What better way to start off the new year than a good hard ride? When the Le Col New Year’s Day Celebration rides were announced, I cleared my schedule. Let’s do this!
Full disclosure: I wasn’t one of the crazies who tackled the imperial century. 100 miles with over 10,000′ of climbing, are you kidding me? No. I went with the metric instead, with 5,000′ of climbing. That seemed like more than enough work for my “day off.”
Pre-ride planning was pretty casual this time around–I took it easy the day before, ate tons of New Year’s Eve party crap, and got to bed much too late.
Waking up just in time for my pre-race ritual of caffeine gum and some PR lotion on the legs, I filled every water bottle I could find (5, as it turns out) and got on Zwift just in time to spin the legs for a minutes before the clock hit 0. No pre-race warmup today.
The Start
But let’s be clear: this was not a race. Yes, some riders treated it as a race. But I certainly wasn’t going to do that.
Or maybe I was?
To be honest, I really hadn’t decided. I knew I didn’t stand a chance of winning–there was way too much climbing involved. We were riding almost a complete lap of the Mega Pretzel, after all, which goes over the Epic KOM climb in both directions.
But how hard did I want to go? I really wasn’t sure.
We blasted off Watopia’s starting pier and I found myself in something like 250th place out 720 riders. On huge, long group rides like this I tend chase placings as a way to push myself.
First goal: work my way to 199th place or better.
Here’s the other reason why I wasn’t sure about racing this ride: I didn’t have the course memorized. I knew it went over the Epic KOM in both directions, up the volcano, and into the jungle. But I really wasn’t sure in what order things happened.
No, this wasn’t a day for a race. But the legs were feeling pretty good, so I decided to push hard and see how many places I could claw back. First order of business: the Jungle.
Jungle Swap
When we turned right to head toward the Jungle, I decided it would be fun to swap onto a mountain bike for the dirt portion. I already knew from our tests that the mountain bikes were significantly faster than road bikes on the Jungle dirt, so if I did it right I should be able to gain a few places while having fun passing roadies on my fat tire bike!
This was a last-minute decision, though, and I wasn’t even sure which mountain bike(s) I owned. Had I bought the Specialized Epic yet? I didn’t want to mess around with purchasing the bike while trying to swap mid-ride, so I came up with a little hack on the fly: I would open Zwift on my iPhone and check my garage there.
Good news: it worked! Bad news: no Specialized Epic. So I bought it on my iPhone.
When our group hit the dirt I noted what place I was in: 197th. Then I applied the brakes and went to swap to my new Epic–but it didn’t show up. Dang. Apparently Zwift only saves new bikes when you save your ride. So I grabbed the Zwift Mountain bike instead and headed into the Jungle dirt.
In case you’re wondering: my hack didn’t work, because I was in the middle of a ride session on another machine when I did it. After I saved my Le Col ride, I checked and the Epic was not in my garage, and my Drops had not been debited the cost of the bike.
As we began making our way around the Jungle (reverse direction) it was clear that even the slower Zwift MTB was much faster than the road rigs everyone was on. I was flying past packs of roadies who were putting out significantly more power than myself. Ha! Game on.
By the time I finished the Jungle Circuit and swapped back to my road bike (Tarmac Pro with Meilensteins, of course) I was in 176nd place. 21 places gained–I’ll take it.
Epic KOM Reverse
We tackled the backside of the Epic KOM next, and I figured this is where I would lose a lot of places since the climb is fairly steep and 25-30 minutes long. But surprisingly, as we climbed I found myself catching a few riders, and not being passed by many!
I crested the top in 162nd place, gave myself a pat on my sweaty back, then pedaled hard to catch the small group ahead so we could draft together on the descent.
(Drafting doesn’t matter much at slow climbing speeds, but on the descents it can make you move a lot faster.)
There was a lot of message banter going on, and one recurring theme was thankfulness that we didn’t have to tackle the Radio Tower climb. I heartily agreed.
As we descended from the KOM I grabbed my first food of the ride: a Caramel Toffee & Sea Salt Clif Bar that had just arrived a few days before from TheFeed.
Related note: if you’ve never shopped at TheFeed before, check them out. Some great deals on bars, gels, etc. And if you make your first purchase through this link I’ll get a $15 credit!
