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My Experience At the Global Bike Festival

Tim Perkin
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2
My Experience At the Global Bike Festival

My Experience At the Global Bike Festival

The new Global Bike Festival could be described as the “Glastonbury festival” for cyclists.  It was a 4-day cycling extravaganza that was action packed with rides, challenges, and interviews, all nestled in the beautiful Austrian Alps in Saalbach.

About the Event

It was facilitated by Play Sports Network, who are the world’s largest cycling media company and consist of active lifestyles channels such as Global Cycling Network (GCN), Global Mountain Bike Network (GMBN), and Electric Mountain Bike Network (EMBN).

This event has been 5 years in the making.  First conceived in 2017, it was initially scheduled for summer 2020, but was subsequently delayed due to the global pandemic. However it was worth the wait!

Event Director James Pope explained, “For our first year, we wanted to keep the event to a manageable size and scale the event organically over the next few years.  We have 450 people registered to attend from around the world, with 30% of attendees from the UK, 30% from Germany and Austria, 10% from the US, and the remainder from the rest of the world.”

Global Bike Fest 2022

Partners

Play Sports Network had partnered with the industry’s leading brands to deliver a top lineup of interactive events for people to enjoy.

Zwift presented the event and along with Wahoo ensured that the cycling fun continued into the night, providing an interactive cycling experience for all levels to participate.

World-renowned bike tool manufacturer Park Tool was present, along with their well-known and respected mechanic Calvin Jones who was on hand to support any riders with bike issues throughout the day.

Isadore, the premium cycling brand created by former professional cycling brothers Peter and Martin Velits, were present too. This allowed riders to purchase any kit they might have forgotten to bring or replace, should they have a slight accident during an event. 

The Global Bike Festival had chosen to support the World Bicycle Relief, who were present and raising awareness of their charity.  The World Bicycle Relief is a non-profit organization that empowers “individuals to access education, healthcare, and economic opportunities through life-changing bicycles.”  The bicycle referenced is the specifically designed “Buffalo bike,” which is a sturdy bicycle designed for use in rural communities and distributed across Africa. 

Festival Feel

Play Sports Network had commandeered the largest open space in Saalbach, strategically located in the center of the town. This area was transformed into a paddock, decked in their branding, and it’s where all rides started and finished.

Their main presenting stage took central position with a covered seating area to shelter from the scorching sun and enough tables and benches for people to sit and enjoy the local delicacies. These were washed down with the event’s official beer, Brewdog, whilst simultaneously watching live interviews with special guests such as Olympic legend Ed Clancy. 

Within the paddock, partners set their stalls.  This certainly was not an expo where you were being sold the latest products. Wahoo were explicit in stating that they were there to let people try their products for the day, so if you wanted to test their latest cycling computer, you were free to do so. 

All cycle events started and finished here. Rides departed at 9am and finished by 3pm, in time for a packed agenda of interviews, presentations, and more fun events. These events included the “Car Park Criterium,” which saw people racing their bikes around an underground car park, with the fastest riders competing for overall victory.

Calvin Jones (Park Tool) discusses wheel building and repair. Photo credit James Cheadle.

On stage, mechanical guru Calvin Jones from Park Tool gave daily presentations about bike mechanics. He answered people’s questions, which often related to the latest issue that they experienced during the day’s ride. This was followed by interviews with cycling superstars such as 11-times Tour de France stage winner Andre Greipel, 3-times Olympic Team Pursuit Gold medalist Ed Clancy, and former National Road Race Champion turned business owner Peter Velits. 

The Stars

As well as your chance to meet and interact with the presenters from GCN, EMBN, and GMBN, legends from the field of cycling were present for people to mingle and even ride with.

As noted, more formal interviews were conducted on stage with Ed Clancy talking about his career on the track and Peter Velits talking about life in the professional peloton and his company, Isadore.

Andre Greipel recounted his favourite victories, which was not easy considering he has over 150 to choose from!

Cycling in Saalbach

Photo credit James Cheadle.
Photo credit James Cheadle.

Saalbach provided the perfect backdrop for the event, enabling cyclists to ride their preferred discipline and try something different, with plentiful gravel trails and countless kilometers of very technical mountain bike trails to tackle.

The GCN presenters escorted people on their adventures, the highlight being the road ride with Andre Greipel. This consisted of a 119km round trip up the epic Grossglockner. 21.4km long and peaking at over 2400 meters, this was a mighty climb, but the effort was worthwhile as it offered spectacular views.

Cycling with Andre and the GCN presenters was a personal highlight and a unique experience for me, but it also highlighted the huge gulf in ability between being an enthusiastic amateur cyclist and a professional.   

My strength as a cyclist is climbing, and having recently posted some respectable times on the big climbs on Zwift I was feeling prepared. Well, as prepared as I could be given that I don’t have access to 2000-meter high mountains to train on within Zwift.

I was wanting to be able to “hold my own” when we got onto the Grossglockner climb and to be fair I did, right up until 1700 meters.  At 1700m, with the air thinning, we turned one of the many switchbacks and I noticed my heart rate had increased into the anaerobic zone.  This was not good and with still several hundred meters to go, I decided to slow a little, to recover.  The consequence was that I slipped off the back of the select group that contained Andre, several GCN presenters who were also former professionals, and the remaining two amateur riders.

Related post: “An Interview with Andre Greipel”

As the one-meter gap widened to three or four, I gave a sprint to catch back, but that was the worst thing I could have done. Upon catching, I was short of breath and couldn’t keep the pace.  I watched as the group eased away and I was left climbing at my own pace, gasping for air.

It was amazing to witness the strength of the pros and the ease in which Andre was able to climb. It’s important to remember that he is a sprinter, which shows the level of world tour pro riders!

This gulf in ability was further emphasized on the descent.  As I was barreling down the mountain at speeds approaching 70kph and right at the top end of my comfort zone I was overtaken, on the outside, by Andre, followed closely by two of the GCN presenters.  They must have been doing close to 90kph!  At that point I felt the gulf in talent was as wide as the ocean.    

