I’ve seen plenty of articles and videos from Zwifters praising our favorite virtual cycling platform… but I’ve never heard a song. Until today!
DADurday?
For those unaware, DADurday is a chase race organized by the DIRT Zwift team. Chase races aren’t like “normal” races… instead, these are “handicap” races where slower categories begin first, with faster categories released at measured time gaps behind.
The goal is for each category to work together to catch the category(s) ahead, and eventually have all the categories mixed together and going hard for the line. The mix of teamwork and individual efforts make chase races a unique and rewarding experience.
DADurday races happen early Saturday morning (one for Eastern time zone, one for Pacific) and are famous for wringing the last bit of effort from your legs, resulting in FTP increases and race category upgrades.
About the Song/Writer
Songwriter Les Chadwick has been on Zwift since 2017 and is a level 35 riders/16 runner. He’s turning 50 this year. As a US Navy veteran he had been a part of the USMES Zwift team, but joined the DIRT (Dads Inside Riding Trainers) team a few months ago (he’s a dad of three kids, all grown). He’s really enjoyed his time on the team, saying, “It was evident right away just how much of a TEAM this team was.”
He wrote the song in honor of DADurday because the races have helped push him to higher levels of fitness:
I’ve gone from getting dropped in the first few minutes to hanging with a group just off the back of the lead D’s and getting passed by C’s and B’s on the 3rd leg snapper this last Saturday. And I’ve never been so happy to get DQ’d at the end of the race because ZwiftPower upgraded me to CAT C.
Les wrote the song this past weekend after getting his upgrade to cat C.
I think I wrote the words in about 5 minutes on Friday. On Saturday, I pulled up the Beatle’s Yesterday song on karaoke on my wife’s iPad and sang the song literally in one take. I sent it to just a few of the DIRT crew that I knew and it exploded. I have been overwhelmed by the response and can’t wait to do more. I have one that I’m working on and will record it and get it out in the next day or two.
Ride on, Les!