My basic rule for long rides is this: eat a Clif Bar every hour. I’ve found this keeps me fueled sufficiently, and as long as I stay hydrated I can go for 5-6 hours this way.
After the big descent it was time to hit the Hilly KOM forward, then make our way over to the Volcano climb. Thankfully, these climbs were short/flat enough that they don’t hurt much if the group isn’t pushing the pace.
We’d passed quite a few riders on our way up the Volcano, so I set a new goal: to finish better than 90th.
The two-hour mark was just ahead, as was the Epic KOM. Time for my second Clif Bar: Blueberry Crisp!
Epic KOM Forward
The next big event was climbing the Epic KOM forward–a climb I had just done the day before! Instead of expecting to lose places this time around, I decided I would push to at least keep my place, since that seemed doable.
And it was. I actually gained a few spots on the climb, finishing in 88th, but didn’t have any riders near me for the descent. I didn’t like being in No Man’s Land, but with 720 riders on course I figured I would find company soon enough.
The Dreaded ANT+ Drop
We turned left toward the Jungle, which actually surprised me. (For some reason I thought we only hit the Jungle once on this route?) And as I began to climb toward the Jungle my ANT+ data suddenly went away. Nooooo!!!
I’d had one very small dropout earlier in the ride, which was unsettling, but this was a big dropout, and my signal didn’t appear to be coming back. I realized I could connect to my KICKR and TICKR via Bluetooth on the Companion App, so I did that and was moving forward once again, just in time for a couple riders to catch me.
As we rode I realized why I’d lost ANT+ signal: I had stuck a funky-junky Chinese ANT+ dongle in our Zwift machine while doing some lab testing the day before, and forgot to remove it. Zwift had connected to that dongle instead of the good one on the extension cable. Whoops.
Bike Swap #2
As we hit the Jungle dirt again, I swapped back to the Zwift MTB and noted my place: 107th. Let’s see if we can claw back a few more places!
The MTB definitely wasn’t faster on the wood bridge portions at the bottom and top of the Jungle, but everywhere else I did nothing but gain time. I came out of the Jungle in 82nd place. 25 places gained!
The Finish… Sort Of
This ride had a custom finish line at the 100km mark, and we didn’t really know where that would be on course. What we did have was our distance counters, but my distance on the right wasn’t matching my distance at the top, so I wasn’t sure how far I had left. I just chased “M. Blot” ahead, got on his wheel, then rode to the finish line at the fishing village.
Then the real suffering began.
Earning It
Since I wanted the achievement badge for the Mega Pretzel, I had already planned on riding a few miles past the finish. (The Mega Pretzel’s length, after all, is 66.5 miles.)
But here’s the problem: that’s the length if you start from the spawn point. If you start from the starting pier in an event, like we had, you add another 2-3 miles to the route! And for some reason, at this stage in the game, that felt like a million miles.
Feeling Cramptastic
I was taking it easy, using the final miles as a cooldown spin, when I made one mistake: I reached as far to the side as I could without unclipping in order to grab my last water bottle. And when I did that, my legs said nope.
That ominous pang of a quad cramp kicked in, beginning at the top of my right leg and moving down to the knee, locking up that entire muscle in a harder cramp than I’d had in a while.
Perhaps last night’s dinner of Doritos and Li’l Smokies was a bad idea.
No sooner was the right leg under control that my left leg decided it wanted in on the action. Hurray, cramps all around! I’m not gonna lie–I may have snarled a bit, in frustration and pain. I was only a mile or two from the finish, and I could hardly pedal!
I shifted to an easier gear, and just tried to keep spinning. Eventually, the cramping stopped.
As it turns out, I had to ride nearly 7 more miles to get the achievement badge.
And even though this wasn’t a race, I set some 6-month power PB’s, averaging just a bit more than I’d done in the Vegan Cyclist 100+1 ride.
Takeaways
Here are a few things I learned on this ride:
- Bike swapping works: swapping on and off the MTB for the Jungle portions let me gain around 20 places each time. Plus, it was fun! Depending on your race situation, it could really be a smart strategy. It definitely makes sense on rides like this, where you’re not on the front and there are packs of riders all around.