A less hilly route was chosen for the following day, with only 1100 meters of elevation to tackle, but I decided against it given my previous day’s exertions.

For mountain bikers, there were plenty of options to try. The most challenging was scheduled for Sunday and involved six cable cars and the five mountains around Saalbach Hinterglemm and Leogang!

If you are into downhill mountain biking, there are many kilometers of trails to race. And with two gondolas taking you back up the mountain, you can literally spend your days flying downhill! Many did just this, but with mixed results. As the weekend progressed, I saw an increasing number of people walking around with their arms in plaster casts…

Highlights

One of the highlights of the weekend was the event hosted by Zwift called “GCN vs the World.” 

The premise was that 6 GCN presenters would race against riders from across the world.  The challenge was: could the GCN presenters, who had a 2-minute advantage, hold off a chasing peloton of 200 riders?  To make it “fairer,” the GCN presenters raced in a relay, with the riders changing at the halfway point of the 13.1 virtual course.

Read GCN vs The World – Race Report for more details

Riding on Wahoo KICKR smart bikes, positioned center stage and illuminated by the beautiful evening sun, a crowd soon gathered as the event got underway.  Former professional cyclist Chris Pritchard provided live commentary for what proved to be a unique spectacle that saw the GCN presenters hold off the chasing back with meters to spare.      

This event successfully engaged with those who were at the festival but also ensured those who could not make the event could still participate. 

Evening Entertainment

Photo credit James Cheadle.

As the main paddock closed, the evening entertainment moved into a nearby club and continued well into the night, with a host of interactive events spread over the weekend. 

Thursday saw Zwift and Wahoo link up to host their “Crank it Up!” challenge with riders competing for the fastest time up Watopia’s Hilly KOM.  The top three then raced it out for a prize.  This was particularly well received as everyone came together to test their climbing skills, making this a really interactive and special experience.

The following nights, both GCN and GMBN recorded their shows in front of a live audience, giving festival-goers the opportunity to not only see what goes on behind the scenes of the show but also to actively participate.

To round out the evening, well-known DJs such as A-Skillz, Norman Jay MBE, and DJ Yoda were on hand to ensure no one went to bed early.

Summing Up and the Future of the Event

The Global Bike Festival was, without doubt, a special event. It provided me the opportunity to not only meet stars of cycling, and presenters from the well watched shows, but also to ride with them.

The packed and well-prepared agenda ensured that there was always something to watch and/or get involved with.  Furthermore, it provided us with the opportunity to try different cycling disciplines. In fact, bike brand Kona was on hand to lend out their mountain bikes.

A 3-year partnership with the local tourist board means the Play Sports Network and their team will be in attendance next year, with plans to expand the event.

I am left wondering two things: when is it on next year and how do I get invited back? 

Credit: James Cheadle

7 Deadly Wins, Week 1: If I can make it there, I’ll make it anywhere?

Adam Dawson
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3
7 Deadly Wins, Week 1: If I can make it there, I’ll make it anywhere?

7 Deadly Wins, Week 1: If I can make it there, I’ll make it anywhere?

The 7 Deadly Wins challenge is my personal mission to collect a gold trophy in every Zwift Classic, no matter how many tries it takes. You can follow the highs and lows on my Youtube channel, Zwiftaholics. 

Attempt #1: A Multi-Faceted Failure

It started with the stream, which started, stopped, stuttered, and quickly shut down entirely. An apt metaphor for how the race would pan out. 

I went into the race with a premeditated plan to take the outcome into my own hands and win with a bit of style, launching off the front at 1.9km to go with a punchy attack up the shallow rise followed by the knockout blow up through the sprint banner. The bunch, disheartened, would settle for a sprint for second place and I would never be seen again. 

It started so well. The attack surprised the bunch and I held the power in orange numbers for almost 20 seconds. A 40m gap opened up. I was away! I put my head down and powered up the rise, holding 7 W/kg, feather power up activated, feeling good. What would the gap be when I looked back at the screen? 5 seconds? Could it be as much as 8? 

I crested, ready to assess my lead and take in some big breaths on the descent for the final push to the line…but I was not alone. A DIRT rider had shut down the gap entirely and was in my wheel, with the bunch only 1-2s in arrears. I wish the stream or recording had worked so I could go back and marvel at that closing effort. 

The brink of exhaustion is a bad place to be reassessing one’s situation and adjusting a strategy, so I kept it simple. Hold on for dear life, then sprint with whatever’s left. It wasn’t enough. David Husband, the rider who’d closed me down so mercilessly, had managed to kick again and take the win by over half a second. Amazing ride.

I managed to sneak onto the podium in third, but the challenge remained unbeaten. Time to re-roll. 

Attempt #2: Keeping it Simple

I chose this time slot because it had two races an hour apart, figuring I may as well have another go while I was kitted up and warm. No time or energy for advanced tactics or rigorous competitor analysis this time. Basic to basics: conserve as much energy as possible and save it for the sprint. 

It was another attritional race. One rider, Jeff M, seemed to sprout wings every time the road tilted upwards and was always off the front, but we let him dangle and brought him back each time, even if we were losing a few off the back with each surge. 

Things heated up from 3km to go – the same point I’d decided to go back into on-the-bike commentary mode – so you can see the spicy finale below: 

This time things went to plan (apart from getting the dreaded anvil power up through the final banner). Bunched at 400m to go. Shift up twice. Get on top of the gear. All in from 200m. This time when I looked up it was the sight all racers dream of, a clear road between me and the finishing line. One down, six to go. 

Full send mode up the final pinch and clear roads ahead

Watopia Cup Awaits

I have no good memories of Two Bridges Loop. I was dropped on the steep pitch up the Reverse KOM in the Zwift Racing League, and at the same point in the HERD Summer Racing League. I did a woeful ITT around it for the Tri Oceania Challenge. My best result is third, in a one-lap sprint race, after once again being dropped in the exact same spot. 

Nevertheless, that punchy ramp is normally good to me on races that feature the full climb, and I even held onto an A grade field up it twice in a recent hit out. Some cause for optimism, although I will need to survive three ascents next week. 

