The story of Zwift’s rider leader fence (aka “The Fence”) is a bit messy. Created as a way to keep group rides together, the idea was that a holographic fence could be set to stay a certain number of seconds ahead of the ride leader, and if riders went past it (some call them flyers, I call them zinners) they would get removed from the ride after a certain amount of time.
It launched in March 2019, was embraced by many event leaders, and seemed to work quite nicely. Then the cracks started to show. Riders began complaining that they were getting booted from rides even though they were behind the fence, behaving nicely. Heck, I had it happen to me more than once! In February 2020 ride leaders were informed that Zwift was disabling the fence immediately, then in August 2020 the fence returned, but without zapping powers – it just displayed a stern message.
And that’s where things have stayed for the past 21 months.
Jon’s Skunkworks
To the typical Zwifter it may have appeared as though Zwift had ceased working on mending the fence. But at ZwiftHQ, staffers were still trying to return it to its zinner-zapping glory.
It wasn’t an easy fix, though. In order for the fence to work seamlessly the game has to:
Know the precise location of the rider leader
Accurately place the fence a certain number of seconds ahead of the rider leader
Know your precise location in relation to the fence
We often saw temporary issues at intersections, which wasn’t surprising. And Zwift’s Pack Dynamics 3.0 supposedly made rider locations much more precise – but that didn’t seem to be enough.
Eventually the problem made its way to game creator Jon Mayfield’s desk. (I imagine his custom-lit R&D station is located deep in the bowels of ZwiftHQ, surrounded by piles of torn up smart trainers and a rowing machine just begging to be used.)
Nobody knows Zwift’s inner workings like Jon. He created it, after all. And word is Jon and his team fixed the fence!
Zinner Zapper Now Available
The fence is visible if you are close enoughRide through the fence and you’ll get this warning and countdownHere is what ride leaders see for fence controls and stats
The upgraded fence has been used in ~10 test events, and is now being made available to group ride organizers.
(Note: Zwift says there are some issues in London and Yorkshire that will be addressed in an upcoming fix, so if your event is on these maps you may want to hold off on using “kick mode”.)
Currently just 48 upcoming events are zapping zinners. But I would guess this number will increase substantially once event organizers have regained trust in the fence.
Yesterday Zwift announced the six members of the Zwift Academy Run Team 2022.
According to Zwift’s press release, “Over 12,000 runners signed up for Zwift Academy Run. All those that completed the program’s 8 structured workouts and 2 progress runs, graduated with a chance to make the final team selection process. The final six members are runners from a variety of different backgrounds, each with an interesting story to tell.”
From across the globe, here are the members of Zwift Academy Run 2022:
Kristin Mclane, USA: Kristin runs a computer software company. She is a former professional road cyclist, has run a number of half marathons but this will be Kristin’s first marathon. She is hoping for a time of 3 hours and 45 minutes.
Maria Kerres, Germany: Maria is qualifying to become a tax officer. This is her first marathon and she is hoping to run under 2 hours 35 minutes.
Stacy Frogley, Australia: Stacy is a history teacher in Australia. She hopes to beat her current best marathon time while also qualifying for the Boston marathon.
Kevin Lohner, USA: Kevin lives in California and works with rockets. His goal for ZA is to run his fastest possible race and to learn from the coaches and team to keep improving for many years to come.
Andrew Humphries, UK: Andrew is a lawyer, he ran through school but stopped due to a couple niggling injuries, returned to running after meeting his wife. Starting with Parkruns, Andrew has run a few marathons with a current PB of 2.41, he is hoping to run sub 2.30 in Berlin.
Sunny Lee Yu Kein, Malaysia: Sunny works in a logistics business, finding running at 39 but has since become an integral part of his life. His goal for ZA is to qualify for Boston and run a sub-3 hour marathon.
Berlin Marathon Prep
Team members will receive coaching and mentorship in preparation for running the Berlin Marathon from coaches Terrence Mahon and Jen Rhines.
The full team will meet for the first time at a team camp in California in July. Team members have a wide range of goals, with some trying to run under 2 hours 30 minutes while others are looking to break 4 hours with their first marathon.
