How the Race Was Lost: The Long Finish

February 26, 2020

LAST UPDATED April 4, 2020

For the next article in my How the Race Was Lost series, let’s take a look at a recent Crit City race that seemed perfectly manageable… until it wasn’t.

Like many outdoor crits, things get crazy in the final Crit City lap. You may have hung with the front group for the whole race, but if you don’t have the legs/lungs/smarts/powerup to position yourself best in those final seconds, you won’t see the podium.

But I’m getting ahead of myself…

Warming Up with a Gold Medalist

Race prep began at 5am with my typical ritual: a piece of caffeine gum and some PR lotion on the legs. (If you’re wondering: the caffeine gum helps me be alert/focused and gets the blood pumping for the 5:35am race. The PR Lotion reduces acid burn in my legs – I just don’t suffer as much when I use it.)

Then it was off to Tempus Fugit to spin the legs up and get everything firing in the correct sequence before the race began.

I got on the bike 27 minutes before the race, just the right amount of time for my typical 20-minute warmup. Funny thing: as I hit my harder intervals, I saw messaging pop up from a group ride that must have been nearby. Kristin Armstrong was leading it (former pro racer, 3-time gold medalist, cycling coach) and her cues to the group seemed to perfectly match what I was doing. Thanks for the encouragement, coach! 😄

My legs weren’t feeling great, but I consoled myself with the thought that the race would be short. 8 laps of Bell Lap, here we go!

The Start

Nobody laughs at this joke anymore. #sad

We had 46 riders in the B group, more than double the size of my previous Crit City race. So I knew the overall group pace would be higher. I averaged 410 watts for the first 40 seconds, up to the top of the twisty rollers, then it settled down into the typical Bell Lap rhythm: hard up the rollers, ease a bit on the brick descent, bump it up a bit on the false flat to the esports pavilion, then easy through the finish line before we start it all again.

Zwift HQ Spotting

One thing I love about Zwift is the people behind the game. Many of the key leaders in the company obviously have bikes in their blood. Not only do they love cycling – they’re good at it! If you’ve ever ridden with Eric Min, Scott Barger, Charlie Issendorf, or Mike McCarthy you know they’re no slouches on their bikes.

Just yesterday I hopped on to recon the latest Rebel Route and Mike McCarthy joined me for the first part of my ride. We had a nice chat. And just last week I noticed Eric Min won a B race in Crit City – I don’t see him race a lot on Zwift, but he’s still got it! The fact that Zwift leadership rides on the platform themselves is a big deal, I think.

In today’s race there were two riders from HQ: Steven Wu (who I’ve raced with before) and Scott Barger. Scott is a Zwift Co-Founder… he met with Eric Min and Jon Mayfield at Jon’s house to see the initial prototype of what would eventually become Zwift (read more of the Zwift origin story).

Steven would hang with the front pack through the end of today’s race, but Scott got dropped at the hard start. I pinged him afterward and he explained, “I’m coming back from knee injury, so slowly getting my punch back.” A torn ACL, in fact. That’s no minor injury, so we’ll give Scott a break this time. Get well soon, man!

The Middle

T. Works attacking on the bricks midway through the race

Our group of 46 was quickly cut in half, and that group of 23-24 would stay together until the end of the race. I began looking at the riders, finding names I recognized as stronger racers, seeing who was pushing the pace at the front.

One rider I didn’t recognize was named “T. Works” – a woman racing under the Japanese flag who powered off the front a few laps in. Was this racer legit? I doubted it, but at the same time, I couldn’t just let her ride away for the win. And there’s the rub of unenforced race categories: you’re taking a risk if you let them go! More on this later…

Aero Helmet Catch-22

I love the strategic element of powerups, especially on the Crit City course where you can pick one up each lap. And everyone loves getting the aero helmet in a short, punchy race that will surely end in a sprint finish.

But there’s a dark side to getting the aero helmet: you have to decide if you want to hold onto it, or use it immediately. That’s an easy decision if you only have a lap or two left on Crit City, but I got the helmet with five laps left today. Knowing the distribution of Zwift powerups, I knew I had a 20% chance of getting the helmet each lap. Should I gamble and use it now, or hold onto it?

I didn’t have the legs for any hard attacks today, but it looked like I would be able to hang with the group to the finish. So I held onto the helmet for a little finishing sprint help, which meant no more powerup usage for me until the final seconds of the race.

The Finish

The final lap started off just like all the other laps – a short, hard effort up the twisties, then a bit of recovery down the bricks.

Then it all broke loose.

T. Works attacking with an aero helmet heading into the false flat on the final lap

Our Japanese lady “T. Works” hit it hard coming out of the bricks. I was well-positioned near the front and decided to try to grab her wheel – perhaps she would tow me to the finish ahead of the group? She popped an aero powerup, and I just tried to hold on.

Coming into the finishing bits, and the front group is struuuuung out!

Then a Zsun rider (real name Dylan Jones) and several others counter-attacked, coming past me. This was really starting to hurt! I couldn’t seem to catch the wheels of the riders ahead – we still had a couple hundred meters before the sprint typically starts, and I was on the rivet.

The final 90-degree left-hand turn comes ~15 seconds before the finish line, so that’s where I usually go all-in by popping a powerup and sprinting hard. That’s what I did here, but the riders ahead were too far off for me to catch. In the end, I finished 7th according to Zwift, and 5th according to ZwiftPower.

New PRs

That final lap was a new Bell Lap PR for me in Strava (2:25). Average wattage: 400! I also got a TrainingPeaks notification of a new threshold power: I made a huge leap from 300 watts to… drumroll please… 301!

See my ride on Strava >
See my ride on Zwift.com >
See race results on Zw i ftPower.com >

Takeaways

My takeaways from this race are:

I need to work more on going from race pace to a harder effort to sprinting. That’s how these short Crit City races often end, and if you’re already gassed before the sprint begins, you lose!
A little research would have gone a long way: turns out T. Works isn’t on ZwiftPower, and was using virtual power. The rider averaged 382 watts for the race (but only 4.2 w/kg, so still within bounds). A little ZwiftPower research before or during the race would have told me I didn’t need to chase that wheel.