One of the things characterizing most of the intensive Zwifters I know is that we can have endless heated debates about the most nonsensical and useless topics as if they were a matter of life and death.
Forget politics, religion, who is the NBA, NHL, or NFL GOAT. For a Zwifter there is nothing more important and controversial in the world than:
- What is the best bike for a specific circuit or race: Tron absolutists (Tron for all races) vs Cherry Pickers (each race deserves its specific bike choice). Each participant goes with his own analysis, projection of weight and aerodynamics of the bike combined with his own weight and height, Zwift Insider analysis and consolidated frames and wheels performance Excel file showing you are one second faster with this setup vs this other setup. Then the acid remarks “All this time wasted for just one second in a race? I told you Tron is always the best choice” and the other one going “What do you mean by ‘just one second’??!!! One second means the world to any respectable Zwifter, it is the difference between winners and losers.”
- How close the experience on Zwift is compared to IRL road cycling: goes from 0 to 100% and everybody refers to his own superior racing experience or alleged biomechanical expertise.
- W/kg vs absolute watts: to what extent one performance indicator is prevailing over the other on the flats, the climbs, and the course of an entire race.
- Wahoo, Tacx, or Elite? The bell rings, beginning of round 1. FIGHT!!! The only way to win is by exhaustion as literally nobody will ever disavow their own smart trainer. Mine is more accurate in power measurement vs mine is more realistic, electromagnetic vs kinetic flywheel, connection stability, gradient simulation, is road feel a gimmick or a must… you name it. Endless “mine is bigger than yours” debates.
- How to solve the flawed ZP categorization? I think this one is the one we’ve spent the most time on within the team. How the current system incentivizes or not people to cheat on their weight and/or sandbag, and what would be a better one. Between those rooting for a ranking by points, the ones praising a ponderated average on P5 – P20 – P60 (not only P20), and those advocating for a wild jungle with no categories at all, we never reach a conclusion. We all are perfect devil’s advocates, destroying the idea of the colleague without offering a better alternative ourselves.
There are as many useless and nonsensical topics to debate as there are Zwifters in this world.
One of the most memorable debates I had with my ZRL team was when I dared to say that my preferred circuit, by far, was Bologna, especially when it is an individual time trial (the “Zwift Fast Fridays: Bologna Time Trial” event is the best).
Think about it. You have everything Zwift can offer in 8km:
- From a circuit profile perspective: an almost perfect balance between the flats and this incredibly beautiful and steep climb.
- A tactical choice to make on the distribution and management of your effort: do I start at 100% or do I negative split it (on this precise topic I highly recommend reading this article by Eric).
- An almost perfect circuit to benchmark a 20-minute FTP test until you reach CAT B (then the circuit becomes a little short).
- The scenery: diverse, changing, and most important very realistic. For those who fell in love when visiting Bologna IRL, it brings back the nostalgia, flavors, and sounds of the city.
Enough was enough for Andoni. He would not stand one more word of praise for the Bologna circuit:
“I HATE IT!!!! I HATE IT, HATE IT, HATE IT!!!! This is the worst circuit ever!! A pain. There is no way to find your rhythm in there, and just when you start finding your pace BAM!!! It’s already finished!!! RI-DI-CU-LOUS!!”
Each of those words felt like a bullet slowly breaking through my body and leaving me bleeding to death. As my jaw clinched over such an absurd and ungrounded statement I prepared to shout, “Blasphemy!!!! Let’s solve it with a trial by combat!!!”
But before I could even react, Oskr bounced on Andoni’s initial statement: “Oh yes!!! Bologna is horrible. Whoever likes Bologna has for sure childhood issues to resolve. Liking Bologna is almost as worrying as liking fresh beetroot juice!!”
I felt all by myself, misunderstood by the entire world and ready to retreat forever in silence and isolation to one of the Pyramids of Watopia’s Mayan Jungle.
However, as always when you are drowning in deep waters, a friend catches your hand to get you out. This time my savior was Albert:
“Bologna is the Holy Grail!!! A monthly pilgrimage to Bologna should be mandatory for each Zwifter to keep his Zwift membership! We should have Scotty the Squirrel reminding you that you are not in compliance with your Bologna monthly pilgrimage and at risk to lose a category, or even better, your Tron bike!!!”