- Be kind to your body, and it will be kind to you: a cleaner diet the night before would have certainly made my body behave better. Clean carbs, lots of water, plenty of sleep. All things I did not do to prepare for this ride.
- Solo Dongle: don’t double-dongle it–you’re just asking for trouble.
What About You?
Did you undertake a Le Col NYD ride? How did your experience compare to mine? Share below!
Wouldn’t gravel bike be better choice for Jungle than straight up MTB? You can also keep up on it against road bikes if another bike change wasn’t possible (especially on Cervelo Aspero).
MTB’s are faster in the Jungle, Eric has done the tests and ran the numbers.
Yeah, but gravel bikes are noticeably faster than road bikes on dirt too and not that bad on tarmac. Hence my question.
I wouldn’t recommend this strategy if you are riding any distance on tarmac. You will need to put out a considerably higher w/kg to keep up with the road bikes.
Christopher, the point is to swap onto the MTB just for the Jungle circuit. Then back to road. Worked great on this ride, as I explained in the post!
Well, I was pumped to do the 160k. I like long-distance riding, even though on the indoor trainer the rear-end feels it after a bunch of hours on the bike. I started off great, but after doing the Col 3X and the radio tower 2X I was toast after 100k, and decided to stop. In hindsight, I probably should have scheduled some more rest as I did a lot of training over the past couple of weeks. So I didn’t complete my goal and get the special jersey. Too bad. Still, I did a bunch of climbing which is good. Only 300m short of doing the Uber Pretzel a week and a half ago. I think at the time I stopped I was in 67th or something like that.
Enjoyed the read, and I was one of the crazies doing the imperial. One of my goals was to put up a solid time on Pretzel for one lap to boost my VeloViewer board standing, but right at the start I noticed that we started just AHEAD of the segment start, meaning my first lap would not match and only the second lap time would. I was hanging on with the lead pack of 20 for that first lap and confident, with enough water and fuel within reach to continue non stop. On that second lap, though, I realized where the finish line would wind up–right at the top of the radio tower summit #3. Between the forward/backward we had to do Epic 5 times. That’s when my legs started telling me to ease up to survive the finish, I fell out of the lead pack, but we were so far out I had no one else to ride with. Last 65k was basically all solo. My Velo lap time was poopy. Still wound up #20 probably passing an alpha on potty break. Glad I accomplished it, but probably dumbest thing I’ve ever done on a bike (outdoor weather was beautiful) and if I never see that radio tower again it will be too soon 😉.
did the same ride with same tactics and yes mega pretzel was along way but I got it good way to start the year
I quit at 109km, the route distance bar at the top disappeared when I turned right at the volcano, and I just couldn’t face any more agony. My tired brain figured the route had got f***ed up… Sucks.
My fuelling was SiS beta fuel and a couple of gels on top of water, I think I had 5 bottles altogether.
Great job on your effort, and great write up!
You were 2km away!! 😣
I enjoyed the read, also did the metric and bonked at the 80km mark.. tried to hold to the end but ended up getting off to grab a quick bite (30 seconds) and jumped back on at the 92km mark. Held on to get the badge at 111km.
Nice story Eric, very entertaining. Thanks for sharing
I tackled the 100 miler and had planned to not ride it as a race buuutttt then I started chasing places. Oh well. It took me a little under 7 hours. I finished 30something overall and 3 of the females. 3 climbs up to the radio tower was enough for me for a while.
LOL, the vegan debates started early! Vegans are the Mormons of the nutrition world. Hey vegans, keep your diet advice to yourself, no one cares that you eat plant based!
I did the same ride as you – but a different time. I noticed a few guys swapping bikes out for the jungle – as I went past them, then they went past me again. I’ll definitely try that in future.
I didn’t even look at the route, just saw 100 miles and signed up. 40 miles in and I called it quits, which was dumb. A few more miles and I would have got my pretzel badge.
LOL. You were even less prepared than me!
Great read Eric, super cool story. I tried to do the “100miler”, but I had 3 internet drop outs in the first two hours of the ride (never had this over months, aaarrrgggghh) and I found myself riding over lots of miles on my own, that really sucks. After 3h riding I decided to quit, something I am normally not supposed to do, but this time it was the right decision. So still do to the “100miler”
Dropouts are mentally taxing, for sure.