There’s not a lot of scope for sneaky tactics on this one, unless you’re brave enough to try and gap the field up the hill and hold on to the line. The descent into Downtown provides a nice freshener for the legs and spits riders out at high speed into the final few hundred metres; perfect for those who want to surf wheels and launch their sprint late. 

Racers who want to put the hurt on and thin the field even further could try a surprise move through The Esses, particularly up the final long rise as the fast descent on the other side can distance anyone who loses the wheels over the crest. The hyper-ambitious may even try something out of the Italian Villas and past the waterfall, although you’d need to be feeling on your A-game to juice the legs so close to the decisive ramp up the KOM. 

I’ll be approaching this as a classic battle of attrition. Objective #1 is simply survival, with the hopes of seeing a reduced bunch sprint. 

See you in Watopia. 

Wednesday Worlds: Race the Classics Each Week with Nathan Guerra

Eric Schlange
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0
Wednesday Worlds: Race the Classics Each Week with Nathan Guerra

Wednesday Worlds: Race the Classics Each Week with Nathan Guerra

Nathan Guerra of Zwift Community Live has announced he’ll be racing and live streaming the Zwift Classics each Wednesday at 7:10pm BST/2:10pm EST/11:10am PST on his Twitch channel. His aim is to attract top riders and teams to race in the same event each week.

Each Wednesday’s live stream will feature game interaction (racing!), discussion of bike selection and other tactics, and interviews with racers, directors, or guest hecklers.

He’ll also be keeping an eye on the overall GC contention for the Classics series, taking time to discuss who is doing well and why for both men and women.

Here’s Nathan streaming a Zwift Insider Rebel Race – check out his final attacks:

Top Racers, Top Racing 

This is a prime-time race invitation for all top-level men and women A racers looking to jump in and challenge other top racers (Nathan is ranked in the top 50 racers worldwide as of right now). Looking to boost your ZwiftPower rankings? As stronger racers gather for this one event, points values will increase for each race!

Riders in lower categories are invited to jump in and watch the live stream while doing their own race, or to get tips and tricks on how to race their Classics event later in the week.  

See all upcoming Zwift Classics events: Open Races | Women-Only Races

Long-term, Nathan plans to keep the “Wednesday Worlds” idea going even after the Zwift Classics wrap up. Each Wednesday he’ll be selecting a race to live stream, and he hopes other top racers will jump in and make the events extra interesting.

Guest Rider Opportunity

Nathan told me he’s interested in guest riding for different top esports teams each week. He’d love to race for other top teams while providing an inside look into their team culture, tactics, organization, and DS’ing. 

His goal is to feature different teams each week, plugging himself in where it makes sense to help the team get the best result. He says it will be treated a bit like a Chase Race, though, since the GC contention is something he’s chasing. “Gloves are off for the win if we all come to the line!”

Important Links

Wrapping It Up

Nathan Guerra has been the leading voice of Zwift racing since early days, and his new “Wednesday Worlds” venture is a solid opportunity for individuals and teams. Join the race, get interviewed, or even guest host as a way to highlight your thoughts and the personality behind the avatar. And even if you can’t participate directly, tuning into the stream should provide some top-notch racing action with actionable tips on strategy from some of Zwift’s best racers.

Questions or Comments?

Share below!

Power-Based Racer Rank: Proposing a New Categorization Scheme (Part 2)

Neil Townsend
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39
Power-Based Racer Rank: Proposing a New Categorization Scheme (Part 2)

Power-Based Racer Rank: Proposing a New Categorization Scheme (Part 2)

The goal is to get a better way of ranking riders for Zwift races without the need for a complete race result-based ranking system. In these two articles, a way of doing this using existing power data is being explored. The outcome will be a score for each rider, between 0 and 1000, with each 100 representing approximately 10% of the cycling population, by sex. That way race organisers can set categories to suit their target riders.

In the first article the data from a recent race series was examined to show that each of the eight power measures on Zwift Power influences the race outcome, and that simply looking at one is imperfect.

As a reminder, in that article eight measures of power were compared against race outcomes. The measures were: 15-second power, 1-minute power, 5-minute power, and 20-minute power, each in both watts and w/kg. The final conclusion was that the influence of each of the eight measures on race outcomes was something like this:

To turn this information into a rider ranking, it is logical to make an assumption that there is a link between high power in one measure and high power in another. The analysis so far has not removed this. For the sake of simplicity, we may assume that about half the “shared percentage” in the bars above is highly correlated. Removing this “shared contribution” (and re-setting the percentages so that they sum to 100%) means that the different contributions are accentuated a bit, but none is ignored, and gives this:

Turning Power Into a Rank

For any rider, for any of the power measures, that power can be turned into a rank by comparing where that power is compared to the power data for all riders. For example, if you have a 5-minute power of 4 w/kg, you are 46.5% of the way up the list of male cyclists. If each of the measures we have is turned into a position value using this approach,  then each rider can be given 8 “position” measures between 0 and 100, one per power measure.

To get the final ranking, simply take each of those 8 positions and multiply them by the “percentage influence” from above, add those results up, and then multiply the total by 10. For example:

MeasureValuePositionInfluencePosition x Influence
15s watts62141.011.1%4.555
1 min watts43957.012.3%7.010
5 min watts32464.112.2%7.850
20 min watts27061.77.3%4.504
15s w/kg7.6732.213.1%4.222
1 min w/kg5.4243.514.8%6.435
5 min w/kg4.0046.517.4%8.091
20 min w/kg3.2641.011.7%4.813
   Total x 10:475

So that rider would be welcome, say, in a 400-600 category race.

Final Thoughts

This would provide individual riders with a much clearer sense of their ranking. Race organisers could easily construct their race categories, focussing on different groups of riders with confidence. It could also be extended to specialised classifications (eg for crit or iTT), by varying the influence values.

What do you think? Let me know in the comments below!

Postscript

There is a better way to remove the “shared influence” of the measures, rather than assuming half as above. The approach is to get all the correlations between each pair of coefficients for all the data, and then identify the least correlated pair. Then convert the correlation of that pair into a corrected “shared percentage”, and remove that rather than the 50% assumed in this article.