Team Sponsors
The team is backed by Zwift, but also a variety of additional sponsors:
HERD SHEries and HEries Announced Beginning May 31
The HERD team has announced a fresh race series beginning Tuesday, May 31 and running weekly for 6 weeks. It’s another popular season of the HERD SHEries for ladies, but there’s also a men-only HEries this time around.
The inventive series features some unique race formats (details below) including individual time trials, short “sprint” races, and events where only your segment times count!
Series Basics:
Separate Men’s only and Women’s only races
Every Tuesday from May 31st for 6 weeks
Riders must enter the same time each week if they are going for a series win
This is a 12.5km Individual Time Trial which will use the Time Trial module, so everyone will set off at different times. Pace yourself and push as hard as you dare over the the lap to try and set the best time you can.
Draft is disabled for this event and you can choose whichever frame and wheel-set combination that you like.
This is a single-lap race of the Neokyo All-Nighter route. The winner is the first person to cross the finish line. Make sure you time your sprint well!
Double Draft is enabled, as well as an open bike selection.
This is a 3km Individual Time Trial using the Time Trial Module. Pace yourself as hard as you dare over the 3,000m route and set the best time you can!
Draft is disabled and there is an open bike selection. Fit your fastest and leanest TT outfit and bury yourself for 5 minutes or so!
This race is a single lap of Watopia Figure 8, but only the 4 segments count – you’ll score points on these for your time on the segment versus those in your category. Up to 50 points will be available for each segment and your position over the finish line DOES NOT COUNT.
Hilly KQOM Forward
Hilly KQOM Reverse
Watopia Sprint Forwards
Watopia Sprint Reverse
Draft is enabled and there is open bike selection.
This won’t take long! It is a single-lap dash around the Innsbruckring course – the winner is the first over the line.
Double Draft is enabled and you have an open bike selection. Will you go all out aero, or choose an all-rounder to get you over that nasty Leg Snapper?
Race Schedule
Each week has four timeslots for men and four for women.
While you can jump in and race just one or two events in the series, the real competition is for the overall points win! In order to be a contender, you’ll need to race the same timeslot each week. Here are links to the overall series standings for each timeslot of the Men’s and Women’s series:
Pace Partners Updated: Fresh Routes, More Bots, Dynamic Pacing
In the past few weeks, Zwift staffers have been doing a lot of experimenting with Pace Partners on Watopia and Makuri Islands. And they’re not done yet!
First, it was announced that Pace Partners would be removed from Makuri Islands altogether, and new Pace Partners would be added to Watopia. Then the decision to remove Pace Partners from Makuri Islands was reversed, partly because many Zwifters said they liked the smaller Pace Partner groups on Makuri Islands.
If you have access to the new homescreen UI, here’s what you’ll see for Pace Partners as of today:
That’s right – after 1.5 years with just 4 Pace Partners, we suddenly have 11!
James Bailey (a top-notch human who now works at Zwift but was a longtime Zwifter and event organizer before that) posted these details on the Zwift Riders Facebook page a few days ago:
Just a short update to let you know what routes are coming up next week.
We’re also adding dynamic pacing to ALL Pace Partners. This will mean that they put out 10% MORE power when the gradient is equal to or more than 3%. They will put out 20% LESS power when the gradient is equal to or more than -3%.
A few noteworthy things about James’ post:
We’ve got lots of new Pace Partners, mostly in the lower paces where Zwift says the largest portion of free riding is done in game.
Lots of fresh routes are being used which have never been trod by Pace Partners in the past.
Dynamic pacing has now rolled out to all Pace Partners, making the group ride experience over climbs and descents more realistic and natural.
It’s refreshing to see Zwift staff posting directly to Facebook groups again. Feels like the good ol’ days!
Along with the fun Pace Partner updates above, there are a handful of “gotchas” worth mentioning when it comes to Zwift’s Pace Partners as of today. Plus a fun new challenge!
Home Screen Gotcha
If you aren’t yet seeing the new homescreen (it’s still rolling out to iOS, Android, and AppleTV users) you will only be able to see the list of Makuri Islands Pace Partners on days when the Makuri Islands world is part of the guest map rotation schedule.
