard workout if motivated, and it appears I am motivated. Mastering Zwift will also help me sell more smart trainers (I’m learning a lot about set up). And, it will increase my appreciation of being out in the real world. Got to tell you, when I removed the bike from the trainer, put its rear wheel back on, and rode to work… my bike has never felt more lively! (Oh, I did shower first… you finish a Zwift ride massively soaked since it’s impossible to duplicate the drying effect of your speed plus real air).

But yes, I’m looking forward to getting the rain bikes back in action!

Did not ride in the rain… 2 hours on a trainer… learned a lot!

Personal stuff, Ride reports (not Tu/Th)

Still waiting for a new battery for the rain bike (brought my old Di2 external battery down to the shop a while back to check if someone else’s bike had a battery problem or something else, and haven’t seen it since), and need to replace the brakes too so it’s rain-worthy. Could have ridden Kevin’s ebike in the rain, but maybe this would be a good excuse to…

…dig out Kevin’s rarely-used Tacx smart trainer (similar but not quite as nice as the Wahoo Kickr we sell at the shop), get Zwift going and ride indoors.

Not so easy a task as it should have been! Had to remember how to get things hooked up; my desktop computer doesn’t have a bluetooth dongle so couldn’t run Zwift from the desktop. Had to hook it up through a laptop, which doesn’t have anywhere near the resolution the large-screen TV is capable of, but still, good enough to suffer, right? Then had to get the heart rate and power sensors, figure out if the Garmin actually mattered (it doesn’t; in the end, you upload to Strava through Zwift, not your Garmin, because the Garmin won’t be giving you accurate information).

Finally got things set up, and chose the “3 sisters” Watopia course because it has almost exactly the same amount of distance and climbing as the Tuesday/Thursday morning ride.

And off I go! What could possibly go wrong? Well, a few minor things, rememdied without having to stop en-route because my wife was home. First, I had an underpowered fan engaged. Second, I forgot my water bottle. Actually, I discovered I go through a lot more water on Zwift than in real life.

So Zwift is definitely great for exposing my weaknesses. I would love to believe that the much-lower power readings were either in error, or that I just couldn’t get motivated on a trainer. The reality is that you can’t stand for any extended periods of time on a trainer, like I can in real life, and staying in the saddle, there’s a real limit on how well my lungs work. I did not realize that standing up made such a difference in “breathability.” I’d thought that standing was a way of becoming marginally more efficient in oxygen use, but that’s absolutely not the case. How do I know? Because my wattage would go way up when I’d sit up. As in, let go of the handlebars and sit straight up. Which you can’t do for an extended amount of time in the real world (riding no hands isn’t terribly safe most of the time).

So I’m learning things. On the trainer, sitting straight-up = more power. But you can’t stay in that position very long without getting a pretty sore tail end. In the real world, standing up = more power, but because I can breathe better that way, not for any other reason.

In the end, it was a two hour ride, just like normal Tuesday/Thursday mornings. But at the end I was totally spent and almost a bit wobbly, probably because there was no real cool-down (although at least the finishing part of the ride was flat, after a 3 mile descent). I would have liked to have drafted other riders, but my inability to hold to higher wattage for any length of time meant that I’d have to limit how I rode, and not sit up from time to time to deliver more power until my tail end got too sore.

I also gained a real appreciation for how comfortable the “normal” position is on a road bike. Just can’t breathe well in that position. Maybe now I have a reason why I dislike trainers so much? If they were built to feel normal when standing, it might be a whole different thing. As it is, I’m leaving a good 30 watts on the table, but feeling like I actually worked 20 watts harder. That sucks.