Postscript 2: Data Sources

The power data used in the original analysis is all available to any Zwift rider who connects with Zwift Power; it has been anonymised in the processing as can be seen. The race data for the original power analysis is from the Dirt Racing Series (who have explicitly given permission for anonymised data use for this analysis). The power to position data in the table above is my personal power to position data from intervals.icu.

Zwift Chartgeist, Volume 4

Eric Schlange
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Zwift Chartgeist, Volume 4

Zwift Chartgeist, Volume 4

Zwift launched the Makuri Islands map in May 2021, then added Neokyo to it in November 2021. We know there are plans to add roads to a virtual version of Mt Fuji at some point (you can even see the mountain in the distance as you ride the map).

Everyone says they want it. But who will actually ride it? That’s always the question when it comes to Zwift climbs. Based on rider stats, big climbs are probably the most oft-requested and seldom-used featured in Zwift.

Traditionally, bike racers reach their ideal race weight/fitness in the summer, then gain weight and lose some fitness in the winter as they step away from competition and hard training to give their bodies and minds a much-needed break.

But Zwift racing is turning that on its head, with many “indoor specialists” peaking in the winter months. These same riders often use the summer months for chill/fun outdoor rides, family vacations, and some casual Zwift racing.

If you’ve followed Zwift Academy Road results over the years, you’ve certainly asked the question: why do so many Aussies and Kiwis win? Do they just make better Zwifters down there? Is it because they live in the upside-down, and the ZA season somehow lines up better with their peak fitness? Or is it something else?

We may never know. But for the record, here is the full list of Zwift Academy winners:

Australia + New Zealand:

  • 2018 – Ella Harris
  • 2019 – Jess Pratt
  • 2020 – Neve Bradbury
  • 2017 – Ollie Jones
  • 2019 – Drew Christensen
  • 2020 – Jay Vine
  • 2021 – Alex Bogna

Everyone else:

  • 2016 – Leah Thorvilson
  • 2017 – Tanja Erath
  • 2021 – Maud Oudeman
  • 2018 – Martin Lavric

Your Thoughts

What do you think of this first set of Zwift charts? Got an idea for a useful chart we could put together? Share below!

Power-Based Racer Rank: Proposing a New Categorization Scheme (Part 1)

Neil Townsend
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30
Power-Based Racer Rank: Proposing a New Categorization Scheme (Part 1)

Power-Based Racer Rank: Proposing a New Categorization Scheme (Part 1)

Put simply: when Zwift started, it was not designed as a competitive system. It was designed to make riding indoors fun, and that it does.

But ever since the dawn of Zwift, people have raced on Zwift. And there has been one consistent challenge: can we have racing that is fair and fun please?

To split races into categories for a more engaging/competitive experience, a categorisation system emerged: A, B, C, and D, (effectively) set by the rider’s maximum 20-minute w/kg power. This was a very good start, but an ideal next step would be a ranking system which ranks each rider, say between 0 and 1000 with 10% of riders in each 100. In this article and the next, a reasonable way of doing that will be explored. Let’s dive in!

The Data

From data that is now easily available online through ZwiftPower, it is possible to see which of 8 possible power rankings most correlates to race results. Those eight measures are: 15-second power, 1-minute power, 5-minute power, and 20-minute power, each measured both in watts and in watts per kilogram (wkg).

Furthermore, a wonderful team of DIRT riders recently put on the Dirt Racing Series. This provided a series of races by the same group of riders. Using the rider power data and the race results allows us to look at how a rider’s power metric links to their race placing:

20-minute power in w/kg
1-minute power in watts

The left chart shows the 20-minute power (in w/kg) of the riders by place in the race for the lowest category (combined C and D) on the crit-style race in the series. On the right, 1-minute power (in watts) of the riders by place in the same race. The graphs are a bit skewed by the different scales on the left, which make comparison hard. To make things clearer, the data can be scaled so that the highest power in the set is scaled to 1, and the other power values are scaled accordingly. The data then looks like this:

20-minute power in w/kg
1-minute power in watts

Clearly, the second one (1-minute power in watts) influenced the outcome more than the first one (20-minute power in w/kg).

The Analysis

There are a number of ways to work out the correlation between data (in this case, each of the 8 power measures), and a result (in this case, race rank). In this analysis, three ways were picked for comparison: The slope of the best line fit, the Pearson coefficient, and the Spearman coefficient. On the graphs above you can see these for the data (as well as the covariance, which was there for sanity checking the results).

They are negative (as expected) because the line goes downwards, (ie the less power, the higher (in number) the finish position). The bigger (ie more negative) the measures are, the more that that input (rider’s power data) is linked to the output (their finishing position in the race).

One race is interesting, but much more can be learned from combing information from lots of races. As an example, using the “B” group in this race series, all of the race results can be combined to get a set of graphs. Here they are for 1-minute power in watts and the 20-minute power in w/kg (with normalisation of the power applied so make the scales are comparable) combining all the information from all of the B group races (except the Team Time Trial, see postscript 1):

1-minute power in watts
20-minute power in w/kg

For each data collection, there are three possible values (slope, Pearson, and Spearman) for each of the eight measures. To simplify things, the actual values can be turned into a “percentage contribution”. For the Pearson coefficient for all of the C+ category races, here’s what that means:

Becomes:

And this means we now have an idea of the “percentage contribution” that a particular power measure makes to the rider’s result. Those percentages can then be averaged across all of the power categories. Pearson, again, now for all races, all race categories:

To balance out differences between the three measures (Pearson, slope, and Spearman), they can be averaged, which gives:

This now gives an idea of the influence of each power measure on the race outcome. In conclusion: Every power measure is linked to the outcome, but some more than others. Not surprisingly, 20-minute power in watts is the least influential, whilst 5 and 1-minute power in w/kg (accelerations and short climbs) are the most influential.

So that’s the analysis. The next article will explore how to use this information to create a clear way of ranking riders that should give good categories which can be determined easily by race organisers to suit the riders they expect in the race.