Disjoined Joins
Some Zwifters (particularly on iOS, Android, and AppleTV) have complained that when they click to join a Pace Partner, they aren’t placed in the Pace Partner’s group correctly. This is a known bug, and it’s not consistent, so my best advice is to just end your ride and try rejoining the Pace Partner again.
Suspension Bridge Wormhole
This is a fun one. When riding with C. Cadence this morning on the Ocean Lava Cliffside Loop, at a certain spot on the suspension bridge descent all other riders disappeared.
They returned perhaps 20 seconds later. As it turns out, this happens on every lap in the same spot!
I checked with James, and this is another known bug Zwift is working on.
Route Badges with Pace Partners
Now that Pace Partners are riding on lots of new routes, some Zwifters have wondered if we earn route badges when riding with Pace Partners. The answer is yes, you do. But only if you join the Pace Partner from the home screen menu! Three gotchas here:
You’ll only earn the badge if you join a Pace Partner from the home screen. Doing this sets your “route” before you drop into the game, so the game knows to give you the achievement badge when you finish the route. If you just see a Pace Partner while you’re out free riding, then choose to manually turn and stay in that Pace Partner’s group, the game doesn’t know you’ve switched routes and won’t give you credit for the new route, even if you complete it.
Chances are you won’t be dropped in with the Pace Partner just before the start of the route. You’ll probably be dropped somewhere in the middle (or just after the start if you have bad luck). You have to pass the route start point and ride all the way to the route finish line in order to get the badge.
There’s no route progress bar when riding with a Pace Partner, so you may need to look up the route you’re on in order to figure out how long you have to ride. Refer to our Master Routes List if you need a little help.
Expect Change
In talking with James and others at ZwiftHQ, they’ve repeatedly stressed that Zwift’s Pace Partners are in flux, with lots of parameters and options being tested so Zwift can deliver an optimal experience.
Zwift is changing Pace Partner behavior and reviewing rider stats and feedback related to that behavior.
So we know what Pace Partners are doing this week. But that may change next week! Our guess is the summer months will see a lot of experimentation with Pace Partners before they settle into some regular patterns for the fall/winter.
Ride With All!
Lastly, here’s a fun 1-hour challenge: try riding with each Pace Partner for 5 minutes! I did it last week, and it was fun to pop into each group, say hello, then move on. If you go from the top of the Pace Partner list to the bottom you basically work from a low pace to a high one, peaking twice (once in Watopia and once in Makuri Islands).
This is great news, because as noted in our recent “10 Features Zwift Could Add Today To Make Us Smile” post, most Zwift teams (and many IRL teams/clubs) were well over 100 members before the release of Clubs tools, which meant Zwift’s Clubs implementation couldn’t actually support larger existing Clubs. Because a partial Club is no Club at all.
It also means we can finally start inviting people to the Zwift Insider Club. So without further ado…
Join Zwift Insider’s Club!
Now that the limit has been increased… we’ve got room for you! Join the Zwift Insider Club for easy access to our upcoming events and other fun Insider stuff like members-only giveaways and experimental events.
We’ve even got our first official Club event planned – the “Ask Eric Social Spin“. Join Zwift Insider’s Eric Schlange on a social spin on Watopia’s Waistband as he answers your Zwifty questions… and maybe asks a few questions of his own. Details here >
Small Bug
There’s currently a minor bug if someone clicks to join your club via the shareable zwift.com link instead of joining via the Companion app. That person still joins your Club, but the page says “An error occurred” so it’s not apparent that the signup worked unless they check on the Companion app.
Zwift knows about the issue (and will get it fixed soon, we hope).
Implications
We hope the pivot from “let’s keep Clubs small and membership exclusive” to allowing very large Clubs is a signal of a more “open” Zwift. Many Zwifters, including ourselves, simply want to see limits removed and horizons expanded on our favorite virtual cycling/running game.
CEO Eric Min has said repeatedly over the years that the Zwift community wants to create amazing content on the platform (content=events, basically) but Zwift needs to give them the tools. Let’s be honest: Clubs releasing with a 100-member limit was just silly. But give Clubs the space they need in order to do big things, and we think they’ll do just that.
Now as Clubs expand in membership, we predict Zwifters will begin clamoring for more Clubs event functionality. Club workouts, races that integrate with ZwiftPower, time trials, automatically repeating events – there’s a lot still to be done. But today we took an important step forward.
