The fourth race of Zwift Racing League Round 1 happened last week on Yorkshire’s Tour of Tewit Well. While the race was mercifully shorter than the last time we did it in ZRL (2 laps vs 4), given Yorkshire’s sawtooth profile, I knew it would still be super tough and attritional.
The Warmup
The race began at 9:30am, so I ate a carby breakfast (oatmeal) chewed some caffeine gum (300mg of caffeine), and applied PR lotion to my legs before kitting up and getting on the bike around 9am.
I swapped to my favorite virtual all-arounder rig, the Scott Addict RC with ENVE 7.8 wheels, in hopes that it might help me ascend just a bit faster. Then I warmed up for ~20 minutes, putting in a few digs to get my heart rate up while I signed onto Discord and chatted with teammates. Soon enough, it was time to join the Yorkshire pens.
Lap One
Having literally written the ZI race guide for this course, I knew exactly what was in store. Each lap had 4 legitimate climbs:
- Yorkshire KOM Reverse @0.7km (1.2km, 4%)
- Climb up from Oak Beck @3.1km (1.18km, 3.9%)
- Pot Bank Climb @5.6km (0.76km, 7.7%)
- Kicker before the final descent @8.1km (0.5km, 6.6%)
The Climb up from Oak Beck wasn’t a place where riders attack, though. And the Kicker before the final descent wasn’t other, except in particular situations on the final lap. That left the Yorkshire KOM Reverse and Pot Bank Climbs.
Normally, the Yorkshire KOM Reverse would be of concern to me. But this wasn’t a points race, so I didn’t see riders attacking it very hard. No: the hardest attacks mostly likely come on Pot Bank since it was the steepest part of the course. The second time up would see the biggest attacks of the race, I wagered, since it was the last real climb before the finish.
My whole goal was to survive Pot Bank banks in the front group. So I did everything I could to conserve energy. The first Yorkshire KOM Reverse wasn’t too bad, and I got a feather at the arch. (78 starters trimmed down to 65.) As we descended from there, I noticed my Sauce draft indicator was spitting out crazy numbers – it broke 1000 at one point!
(Supposedly, this number tells us how many more watts we would need to do to hit this current speed without the draft – but I think something is amiss.)
We hit the next climb, and my idiot race-brain kicked in, triggering my feather powerup to help me up the climb. That was a dumb move, because the effort wasn’t high yet, and Pot Bank was just up the road!
Pot Bank arrived after a bit of recovery, and I hit the first slope hard to keep my momentum up and carry me as high as possible. The group didn’t go all-in, though, and I was able to hang in there without turning myself inside out. The race’s first big selection had been made, though: 65 riders down to 38.
Lap 2
I got an anvil at the lap banner and promptly used it too early, so it ran out before we hit the steeper descent. Not a big deal, though, as we weren’t working hard yet. The Yorkshire KOM Reverse arrived soon enough, and once again it wasn’t an all-out effort. All 38 riders stayed in, and when I got a feather at the arch I reminded my race brain to save it for Pot Bank.
It was on the climb up from Oak Beck that I realized I was in trouble. The pack wasn’t in full attack mode yet, but I was barely hanging on! I knew I could hold the wheels to the top of this climb, but what about Pot Bank?
We recovered as we descended to Pot Bank, then we hit the steep slope, feathers flew, watts ramped up, and I saw a mass of riders begin pulling away. Even with my feather making me lighter, I couldn’t hold the wheels. The group of 38 was whittled down to 21, and I was one of the losers.
Teammate Grant was just behind me, which was funny since we were joking before the race about how we always seem to finish next to each other. With no chance of catching anyone up the road, we rode together and got caught by one rider who we outsprinted in the end, Grant taking 33rd and me taking 34th.
See results on ZwiftPower >
See activity on Strava >
Watch Race Video
Team Result
With only two riders finishing in the front group, my first thought was that we wouldn’t do well in the overall results. As it turned out, we tied for 2nd!
Our league is now a super-close competition between the top 4 teams. My DIRT Kraken are tied for 1st with Coalition Exodus, but only 1 point behind are SZ Sleipner and Foudre Bergerac.
The last two races of round 1 will be super-competitive.
Takeaways
Once again, Pot Bank proved to be my kryptonite. I don’t know how to change that. Happily, I’ve got a strong enough team that we still turned in a strong result on the day.
Your Thoughts
How did Yorkshire treat your team? Share below!
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