The 7 Deadly Wins challenge is my personal mission to collect a gold trophy in every Zwift Classic, no matter how many tries it takes. You can follow the highs and lows on my Youtube channel, Zwiftaholics.
The ability to chat during a race – to friends and foes alike – is an under-utilised part of the game if you ask me. When used well it can rally alliances and re-energise flagging teammates. If you’re going to stir up your opponents, though, be sure you have the legs to go with the talk.
In the absence of any intermediate points France’s Casse-Pattes route has one of the most sedate starts you’ll find in Zwift racing. The only thing of note before the Petit KOM was the continued indiscriminate use of the anvil power-up. Zwift needs to issue a PSA about the ability to ‘bin’ power-ups using Companion App to save the legs of riders deploying them on flat roads, and in one poor misinformed rider’s case, up the Aqueduc KOM:
The steep switchbacks of the Petit KOM were where the race really began, along with the chatter. Fu from team Cryo-Gen took off at 6W/kg and left me with a decision. I was short on confidence on this climb, having struggled badly the last time I raced it, and a lone rider on that long descent usually doesn’t survive. I stuck with the group.
The gap grew. It was 8 seconds at the castle and I decided we needed a bit of a spark. I upped the tempo hoping to separate the climbers from the sprinters and start the chase in earnest, but took it a little too far and ended up in no man’s land, 10s behind Fu and 3s ahead of a pack of 6 riders. I had to wait and hope they were bringing some firepower.
It looked like this race could be done. For most people this would be fine. Most people could go and chat to their spouse and tell them they had fun and got a good workout in and never think about it again, because most people wouldn’t publicly commit to winning one of every race in a series and writing blog posts about them.
In the end the spark we needed didn’t come from the back, but from the front. A simple comment from Fu: “Cheers all”.
Oh this guy thinks this is done? Not by a long shot. But I needed reinforcements, and I got one in the shape of Belgian rider W.ally. After chastising me for pulling the group apart on the climb, he made the captain’s call. “Let’s catch”. Wally crushed the flatter parts of the descent, pushing to the front of the group at 6 W/kg and dragging us back. At 1.5km to go he signed off, the gap down to 6s. “Done”.
Fu, though, was not done. Another jibe at 1km to go. “Good try”:
Danish rider Ejlertson responded in the best way possible. Orange numbers appeared as he set off in pursuit, followed by a sustained 6 W/kg burst. Fu lifted his wattage to match. 600m. Four seconds. We needed one last push.
Draft power-ups started flying as Japanese rider P. Nuts threw caution to the wind and made his charge from 500m to go, lighting up the race again with an 11 W/kg effort. His legs gave out with 250m left but he had given us hope. Fu was holding his 6 W/kg pace but now only had a two-second advantage. The chat box had gone silent.
The sustained chase had left a line of dropped riders behind us. Only Swedish rider Olsen and I were left to make the final attempt to bridge. Olsen was a name I knew from my ZwiftPower scoping of the field pre-race, and he was a major threat. I had held onto a burrito power-up from the very first banner of the game; I put Olsen in the wind and set my sights on Fu. One second, 240m to go:
The stream chat had clued me in that Fu wasn’t a sprinter, and the efforts of the other riders had taken us up to almost 60kph. As the final bend approached and the finish line came into sight the gap quickly closed. With just 80m left in the race his bold solo move was finally reeled in, although he would hold on for 2nd, with Olsen a close 3rd.
Fu to his credit was generous in defeat. One final message: “Thanks all for the quality ride”.
You have to love the panache of the Petit KOM attack and the bravado of baiting your rivals as they desperately try to close you down. I’d love to see more creative use of the in-race chat in the events to come.
In the end this was probably not my most tactically astute race. A lack of confidence made me let a wheel go that I could have held and then I fractured the chasing group that I needed to get me back to the front of the race. Of course we’ll never know what would have happened had I played it differently; perhaps I get into the 2 man break but the group behind stays together as a big blob and closes us down. Perhaps the other 12-13 W/kg sprinters in the front group get to the finale fresher.
In the end it came down to a healthy dose of luck in the form of some spirited competitors, and some brute force, needing close to my best 1-minute effort at the end of one of my hardest 10-minute efforts for 2022.
The noble Wally went on to finish 22nd, 1:18 behind.
But that’s racing for you, and it’s another win in the books. Yorkshire is up next, and Royal Pump Room 8 is a doozy. After a fairly soft start this course just hits you again and again, from the neverending drag of Otley Rd to the punchy 2-minute effort on both sides of the Yorkshire KOM (which come in quick succession), and the notorious Pot Bank climb. Don’t get the gearing wrong as you come off the sharp descent onto those 16%+ gradients or you’ll quickly get gapped.
It’s a devilish finish, too, with a custom course length ending the race atop the Reverse KOM.
Is there any course which packs more potential for heartbreak into less than 19km of racing?
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