Beyond the fact that the mere possibility of losing my Tron bike left me quietly weeping for several minutes, knives started flying around, each camp getting growingly dismissive and inconsiderate towards the other one, and eventually questioning the respectability and honorability of our corresponding mothers (like in most of languages, the basic list of insults in Spanish involves mothers).
So Albert and I were Bologna fans. Andoni and Oskr were Bologna haters. What about the other members of the team?
In each debate you need a Switzerland. A permanently neutral camp which will use fake empathy to try to find a meeting point between fans and haters, almost denying the unsolvable differences between the parties. And it works. The best possible outcome was to agree to disagree, and in the end this is the status we attained. We also agreed to never mention the topic again. Never. It would revive wounds which will never heal. What happens in Watopia stays in Watopia.
Now, jokes aside, hopefully by now you understand that my recollection of events is highly exaggerated and any resemblance with what actually happened is mere coincidence. But I do love passionate debates. For me, those can only happen with the people you feel close enough to expose yourself without feeling judged, because they are as crazy and involved in the game as you are. My ZESP Jerbos team is definitely a safe space for that.
Definitely need to get rid of the cat limits as they are. I don’t understand why zwift cannot integrate a results based system based on zwifpower results points. Well I do, it will take time and money, and they don’t care to spend either on community racing. New riders will continue to either be dismayed or delighted in their first zwift “race” depending on what side of the cat limit they fall.
This is a super complex topic which will entertain us in heated debates for ages. I tend to agree with you!
I think Bologna is the one circuit that changed me from a regular customer to an all out fan of this game. I knew that Alpe du Zwift was a replica, but i couldn’t ride it at that time due to level restrictions. And that Richmond and Innsbruck exist too. But i had no connection to those races.
But with my usage of Zwift i also dived into the world of pro cycling, and i was super pumped for the Giro 2019. I watched every prediction video out there, every course preview and i read every Reddit thread.
Then it started with that amazing ITT. The action at that hill was something else. The whole course was packed with people, and up there they filled the street itself. I got introduced to the concept of bike-swapping and with it the rabbit hole of aero vs. weight, i saw Roglic storming to victory (did you know that he used to be a ski jumper?), i saw one rider almost crashing into another rider as he just couldn’t get up the hill after the hairpin, and some poor bloke from Japan didn’t make it within time limits and was disqualified after just 8km of racing.
And then, after all that hype, that action, i can hop on Zwift, enter an ITT and ride that course myself. With the start in the city, the more quiet part at the highway, the ramp up to the ramp and then that glorious road up San Luca.
I love you. Nothing more to add to your description of how I feel about Bologna.
Level32, I am a good B, I never test Bologna (I know it’s unbelievable!) but I love beetroot so I should love Bologna 😀
I am not sure there is a direct correlation between loving beetroot and loving Bologna, however if you do Bologna and you love it please let me know so we start to build a statistical framework!😀
I love Beetroot Juice (especially when mixed with Celery & Ginger). Bologna is absolutely my favourite course. It’s the ultimate test of pacing & strategy – I’ve still never got it right which is what makes it so appealing. 14:59 is my best so far.
14:59 without having it right!!! Waouh!!!!
The most satisfying thing about Bologna? Scoring the 100kph Badge on the way down with relative ease.
Sir yes sir!!!! That’s what I mean, Bologna is everything you can ask for in 10km!
I’ve never ridden Bologna, I don’t have a tron bike and I use a BKool trainer. I’m so uncommitted!
Love Zwift though. Admittedly, the cats need some attention. I’m cat B, but sometimes struggle to keep up with other cat Bs from the very start.
I’ll give Bolgana a whirl.
Sorry, but I can’t have a proper exchange with you until you ride Bologna… there are some basics I can’t oversee 😁😂
I love Bologna as a TT course, sure it’s not a great TT course for a super fast time, but it’s about as technical a course as you can get on Zwift. There’s only 2 TT courses with the proper TT start pen in the game, and honestly, I find Fuego Flats super boring to ride and feels most like riding on the turbo with Zwift. Pan flat “out and back” courses work IRL because there’s still wind to contend with, in Zwift, you might as well turn look away from the screen and just use the companion app in “dashboard” view as a pseudo-head unit.
Also I’d go further on the mandatory monthly TT of Bologna and have the game lock the smart trainer resistance at 100%. I set my 10min power PB up there because I had no choice. I was in my 36-32 easiest gear grinding along on that “this power or stop pedalling” limit.