Castelli’s May “Epic” is Tomorrow: Giro d’Italia Speciali Edition
On Tuesday 24th May, the Castelli Team are hosting their monthly “Epic” ride. For those that don’t follow professional road cycling, May is traditionally the month of the Giro d’Italia, the English translation being the Tour of Italy. As such, we’ll be riding in the Maglia Rosa or pink jersey which is synonymous with the event.
The Giro d’Italia is a historic race that was started in 1909 by Italian newspaper La Gazzetta dello Sport to increase sales of their circulation. This newspaper was printed on pink paper and the race leader wore the Maglia Rosa so spectators and competitors could easily spot them, which in turn promoted the newspaper. Nowadays, as you would expect given Castelli’s prestigious history, they are the manufacturers of the prestigious Maglia Rosa.
Incidentally, the current Giro lasts 3-weeks and is considered one of the Grand Tours, along with the Tour de France and Vuelta a España.
On 24th May, the stage that the pros will be tackling is 200km in length and features three epic climbs, Goletto di Cadino at 1938 meters in height, followed by Passo del Mortilrolo at 1854 meters, and finally Santa Cristina at 1448 meters. An absolutely brutal day and one of the hardest I can remember witnessing.
To commemorate this adventure, the Castelli Team will host their “Epic” ride on the “Tour of Fire and Ice” route which is 25.3km in length and tackles the Alpe du Zwift. Expect this to be a little longer than the normal “Epic” rides. As usual, it begins at 7:25PM CST/6:25PM BST/1:25PM EDT/10:25AM PDT. You can sign up here.
Giveaways
Given this ride is slightly more “Epic” than usual and to tie in with the Giro, Castelli are giving away a Maglia Rosa jersey! This historic jersey can be won by staying close to the beacon throughout the ride and being present when a snapshot is taken. The winner is announced on Catelli’s Strava Club site, which riders are welcome to join.
What I particularly like about the design is that it links back to the origins of the event, particularly with a simple logo paying homage to the newspaper – La Gazzetta dello Sport.
It’s certainly an exclusive jersey to own and will look particularly nice out on the roads.
This week’s top 5 Zwift Videos offer up two ways of doing structured training on Zwift and two race videos. One of the races features Zwift Insider’s own Eric Schlange! You can also see two Zwifters undertaking a 24-hour ride to raise funds for a friend.
42-Year Old Tries a ZWIFT Training Plan And FINALLY ‘Gets It’
Monty (Sportive Cyclist) used Zwift to complete a structured training plan for the first time. See what he learned and the results he noticed while making his way through the 6-week FTP Builder plan!
Zwift & TrainerRoad at the Same Time || How to use TrainerRoad and Zwift Together
Can’t decide between Zwift and TrainerRoad for your indoor rides? Cycling Harley shows you how to use both at the same time.
Can We Pull Off a 2 Rider Breakaway? Zwift Race Analysis // Crit City Race With Zwift Insider
ZRace Central and our very own Eric Schlange decided to mix things up in Crit City recently. What happens when two riders coordinate to try a breakaway?
ZWIFT RACING LEAGUE RACE 4 | #14 Road to TUSCANY TRAIL
When you’re racing for points, like in the Zwift Racing League, you might have to sprint several times before the end of the race! Maarten Overweg shows the effort that takes on the Libby Hill Afterparty route in Richmond.
24 Hour Zwift Charity Ride – Dave’s Brain Fund
Nick Anstruther and Darren Weston (Diverse World Media) did a 24-hour Zwift ride to help raise funds for their friend Dave to get treatment for a brain tumor.
Got a Great Zwift Video?
Share the link below and we may feature it in an upcoming post!
Why did Zwift add start pens atop Alpe Du Zwift and Ventop?
Zwift’s May update included two new start pens and corresponding routes which weren’t mentioned in the release notes. They’re located at the top of Zwift’s two biggest climbs – one on Alpe du Zwift, the other on Ventop:
Alpe du Zwift start pensVentop start pens
Start pens are used for events, of course. And right on schedule, two new event-only routes were also added to the game along with the start pens:
Each of these routes begins in their respective mountaintop pens, then has a short lead-in to the KOM banner before making their big descents. The routes don’t end where the KOM start line is in the other direction, either. Alpe du Zwift Downhill ends around 200m past the start line, while Ventop Downhill ends ~1.7km after the start line, which makes sense since the Ventop KOM start is located well into the climb.