Try a flat 100-miler… much easier for your first imperial on Zwift!
Hi Eric, Thank you for your nice story. I also rode the Le Col NYD 100km ride. It was my first “event/race” on Zwift ! A good start of the new year; I very much enjoyed it and learned a lot. Started in 480th position (didn’t realize the start was so fast) and moved up to the 96th position. I actually didn’t plan to really race and just ride the course, but the excitement of the event made me change my mind 🙂 It was fun to start the year this way and I’ll try the bike switch next time. Only negative point was that I continued with a 10km cool down ride (so till the 110km mark), but it was not correctly saved afterwards. Zwift only registrered a 102.3km ride; A glitch in the software 🙁 Keep sharing your experiences and thoughts !
Welcome to Zwift events, Walter! Weird about missing the cooldown. Perhaps you had an Internet drop/glitch? Anyway–congrats on a great finish.
Hi, for me the race was lost when I’ve logged in and set everything up 1 minute after the start … And when Zwift found it better to put me in the C group. So, I had to shut down the app, log in again and I’ve managed to get into the group B, but 3 or 4 minutes late. Despite lacking behind Zwift put me with some riders (saying that I was first out of 650-ish). And for 3 and half hours I could nearly see any names in the ‘Twitters nearby’ tab of the mobile app, despite being surrounded by cyclist. Anyway, managed to do 100k and get my Le Col reward (which I’ve spent on a nice – reduced – jacket)
Great write up Eric. Was on the same ride as you too but had to take a break and make breakfast halfway thru. Luckily the legs had enough to finish and get the badge. I thought that blue bar would never fill! I’m glad we were all chatting about how to get the badge as I probably would have bailed after completing the event. Great tip about the mtb swap, got any keyboard shortcuts to share to make it quicker? Happy new year all!
“A” to brake: https://zwiftinsider.com/brake-hack/
You could also record a macro to do the swap, using 3rd party software.
Hey man! I was on that metric century ride too! Same thing – had no idea what was coming up. I didn’t even know we did the Epic KOM twice. At one point early on, I was really scared they were about to send us up Alpe De Zwift! Anyway, definitely painful but also a blast. I also was going for the Mega Pretzel badge and gave up at 68 miles (because I k ew it should have happened around mile 65). Looks like I would have gotten it around a little over 69! Oh well, you live and learn. Thanks for the write up. I love the biking community and the Zwift community. Always fun to read a write up like this and think, ‘wait, you made mistakes and felt the burn too?!’ Keep riding, brotha.
Oh man, you stopped a mile short! Noooooo….
Great job Eric. I also took part in the ride/race. I did the century one. It definitely started like a race and I will always jump in. We only had 252 starters in the pen. After going over the mountain and the radio tower kom twice, I believe I was in 9th position, but not with the leaders. That group was on another level. On the third time up to the radio tower I lost some positions. At this point I just wanted to be done. The final climb felt like it was never ending. I finished in 18th position. No bike swaps, I also probably didn’t prepare my pre eating, I should of brought two more water bottles. Over 5 hours I felt it the next day. ( After all that I didn’t even receive the jersey bummed lol )
Adam
No Le Col jersey? Bummer man! Did you already have it from a previous ride perhaps?
Kudos for doing the imperial. That was a crazy ride.
At the last moment I decided to do the 100mile ride. The last one available to do. Gave myself 10 minutes to get food, bottles, dressed and signed up. By the time I started pedalling I was 5 minutes late and in 176th place. It was a long ride and took me 5hr 22 minutes to do. Didn’t stop had all I needed and kept just enough in the tank for the final last climb. Ended up in 6th for my ride and pretty happy with that.
I did the 100mi/10000ft ride. No special prep the night before, just a regular sized meal with 3 hours to go. I filled up six 22oz bottles to the brim (4x water, 2x mix). I also had a 16oz can of Rockstar Energy Punched (240mg caffeine) and two 12oz cans of Coke just in case. For nutrition, I used mocha flavored EFS Liquid Shots in two refillable flasks. I also ate one Clif Bar 10 minutes before the start. I signed up for the last time slot of the day, 10:30am PST.