Postscript: A Couple of Questions You Might Ask

The categories which riders signed up for in the races used to create the charts above were set using 20-minute w/kg power, meaning that there is less scope for variation in that power than the others. This means that this analysis might be biased against its influence. Indeed, it does have a bit more influence in the top and bottom categories (A/A+ and combined C/D) than the middle ones, which agrees with this concern. However, it is not very significant, and the combining of all the categories together will come close to resolving that.

Secondly: what about different types of racing? This analysis combines different types of racing (an individual time trial, two general races, and a crit). It doesn’t include the TTT data as no simple way was found to link those team results to each individual’s performance that is consistent with the rest of the analysis. However, examining the race data by race type shows what we would expect given everything else so far: the iTT races are more influenced by the longer power measures (5 and 20-minute), crit racing by the shorter ones (15s and 1-minute), but not to the exclusion of the others. Overall, the data from these races suggests that, for an overall “racer assessment”, the ratios given above remain sensible, although there is one nuance that will be addressed in the next article.

Postscript 2: Data Sources

The power data used in this analysis is available to any Zwift rider who connects with Zwift Power; it has been anonymised in the processing as can be seen. The race data is from the Dirt Racing Series (who have explicitly given permission for anonymised data use for this analysis).

Questions or Comments?

Share below!

Pace Partner Weekly Update: Alpe Pacers and Fresh Routes

Eric Schlange
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14
Pace Partner Weekly Update: Alpe Pacers and Fresh Routes

Pace Partner Weekly Update: Alpe Pacers and Fresh Routes

James Bailey and friends have continued with their weekly testing and tweaking of Pace Partners to dial in the best mix of bots, paces, routes, and events.

Beginning tomorrow, Pace Partners will be heading back to the Alpe to pace riders in honor of the Queen’s Stage of the Tour de France. We’ve also got a new mix of routes for the other pace partners, so let’s dig into the latest Pace Partner news!

This Week’s Ride Routes

Riding routes for each Pace Partner have been changed this week. James notes, “In terms of route selection in Watopia moving forwards, I’ve finalised a list of 8 routes for the Pace Partners to follow. You can see these in the schedule below (missing is Triple Flat Loops). Of these routes, 2 are hilly, the other 6 are flat and will form the ongoing rotation for the Watopia riders.”

Watopia:

Makuri Island Pace Partners will remain in France for another 3 weeks.

France:

Smarter Power Modulation Update

Last week, Zwift introduced smarter power modulation to Pace Partners. It sounds like that new scheme will stay in place, as James noted in the latest update, “We began using Dynamic pacing from 1-3%, rather than just 3%+ which I feel is working well and will remain in place.”

Celebrating the Queen’s Stage of TdF

From Tuesday to Thursday this week, Zwift is hosting a number of Alpe Pacer events to celebrate the Queen’s Stage in the Tour De Frace!

See upcoming events at zwift.com/events/tag/festivaldalpe

Pace Partners are set up to complete the climb in 49 minutes, 59 minutes, 69 minutes, 89 minutes, and 119 minutes. Choose your desired pace! The pacers will run at 2/3 of their climbing pace during the lead-in.

In terms of route selection in Watopia moving forwards, I’ve finalised a list of 8 routes for the Pace Partners to follow. You can see these in the schedule below (missing is Triple Flat Loops). Of these routes, 2 are hilly, the other 6 are flat and will form the ongoing rotation for the Watopia riders.

Running Bots on the Volcano Circuit

Run bots are warming up on laps of That’s Amore this week, with plans to change the featured route each week. There are 11 run bots at a wide range of paces, so if runners want a bit of company, there’s a bot available:

  • Michael Midsole: 10:00/km
  • David Doubles: 9:00/km
  • Tracey Trot: 8:00/km
  • Albert Amble: 7:30/km
  • Sarah Stride: 7:00/km
  • Benito Bounder: 6:30/km
  • Hettie Hare: 6:00/km
  • Brendan Bolter: 5:30/km
  • Rebecca Rocket: 5:00/km
  • Stuart Speedster: 4:30/km
  • Patricia Pacemaker: 4:00/km

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10,269 Daily Rides In a Row: An Interview with Jim Langley

Eric Schlange
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10,269 Daily Rides In a Row: An Interview with Jim Langley

10,269 Daily Rides In a Row: An Interview with Jim Langley

Just a few weeks ago I was spinning my legs in a Pace Partner group when a noticed a rider name I hadn’t seen before: “J. Langley (10,269 Daily Rides In a Row)”.

My first thought was, “That’s a lot of rides!” I did the math and realized that worked out to over 28 years of daily riding, which sounded even more impressive than the daily ride number. I had to know the story behind this riding streak, so I reached out via a Zwift pm.

Turns out, Jim Langley is quite an interesting dude: a competitive racer, a gifted bike mechanic, and truly an ambassador for cycling. Enjoy the interview!

Riding every day for 10,269 days… what an amazing accomplishment! Tell me how it all began.

I ran cross country in high school and as a huge running fan I knew about Ron Hill, the great British marathoner who ran a 2:09 and won the Boston Marathon. He was famous for running every day and a couple of us decided we’d try to do it but we never made it more than a week or ten days.

The idea stuck with me though. Fast forward to 1989 when I started working as a technical editor for Bicycling Magazine. Some of the other editors were doing amazing things like Ed Pavelka who was setting cross-state records and later set a RAAM team world record for 50+ racers. I had been an athlete long enough to know I wasn’t capable of setting world records like Ed. But, I remembered Ron Hill and I decided to see if I could keep riding every day in a row for 5 years, which I thought would be something the other editors would respect. 

And how did it end?

Well, the first streak from 1990 to 1993 ended with falling on black ice in the Santa Cruz Mountains and breaking my hip. Which was incredibly frustrating and made me even more determined to try again!