Bologna should be in the schedule. For me it is definitly better than Paris. Paris, I hate these cobblestones with the tacx neo. I did it twice for the badges but thats it. I´m done with Paris!
I fully agree. I compensate that with the weekly event organized in Bologna, so I know if I want to ride Bologna I have the opportunity to do so on fridays and saturdays on Zwift Fast Fridays: Bologna event https://zwiftpower.com/events.php?zid=1985706
Oh how I too love Bologna. The fact that no matter how I approach it I never feel like I got it right makes me come back more or less every week, wring my hands over selection of bike and wheels and wonder why my lungs feel like they have been torn from my body every time I finish
I really encourage you to read Eric’s article on this. Changed my perspective and allowed me to feel I am making the most out of the circuit. I understood that the big differences were made second half, so I am going just at FTP in the flat part, just above FTP for the first part of the climb, and unleash all I have in the second half of the climb. Also the choice of the bike is interestingly explained by Eric. While I believed I needed to go as light as possible because of the high gradients, Eric’s article made me realize it was the wrong choice for me. Ride on!!!
Bologna would be perfect IF it allowed a B racer (or A) to go for a decent 20 min power. Just a tad too short, though appreciate it’s a replica course.
It’s not too short if you use a mountain bike! 😂
Great idea! I will definitely use a mountain bike next time I ride Bologna!
I totally agree. If you like that route, you might like the Monday Mountain Massif TT – 12.2km TT up the Epic KOM reverse. As brutal as Bologna, but slightly longer. Fastest time was Ed Laverack, 26 mins, but a good A rider can do it around 30 mins.
Absolutely!!! That is why I love your event Tim! I am in Next Monday by the way!
Thanks mate, yes, I’ve read that article a number of times, it is incredibly useful. It helped me settle on a light weight TT frame and 454’s and ride it as a negative split but even with all that I find myself looking for a half second here and there. After riding Bologna something like 25 times it’s become a great gauge of my progress
Great article. Very funny and very true.
I did bologna once. during the Cape Epic stage race…on a MTB bike. did the flat perfectly sub threshold as i had planned. but totally lost my mind on the climb and thought i could just blast through it. you cant. i blew.
if i do it again for a serious time i would do the flat the same, but pace the hill more carefully
With Zwift having said that 75% of Zwifters never do events, I think it’s sad this means less than 25% of Zwifters have ever experienced Bologna.
It’s good to have variety and routes that are loved and hated by sprinters and climbers – means there’s something for everyone. I really enjoyed a 1-lap TdZ ride up Bologna last year, but didn’t enjoy the “2-lap” 24km version as much!
I get your point but I take it more like a love story. I can’t have Bollgna whenever I want I need a date 😆
I’ve never seen it — I do events but I don’t race very often, and I’m not a TT fan. I’d love to ride it in a non-race event.
I dislike New York, and the Jungle circuit, because neither allow me to get into a rhythm. I felt irrationally angry that NY was in the Tour de Zwift twice on the standard routes. Not tried Bologna yet, but it looks good and I am looking forward to the challenge 🙂
I qmnsure you are going to love it.
I love Bologna. I will take the challenge, but try gravel bike before MTB 🙂 watts is watts
I found a strangely named event called Frenchy Fuzion ITT Bologna. 3/4 of the way through I thought I was doing great, but hit the last “quarter” (really the majority of the race) and suffered up that very long hill. I was hooked, and now appreciate the strategy of balancing effort.
That is the beauty of Bologna, you can’t conquer it in one time. It’s full of surprises. You need several attempts to start understanding it. Beautiful!
I love Bologna! Either as a TT or a normal race. I actually raced it normally for the first time and when I did a TT on it it was completely different. Also the enormous difference between one lap and two lap race and the competition between the two counterparts-light riders and heavyweights. It’s simply great.
haha! I had to read this out loud to my son! thanks!
No shit, but do you realize most of these fights are because Zwift doesn’t act??? It’s beyond pathetic.
Bologna is the perfect time trial course, physically and tactically! What I’d like to see for mass-start events, however, is it to be extended into a circuit, similar to what is done at the Giro dell’Emilia each year. Here is an RGT course I made of the end of that race, which includes the same finishing climb, with the finish banner 100 meters or so further: https://magicroads.org/product/giro-dell-emilia-piccolo
I really love Bologna, but riding it far to less. I enjoyed the TT race “Chasing Cancellara” at Bologna, you can give it all you have