Clearly, Zwift wants to hold some downhill events. But why? I have one theory. But first, let’s look at why downhills are currently a bit goofy in Zwift.
Don’t Try This Outside
82kph through a hairpin turn. On a TT bike, no less!
Zwift generally gets good marks for realistic avatar animations and game art, especially when compared to other cycling games. But one place Zwift has always been very unrealistic is in its cornering speeds.
Apart from the u-turn on London’s Classique, there’s no other place in Zwift we’re aware of where any sort of automatic corner braking is applied. And that’s what needs to happen if Zwift wants realistic cornering speeds, since there is no universal braking interface that would allow us to use our physical bike brakes on Zwift.
For whatever reason, Zwift hasn’t prioritized corner braking in its development goals. Clearly it’s doable (see London). And it’s been requested by the community for years – when Crit City was launched I wrote how adding auto-braking to the course would make it even more dynamic, and make breakaways more viable if done well (read more here).
Zwift is also known for being a bit fast in terms of overall average ride speeds, which I wrote about this at length in “Are Zwift’s Tarmac Speeds Realistic?“. While auto-braking wouldn’t fix the speed issue entirely, it would slow average speeds a bit. And that would be a good thing.
But as far as I know, Zwift hasn’t done any work in auto-braking. Yet.
Full Speed Ahead… On the Brakes?
And that brings me to my theory explaining Zwift’s addition of downhill event start pens and routes.
What if Zwift is planning to add/test auto-braking on the game’s biggest descents? The only way to really test the realism of this auto-braking would be repeated descents. And the easy way to do that is to start at the top. Bingo!
Years ago, rebellious racers held some underground events which were ironically located atop Alpe du Zwift. The goal was to get to the bottom first, which meant riders would reverse weight dope, ride TT bikes, and anything else they could do to go fast.
The races were fun, but of course lacked realism.
Imagine, though, a downhill race where your bike slowed in each corner. You would have to sprint out of the corner back up to top speed. Wash, rinse, repeat 21 times on the Alpe. That would be a fun and fresh challenge!
Smart Brakes
Going deeper down this rabbit hole, if Zwift is testing auto-braking with the intent of implementing it all over the game, I have one request: make it work like an IRL race. Make it smart.
IRL (and this is especially noticeable in crit races with tight corners), a single rider can take a turn faster than a group of riders, because they can pick the ideal line for maximum speed.
Replicating this in game would require several things to happen:
Auto-braking would have to be increased for larger groups. Or put another way, single riders/small groups would have to be allowed to take turns faster than larger groups.
Single riders (or riders who are in a single-file line) would need to take a different line visually in tight corners compared to larger groups.
It may not be possible to easily replicate outdoor turn dynamics such as #2 on my list. But one idea I had years ago on Crit City was to base the auto braking on how much draft you’re currently receiving. That is, let someone who is on the front not receiving any draft take the turn faster than those who are sitting in and drafting. This is basically what happens outdoors, and the math would be easy on Zwift’s side.
In fact, if the riders receiving the biggest draft benefit were slowed the most in corners, this might nicely replicate the IRL “concertina effect” where the pack compresses into corners then stretches out as riders sprint back up to speed.
If auto-braking was done this way, you might have a turn where (for example) a single breakaway rider can go through at 45 kph, while riders sitting in the peloton are slowed to 40 kph. That’s fun stuff, because now there’s a real incentive to attack and get into a breakaway!
Bump it up another level to super smart auto-braking by letting drafting riders go through turns at a higher speed if there are no riders to their right or left. Again, this is what you see IRL – when you aren’t boxed in, you get to take the fastest line.
Concluding Thoughts
With Wahoo recently acquiring RGT Cycling, Zwift is surely looking at RGT’s feature set and prioritizing the implementation of any strong features RGT has that Zwift lacks.
Auto-braking is one such feature.