So I started back up in late December of 93 and kept the streak going until last February. This time, it was sepsis that did me in, an awful urinary tract infection resulting from what was supposed to be a routine prostate procedure – when they say “routine,” you know it’s anything but ;-). The funny thing about it was that we were camped in our RV in Tombstone, Arizona at the time I got sick, a fitting place for my streak to die I guess. 

Ouch. Tough way to end your incredible streak… but I suppose it was never going to end easily.

My guess is Zwift was at least a nice diversion on those days when you needed to ride indoors. Any idea how many rides you spent staring at a wall before Zwift came along? How much of your riding was indoors vs outdoors?

I’m glad you asked this question because most cyclists assume that I would ride outside every day. But, I set my own requirements for a ride to “count.” For a ride to count towards my streak I had to go for what I considered a “real” ride. And to me that meant suiting up and riding for about an hour. A ride to the store and back or around the neighborhood wouldn’t count. But it was fine to ride indoors as long as it was still a real ride.

In the early years it was always harder to ride indoors than outdoors due to extreme boredom. Zwift has been a godsend in that department – such a game-changer! To answer your question, I used to only ride indoors if it was before or after dark or the weather was bad. So not that often at first. But later during my racing years and as indoor trainers improved, I started riding more indoors because I could monitor my effort better to dial in my training. And on Zwift I was super motivated to ride every course and get all the badges, break an hour up the Alpe and get the Tron bike and Lightweight wheels!

You say your indoor riding increased as trainers improved. Apart from staring at the wall, what indoor platforms have you used over the years, and how would you compare Zwift to these platforms?

I can’t really answer this question because Zwift is the first virtual indoor platform I have used long-term. I was the new products editor of Bicycling Magazine so all through the years I saw indoor trainers change from rollers to wind trainers to magnetic to hydraulic and then the early electronic ones. And I had a chance to try quite a few as an editor.

But the thing is that as the new virtual trainers came out I was being coached by Mark Edwards who had us all on regimented trainer workouts. We all used Power Tap hub-based watt meters. And Coach was an expert at changing up the workouts so we never got bored. Since this worked so well, I didn’t have any interest in changing to a modern platform. Basically I was worried it would hurt my racing.

What changed my mind was when a good friend gifted me a Tacx Neo 2 ON THE CONDITION that I had to promise to ride it. He did that because he wanted to ride with me in Zwift so how could I say no?

What is your current Zwift setup (trainer, display, etc)?

I have a Tacx Neo 2T with an Apple TV and an LG 42″ flatscreen. I have an iPhone 11 running the Companion app. Knock on wood but I haven’t had any issues with this setup. Once in a while the wi-fi signal in the garage goes out (the router is in the house kind of far away) but Zwift keeps trying and eventually reconnects. Most of the time though it’s rock solid.

Oh, the Apple TV remote is a pain to use.

You say riding every day will wear you down eventually, and I totally believe that! I definitely start feeling it in my own body if I’m riding daily and pushing my efforts on some of those rides.

What advice would you give to help people who struggle physically with riding daily? How can you build up that mental/physical endurance, stay healthy, and keep yourself motivated?

One of the reasons I started my riding streak was because I was lacking motivation. I figured that having the goal of riding daily would give me something to look forward to because every ride would add one day to my streak. But, I quickly realized that even though I was relatively young and pretty fit, riding every day is a lot to ask of your body, especially if you ride too far or too hard.

The key was to have some rest days, usually Tuesdays, Fridays, and Sundays in my schedule. On these days I would limit the distance and effort, focusing more on spinning, easier gears, flatter terrain, and recovery. The rest days are a form of motivation, too, since you look forward to the break.

Motivation is a mind game, though. You need lots of tricks 😉 Some of mine include:

  • buy some cool new bike component or accessory to look forward to using
  • clean your bike or even just your drivetrain or put on new tape – voila, bike feels new!
  • a new kit, new shoes, new helmet, etc. can fire you up for a while
  • new routes to ride are motivating
  • bored of a certain loop? Ride it in reverse or add/change it up a little!
  • to motivate yourself to ride further, plan a route with a coffee shop halfway or a nice view, etc. something to look forward to
  • find or make a riding buddy and you both choose a goal to try for
  • join a cycling team or club with regular rides
  • listening to audiobooks or episodic podcasts on rides is awesome for giving you something to look forward to (use safe technology to listen)
  • I put my iPhone on my stem with a Rockform mount. I tell Siri to play NPR radio and listen to sportstalk, etc. No headphones. I just listen to the iPhone’s speaker. It’s great for doing intervals to get your mind off the suffering.
  • group rides are motivating IRL and in Zwift
  • I found the Zwift route badges super motivating, just wish there were more now
  • setting IRL event goals is great motivation, too. Hill climbs, time trials, gravel events, etc. These are getting more expensive, but then again it’s worth it because that money should fire you up to keep riding.
  • on Zwift it’s motivating to try to beat your personal records on timed segments – the only problem is that Zwift doesn’t actually save your best times as far as I can tell – only your best for the past certain amount of time. I wish they’d fix that.

Regarding staying healthy, the biggest challenge with riding every day or just training seriously is overtraining. If you push yourself too hard and don’t get enough rest you’ll find yourself unmotivated, depressed, and feeling awful all the time – not just when you’re riding. I don’t know the secret to guarantee you never overtrain. The only advice I can give is to watch for the signs and back off on the hard efforts if you’re feeling lousy – and you will probably need to go easy for at least a week if you’re badly overtrained.

For me the two key signs of overtraining are insomnia (feeling anxious as you’re trying to get to sleep or waking during the night feeling that way), a general feeling of malais or mild depression, and a lack of interest in anything throughout the day. If I start feeling that way, alarm bells start sounding so I ride easy until I’m back to my old self because that’s the only way to cure overtraining.

What sort of outdoor riding did you do during your streak? Did you mix up long and short rides, races and leisure? Was it mostly solo rides, or rides with friends?

I have done all those, Eric. At first I was mostly riding for fitness and to be ready to do events like the annual Sea Otter Classic here and weekly group rides. At Bicycling Magazine and later running SmartEtailing (we did websites for bicycle retailers) I would attend events, too, such as centuries and festivals and industry stuff like Interbike. I always wanted to be able to hang with the fast riders so the streak’s purpose was to keep me in top form.