My plan was to stay in the front group until the start of the Epic KOM, then find a group of similar ability to settle in. This worked well, the roll out was surprisingly civilized. Two people shot ahead, but were reabsorbed in the “aquarium.” For hydration, I started with the Rockstar and one water bottle. At 30min intervals, I gulped down the equivalent of one gel. About 15 riders pulled away once the climbing started. I ended up pacing myself with 3 others after the caught me. We eventually started to catch the rest. Some members in are group would eventually drop, but we always absorbed more. For the most part, I rode with 3-4 others at a time. Many would not make it the whole way. At one point there was a split 2 vs 3, but the guy who started the break eventually faded, so we reconstituted our group of 5. Only 3 remained the final time up the reverse side of Epic KOM, and then it became two. We rode together the rest of the way until the very end where the other guy popped an aero power-up and sprinted to the finish. I didn’t care to chase him. I finished 5th overall…could have been 4th.
I drank everything, ate everything…I know my body well enough. I did have a serious cramp in my left quad 2/3rds of the way through, but I kept pedaling and it eventually went away. I made sure to never stop moving my legs, even on downhills. I would backpedal sometimes in order to prevent further cramping. At the end of the ride, my bib shorts were white with salt deposits…the worst I’d ever seen. I finished the event in 5:18 at 3.2w/kg avg. I did not need to get off the bike for bathroom breaks, which is always a concern.
Activity file: https://www.strava.com/activities/2974298709
Nice ride. Was behind your group at the end just couldn’t catch up.
Hello, great ride report Eric ! I made a similar tactics in the jungle, but only the 2nd round, it was my second metric on zwift and after finishing and grabbed the mega pretzel badge i noticed – thanks to your infos: hey there is a Über-Pretzel- i have to ride it- good base training, did that Über thing yesterday- again in my emergency shift- it have something really thrilling heading to the finish of AdZ and looking to the beeper- not now…please not now- it went well, no call, watopias huge pretzel badges are mine 😉
Bike swap really works; i wasn’t in LE COL ride, but today i swapped bike in the jungle during the Fondo event; i just have the std Zwift MTB, but i was flying across other users (and i’m not even such a big watt machine).
I switched bikes in the bambino fondo today and gained over 100 places in the jungle section. Nice tip!!
great write up Eric. Made me laugh lots as it seemed to mirror my experience exactly. Set off half pacing and half racing. Change to MTB mid ride first time ever was not slick first time but was quicker second time round. Asking in chat what was the next climb each time. Then the long hunt for the badge from 62 miles to 69miles. There was a little bar at the top of the screen that kept appearing giving me some hope.
I was on the the same ride as you, and did the bike swap too – and hit the brakes using your advice in a previous post. It made a big difference, I lost 45 seconds on the pack I was with entering the jungle after recovering on the downhill of the Epic KOM, but gained 45 seconds on the same pack after the jungle. Still not 100% certain where the best spot to swap bikes is though.
In all fairness to the vegans, I think it was the omnivores that started and maintained the dietary chatter on this ride.
I did the bike swap on the Le Col event (Ii was right near you Eric) and passed 100 people in the Jungle. It was amazing, until my laptop crashed. Then I tried the swap again in last weekend’s medio fondo, but that had many fewer people and I ended up losing my group. And then I lost another group when I had to swap back coming out of the jungle. So I’m not sure the faster bike makes up for losing a good draft. But in events with lots of people, it’s brilliant.
My sympathy for the ANT+ signal drop; I’ve been in that boat too. It seems ridiculous that there is no option for a hard wired connection to a trainer. Wireless is great but it is not as dependable as copper or fiber.
Nice report, Eric! I did the ride as well, the only difference being that it took me almost 5 hours to do the 100k.
The disappointing thing for me was that throughout the ride I was shown to be somewhere in the 500s, then the 400s out of 729 or so riders. I worked my way up the rank to place 325 only to find out that I was not the 325th out of 729 riders but rather 325th out of a total 365 riders that did the 100k.
Still, a great way to start the year!
Nice piece. I was doing the 100k but started late in 600+ place by myself. Only got a few minutes of drafting and didn’t realize I was facing 5000ft of climbing. I had to drop with 2 miles left to go to a family event. Note to self, be ready to go at the start.
I did the Imperial ride but never received 30% discount to Le Col products