Assuming Zwift is in fact testing auto-braking on its big descents, here’s my order of auto-braking dreams:
Fun to test, slightly useful: Auto-braking in the corners on Alpe du Zwift and Ventop
Baseline realism goal: Auto-braking on all Zwift roads
Race-friendly realism: Draft-influenced smart auto-braking to encourage attacks/breakaways
Game-changing, best-in-class feature: Super smart auto-braking and rider routing to reward small, well-organized breakaway groups and team time trials
Your Thoughts
Do you want to see auto-braking in Zwift? Got any great ideas for how it should behave? Share below!
A couple of years back I wrote a “How the Race was Won” article detailing how I had won my first race since being upgraded from C to B. Now I’m back, explaining how I won my first race since being upgraded to A. Well, sort of upgraded…
Category Enforced
Ever since I began Zwift racing back in 2018 I have read and heard talk about the need for categories to be assigned to riders during races to prevent those who are too strong from having a negative impact on the racing for others. And it seems that finally in the spring of 2022 Zwift has delivered with the creation of ‘category enforcement’. It seems, though, that many riders have been surprised by how they have been categorized, myself included. I along with a few other Zwift racers have found myself ‘bumped-up’ from what my Zwift Power category is.
Whilst I have found some racing success since becoming a fully-fledged B over the past 2 years I still remain some way off from being an A-grade rider under the Zwift Power category system. But I AM an A grade rider according to Zwift’s new in-game category enforcement. This took me a little by surprise as I find that I need to dig deep to hold onto the front in many B races I have competed in, often being the rider with one of the highest and regularly the highest average heart rate (so I would not consider myself to be coasting and just sitting in until the crucial moments). As a result, I have almost always continued to select ‘B’ when signing up for a race until recently when I was browsing for a race to do on a Saturday afternoon and found that entering my usual category was no longer possible in many races. This left only one option… jump in with the A’s!
Surveying the Competition
I felt a little trepidation about what was to come and whilst this wasn’t the first time I have raced in A when I have raced and won in the A group in the past there have only been a handful of others present who were generally poorly ranked so I’m not sure I can really ‘count’ those as wins. But a browse of the Zwift Power rankings prior to this race revealed a fairly strong lineup with some riders in the list who possessed a better ZP rank than myself.
I wondered if I would be able to hold on to this group and was a little concerned that I did not have the fitness to hang in with some of the A’s when they put the hammer down, as I have taken a slightly different approach to my training this year. Last year I trained and raced on Zwift hard in the winter and early spring, hitting a fitness peak in April/May just as the outdoor racing season ordinarily would begin. However, some lingering Covid issues and restrictions put the start of the season back to late June and I found that by the time racing came around I had come off the peak and was in a bit of a decline. This meant that whilst I did pick up some results in the races I felt a little flat and found I needed a break mid-season, after which I came back much stronger, picking up some podiums in the local races.
In order to avoid a similar situation this time around I have taken a much more cautious approach with a little less intensity through the early part of the year, hoping to hit more of a peak a little later. This meant I don’t currently feel that I have top form.
Anyway, on to the race!
Me taking part in an early season IRL race
Off To An Easy Start
The course was Makuri Islands’ Wandering Flats, which takes in roads on both the original Yumezi area and Neokyo. Whilst for the most part this is a flat course, it contains a sting in the tail! It was a mixed category event with everyone starting together but a good chunk of these were from the A group I was in.
The race settled into an easier pace pretty quickly after the initial 30s effort to get up to speed, and we meandered down the slightly downhill opening kilometers. Aside from one guy putting in a short-lived attack on one of the slight rises in Neokyo the race took on a steady but otherwise relaxed pace where I spent my time hiding in the pack to gain maximum draft, knowing the final few kilometers of this race had the potential to be explosive.
As we went through the connecting tunnel between Neokyo and the Yumezi flatlands I knew the race was about to get a lot tougher as the road hits the ‘hilly’ section, gaining around 60m over a 2km section. But little did I know I would have to go deeper than ever before!
The Work Begins
5.8km to go… the road begins to tilt upwards and the first rider hits out early on the short 5% ramps as we cross over the flatland loop start/finish banner. The group responds by ramping up the effort to close across the gap, and I know I have to follow if I want to have any chance of being involved in the shakeup at the end. However, within 400m the effort needed to hold on to the group is already taking a toll and my HR has risen to 199BPM. I know that just around the next corner the road would tilt up even more…
The initial attack that started it all. Note HR has already risen to 199!