I tend to ride solo more than with groups or friends but only because I have a family and I needed most of the years of the streak to be home early. It’s hard to find people who enjoy riding at 5 a.m. 😉 In the mid 2000s though while out alone I came upon a group doing hill repeats. They asked me if I wanted to join, which I did. It was a fun group and the coach leading the ride asked if I’d like to join a team with him and the other guys.

That led to racing on a couple of masters teams over a 12-13 year period, which was a blast. I won my share of age-group races and finally won a California State Championships in the 65+ Men’s Individual Time Trial in 2018. That was a major accomplishment because I had tried since my first State Championship in 1984 and across all disciplines (road, criterium, time trial, cyclocross even mountain bike). I got lots of second and thirds but never the gold until 2018 – never ever thought it would take so long.

State Champion’s jersey!

Tell me about the bikes you ride during your streak. And did you always have a spare available just in case?

The bike that made the biggest difference in keeping the streak alive was my Bike Friday Pocket Rocket Pro. They knew about my streak and set me up with the bike gratis – I did review it for Bicycling Magazine and I know the review sold a bunch of bikes. It’s an amazing riding bike plus it goes in a standard suitcase, which flies for free since you’d never even know a bike’s inside. The suitcase even turns into a trailer to pull behind the bike when you get to your destination.

That bike saved me every time I flew somewhere, though there were some scary moments. Like the time our flight to Maui was delayed and we didn’t arrive until 10:30pm, meaning I only had a little over an hour to get my ride in. I didn’t have lights so I stopped at a 7-11, bought tape, flashlights, and batteries and managed to get my hour in – in the pouring rain. My wife was having none of it.

Most of my rides were done on a Litespeed Vortex (I had 3 of them – long story), a couple different Cervelos, and various Specialized and Trek mountain bikes.

Jim on his highwheel
Racing cyclocross

I know you’ve done a lot of work with Bicycling Magazine and other cycling-related publications, as well as maintaining a popular YouTube channel… did you find that your life become more cycling-centric as your streak grew, or did daily riding just get slotted into your everyday life?

Like a lot of die-hard cyclists, I fell in love with bikes when I was just a kid. I loved riding them and was just as excited about figuring out how they worked and how to fix them. And the very best thing was being able to take off and see places I’d never seen before. So I don’t think that changed much, but having a streak does give you an important daily goal and that develops a life of its own.  

Jim racing cyclocross in 1984

Keeping up the daily regime must have affected various aspects of your life. Tell us more about yourself – what do you do for work, where do you live, etc?

I live in Santa Cruz, California and I’ve been a bike guy my whole life. In high school I started working in bike shops and kept that up for 17 years in 5 different shops. Along the way I started writing about how to fix bikes for a number of different magazines, which led to becoming the west coast technical editor of Bicycling Magazine. Most recently I’ve been an engineer and wheel builder at Praxis here in Santa Cruz, maker of cranksets, bottom brackets and rims. I also have a weekly column called Jim’s Tech Talk which is on RoadBikeRider.com.

Jim in the Praxis shop

Riding every day is definitely easier if you’re working with others who appreciate how essential your daily ride is to you. So for most of my streak I could fit rides in on most workdays because of that, which was super lucky.

Riding daily for 28 years is a life-changing accomplishment, for sure. What were the positive benefits you received from riding daily? Were there negative effects that you had to battle as well?

I get asked this a lot so I made the following list of benefits to share with people. It’s long, but only because so many good things happen from biking every day:

  • Always feeling comfortable on the bike – never needing to get used to the saddle again, etc.
  • The ability to quickly raise my fitness as needed to do any fun ride, event or race and be competitive if I wanted
  • Strong motivation – every ride motivates you to keep riding as your streak total grows
  • See the world on two wheels – due to my daily ride requirement I have ridden in all kinds of places I probably would not have otherwise and I have wonderful memories of these adventures
  • Keeps you healthy – As soon as I started streaking I noticed I almost never got sick and if I did feel a little off I would bounce back after riding (the sickness that ended my streak is the first time I’ve been that seriously ill since a battle with pneumonia in college)
  • Keeps you young – during the streak I’ve been told many times from friends, competitors and family that they’re surprised how young I look (and I feel younger than my age). So I think there’s something to this.
  • Streaking is something to be proud of – friends and family may think you’re a little crazy, but it’s highly satisfying to keep riding every day for a while and it’s not something very many cyclists do for very long. I know it’s inspiring to other riders, too, because they’ve told me so.
  • Streaking will likely lead to other positive lifestyle changes – for me, it required having a plan for my rides, my bikes, my work, my nutrition, rest, and everything else. I think having to organize your life and have a set schedule and healthy habits like this is a wonderful thing especially for achieving goals. It did not make me less productive, either, it made me more productive.

For negatives I would say that streaking can make you feel guilty. After all, it’s basically a selfish for-yourself-only goal. You can argue that you wouldn’t be fun to be around if you didn’t get your ride in, but it’s also true that while you’re riding your loved ones could be worried about you or wishing you were around more. To combat the guilt I tried to always ride when it had the least impact on the family.

The other negative is that depending on your body, age, and personality riding every day might wear you down eventually. I have always been competitive and 25 years into my streak including lots of hard training and racing and some bad crashes, I finally started having pain with every turn of the pedals. Now if I had started streaking at 18 years old, it definitely wouldn’t have been an issue most likely. But I started at 40 years old.

Do you hold the world record for streak cycling? Is there even an official record?

As far as I’ve been able to determine only runners have a governing body of streaking with record-keeping and Ron Hill is the world champion at 52 years!! (See runeveryday.com.)

I do know of other cycling streaks a little different than mine (most are mileage-based), which I try to keep track of on my Streak Athletes webpage.

What advice would you give to anyone interested in becoming a “streak cyclist”?

Streaking isn’t that hard as long as you love riding your bike. I always say ‘you brush your teeth every day, right?’ Streaking is kind of like that – something you commit to every single day. Also, you’ve got 24 hours every day to work with. You only need to fit in that daily ride and who doesn’t waste a couple hours of every day?

Once you commit and stick with it for only a few days your streak will gain a momentum of its own. As weeks turn into months, you get fired up to make it to a year. Even after only a few months it’s something you can be really proud of. When you tell your riding pals they probably won’t believe you but as you convince them they’ll be impressed and then you’ll be motivated by them as they keep asking you if your streak is still alive.

It gets very exciting and fun for most streakers I’ve talked to and heard from. I encourage anyone with an interest to give it a try because I know they can do it for at least a good number of days and they’ll be really happy they did.

Your Thoughts

Comment below!

Notable Zwift Events for the Weekend of July 9-10

Tim Perkin
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Notable Zwift Events for the Weekend of July 9-10

With the Tour de France getting going, I thought once again I would highlight events which are related to France and the biggest race in the cycling calendar.  In addition, I have included a bit of a unique event to try for fun.


Watch the Femmes – Stage 2

A nice 25km ride on the R.G.V. course in France.  By completing this event, you get to bag some new kit because as the ride description states: “All rides will unlock the Watch the Femmes cap and socks.”

Sign up for the Watch the Femmes Mission in game and ride any 8 events to unlock the Watch the Femmes kit!

Multiple dates and timeslots
See a list of upcoming events at zwift.com/watch-the-femmes-mission


Chasing Yellow: Stage 6

This concept of racing routes of the Tour de France on Zwift, whilst simultaneously watching it on TV is a good one, and I would enjoy participating in it if I didn’t have my day job!

Read more about the Chasing Yellow series >

The course on Sunday is La Reine, where you tackle Ven-Top. Granted, this event finishes at the Chalet, but considering you have done the hard part, you might as well go all the way to the top! This 22.9km is not for the faint-hearted, though. This is a tough climb – arguably one the toughest on Zwift – but the sense of satisfaction when you complete it is nice.  Well worth the struggle, if you fancy a challenge.

Sunday July 10 @ 1:15pm BST/8:15pm EDT/5:15am PDT
Sign up at zwift.com/events/view/3042813


LEQP Provence Badge Hunter Series

Tire-Bouchon, 63.9km in France.  I got this very badge riding with LEQP Provence two years ago, and I remember it still as it was my early days using Zwift and I was new to group rides. To this day, these are some of my favourite group rides.  If you are new to Zwift, there are no better people to ride with to “learn the ropes,” as they say. 

This ride uses doubledraft mode to help riders stay together, and includes a LEQP jersey unlock for finishers!

Sunday July 10 @ 7:30am BST/2:30am EDT, Saturday July 2 @ 11:30pm PDT
Sign up at zwift.com/events/view/3057894


The Stampede (iTT) by Herd Racing League

The Herd host some really great events. I particularly like the innovative ones, and this is one of those. This is a 3km time trial on the Neon Flats. I’ve only ever competed in one shorter race! This is a bit of a tricky event to race, it’s not quite long enough for a 5-minute power blast but too long for a 1-minute power effort. I’m already frightened at how much this is going to hurt.

Sunday July 10 @ 7pm BST/2pm EDT/11am PDT
Sign up at zwift.com/events/view/3060545

Your Thoughts

Got other events that stand out this weekend? Share below in the comments!

The Zwiftaholics Classics Challenge: 7 Deadly Wins

Adam Dawson
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6
The Zwiftaholics Classics Challenge: 7 Deadly Wins

The Zwiftaholics Classics Challenge: 7 Deadly Wins

Racing on Zwift is unquestionably a vice of mine. I greedily hoard those little digital trophies on ZwiftPower, take a little too much pride in virtual glory, enviously look at racers with 15+ W/kg sprints, lust after a Mathieu Van Der Poel-esque thermonuclear attack, and can quickly be moved to anger by an ill-timed dropout. Once the racing is done, I typically skip a cool down so I can progress straight to sloth, gluttony, or both (usually both). 

This year we return to the 2020 format of the Zwift Classics, with many opportunities to race each course during their featured week. That was all it took for the little devil on my shoulder to start whispering in my ear: “Try to win them all”.

My teammates know by now that I’m fond of a little panache, often agonizing all week over the possibilities for searching surges, counterattacks, or a glorious long-range solo move. Is there any better feeling than riding away with a race?

More often than not, the pace of the race and quality of my competitors put paid to any exotic tactics, and we are back to “hold on and sprint with whatever’s left” territory. But the Classics format this year has capacity for chaos. 

Category enforcement is on to help eliminate any flyers who might turn the race into a leg-sapping endurance challenge, and the sheer number of events should mean smaller fields on average. That sets the stage for spicy racing. Point-scoring intermediate sprints and KOMs, which can totally change the complexion of a route, are sadly missing, but this makes winning in unconventional ways even more elusive and appealing. 

Together this makes for an appealing personal challenge. Score a win on each course, with bonus points for flair. 

First up is Astoria Line 8, which takes in all of the ground-level roads of New York and happily sails past the glass roads which have put paid to many of my racing ambitions. A long attack from Harlem Hill, the route’s main challenge, would require a strong 10-minute solo effort to the line. That’s well outside my sweet spot.

The short rise through the intermediate sprint banner is the other option which may tempt those who don’t fancy their luck up the short steep pinch to the finish line. For the Bs that’s between a 90-second and 2-minute effort, but it’ll be no small feat staying off the front with the peloton picking up speed on the mostly downhill run to the finish. 

Of course, if all else fails, there’s always the frantic 20-second dash up ‘Cat’s Paw Hill’ to the line!

I’ll be channeling the spirit of Ricky Bobby in this series – “if you’re not first, you’re last!” The thought of getting pipped on the line and having to repeat the whole affair until a win materializes is strong motivation to take matters into my own hands, and legs! I’ll be streaming the highs and the lows on my Zwiftaholics channel on YouTube and it’d be great to have your company, whether that’s to cheer, jeer, or take me on to try and spoil the party. 

See you in New York!

Your Thoughts

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