Is This How It Ends?
Even though this steeper section where the gradient touches 10% does not go on for long I knew this would be a point where the stronger riders would begin their attacks. Sure enough, they did. I saw a number of riders go into orange numbers on the rider list and I was sure it was here I would get dropped, but I promised myself I would grit my teeth and hold on for as long as I could.
With my HR now rising to 204 I wasn’t sure I would be able to keep in there for much longer, but much to my surprise I managed to survive the attacks over the steeper section and found myself hanging onto the front of the rapidly dwindling group! A quick look at the mini-map showed me the group was stretched with gaps appearing everywhere as riders struggled to hold the wheel in front.
HR had risen to 204 within a few hundred meters
The group continued at an infernal pace as we headed along the flatter portion and the much hoped-for respite before the next rise never materialized. As we hung a right and the next rise in the road reared its head I didn’t know how much more I could take. A quick glance through the sweat now pouring into my eyes revealed that my HR was still well over 200 but I found myself in the first few riders of our group. I was still doubtful that I could hold on to the end but I felt that if I could use my forward position to give me some sliding room I might just be able to hold on until the top.
It was a huge effort for me but as the road finally flattened I was still in touch with the front riders, but with my HR registering a frightening 207bpm. Could I recover enough to feature in the sprint?
Just about holding onto the group at the end of the hill. HR sitting at 207
The Finish
Thankfully, the next few kilometers were taken easily by the group until 800m from the line when one of the riders decided to go early. I let out a sigh of annoyance that I would need to make another effort before the sprint, but knew that this close to the finish line this could be a dangerous move that stays away.
Fortunately, the attack soon slowed and the group caught the breakaway rider within 250m.
We were now just over 500m from the finish line. I felt that an early sprint could work since this was a slightly downhill finish. This is also something that seems to work for me as, I cannot hit super high peak power during sprints but don’t seem to drop off a cliff either, maintaining a decent average for a longer duration.
So with 400m to go I buried myself into the sprint and in a world of pain, shouting expletives (my partner Rebecca came into our gym to see what was going on and proceeded to photograph the incident). I looked up in the final 100m to see myself out front solo just crossing the line as another rider appeared on my screen but didn’t quite get around me… meaning I had taken the win!
My partner Rebecca clearly thought the occasion required a selfie!
The Takeaways
Once I had picked myself up off the floor I was very pleased with the effort, not only because it resulted in a ranking point boosting win in the A category but also with the way I felt I had dug in to hold onto the pack.
It seems that a number of riders have been surprised by how they have been ‘catted up’ in the new category enforcement races, but I would encourage people to view it as a challenge and jump in, as you may find as I did that you have reserves you didn’t know you had and can learn to dig deeper and break through any fitness plateaus you might be experiencing.
As for me, I hit all-time HR PBs for the following durations:
203bpm 5min
199bpm 10min
My HR graph from Training Peaks
I also hit 2nd-best all time HR for 1min with 207 and 5 seconds with 210. Now if that isn’t digging deep, I’m not sure what is!
Your Thoughts
Has the new category enforcement setup forced you up a category? How’s it going? Share below!
Home Screen Scaling: How To Change the Size of Zwift’s Home Screen UI Elements
UPDATE May 1, 2024: Zwift released game version 1.64, which removed the option for home screen scaling. Read more about the change here >
As Zwift’s new home screen UI rolls out to more and more Zwifters, some Zwifters have complained along the lines of “The text is too small” or “Everything is too big”.
We don’t envy Zwift’s UI/UX design team and their task of creating interfaces that work well for everything from an iPhone to a big-screen TV.
If you don’t like the sizing of elements on your new home screen, you’ll want to get acquainted with a recent addition to the new UI available under the main settings menu. Called “Home Screen Scaling”, it does exactly what it says. Here’s a quick video showing how it works:
There are currently five options available for Home Screen Scaling:
Extra Small
Small
Medium
Large
Extra Large
Here are a few screenshots showing how the layout flexes on our test setup at the Extra Small, Medium, and Extra Large settings:
