This week on our Top 5 Zwift Videos, you can learn about the Sauce 4 Zwift application and watch one of the new handcycles zoom down the Alpe du Zwift. You’ll also hear some thoughts on Zwift Academy Road as it ends for 2022. Finally, watch a race plan unfold and see if a bold late attack pays off.
Sauce 4 Zwift // All the details and what does it do!
Si Bradeley explains Sauce 4 Zwift, which includes a set of overlays and data screens to spice up your Zwifting. He’ll tell you what it does and where you can get it.
Rocketing down Alpe du Zwift on the handcycle – how much faster is it?
The new Zwift handcycle is heavy but aerodynamic, so Trevor Holdsworth (The Musette) set out to test just how fast it goes downhill.
Rating Every Zwift Academy Workout 2022
Jesse Coyle gives his perspective as a coach on the 2022 Zwift Academy Road workouts. Which ones might you want to add to your training, and which ones are less useful?
Was It All Worth It?? Finish Line Ride Zwift Academy Road (2022)
Alex Reader does his Finish Line Ride and reflects on his experience with Zwift Academy Road this year.
Can I win this Zwift Race…With a Pre-Planned Solo Attack?!?
Jake Sanderson (Snowman Cycling) went into this race with a plan. He knew he wanted to attack alone at a certain spot near the end of the race. Watch and see if it worked!
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Until the 24th of September 2022, I could still pretend I was not totally batshit crazy.
vEveresting (twice!), LaMónCambil, those were irrational challenges. But this? This was crazy.
The Challenge: Climbing Mont Ventoux from Its Three Sides In One Day
When Maxime invited Stefano and me to the Cinglés du Mont Ventoux (translation of the name says it all: the Mont Ventoux Nuts), It was a unique opportunity to meet IRL my two brothas from anotha motha.
The three of us are part of the SONAR team in COALITION. From day one we clicked. We spend hours chatting in Discord about the most irrelevant topics (one evening after a ZRL race we spent almost 4 hours discussing a brand of thru-axles only sold on eBay). It was about time we got to ride together without Tron bikes!
We met in Malaucène on Friday 23rd September for dinner. Malaucène is a typical French provençal village and was to be the starting point of our adventure. Stefano drove 5 hours from Castres with his wife and daughter. I flew from Madrid to Marseille where I rented a car and picked up Maxime in Avignon, where his high-speed train from Paris arrived.
Stefano and his family were already seated in the restaurant when Maxime and I arrived in Malaucène. It was immediately like we had known each other forever! Those guys are close friends of mine, period.
Beyond a common passion for cycling and Zwifting, we share the same humor (in reality Stefano and I pretend Maxime’s jokes are good but it is not the case, they are painful, don’t tell him), the same pillar values of effort and friendship. We have been scratching each other’s backs throughout the whole year in our ups and downs, even with personal, non-Zwift-related stuff.
We spent most of the dinner talking about the climate though. After my misadventure during LaMónCambil, I thought I had seen it all. The weather forecast was anticipating some low probability of light rain in the morning, and then a sunny afternoon, so we were wondering what to wear but not worried at all.
The Cinglés du Mont Ventoux Challenge consists of climbing the three ascents to Mont Ventoux (from Malaucène, Bédoin, and Sault) on the same day. Mont Ventoux is one of the most legendary climbs of the Tour de France, and has a Zwift replica, Ven-Top. To me, this is one of the most prestigious challenges you can be part of because of the breathtaking scenery and also the history it contains.
From a performance perspective, it is less than 5000 meters elevation and around 135km distance: from the top of my nauséabond arrogance, I overlooked it as an almost trivial effort.
Oh boy, I was wrong.
23% Chance of Light Precipitation: the Big Lie
That was us at the top of Mont Ventoux after the first climb.
And if we were already cold while climbing (less than 2°C at the top with heavy rain) the descent was an absolute nightmare. We were freezing to death, totally soaked, and almost paralyzed. I did not feel my fingers despite three layers of gloves, and I was uncontrollably shaking which made braking really hazardous.
5km into the descent, we decided to stop and find refuge. That’s when we realized that we descended back in the direction of Malaucene instead of descending to Bédoin. We were so desperate and overwhelmed by the rain and cold that we did not think about it. We would need to climb 5km to the top again… and go to Bedoin.
We looked at each other. Maxime tried to speak but could not manage it. The road was really super dangerous, with little to no visibility. We needed to change our clothes and spend an hour under a warm shower, because it simply was not safe. The risk of hypothermia or falling was too high. (I plan to die a hero, but not at 46 years old.)
Stefano called his wife to tell her we were going back to Malaucène where the guys at the rental bike shop gave us the “we told you you were crazy” look. They actually did tell us it was going to be tough at 9AM.
We told them we would shower and have lunch, and decide if we would attempt the second climb from Bédoin in the afternoon.
We had lunch, laughed a lot about what just happened to us, shared some anecdotes, and looked at the sky. It was sunny. We could not end our adventure on a retreat. That was so not representative of what we were as a crew.
So at 2PM we decided to go to Bédoin and climb Mont Ventoux from its most famous ascent: Bédoin.
The Second Climb: Following the Steps of the Giants
Reaching the top of Mont Ventoux from Bédoin is a pilgrimage every cyclist should do, in my opinion. Chalet Reynard and the Tom Simpson Memorial are mythical places surfacing from my childhood memories when I watched Bernard Hinault and Greg Lemond on TV 36 years ago…
Tom Simpson Memorial (not my picture)
(That’s not the only pilgrimage I am planning: Alpe d’Huez, Stelvio, Tourmalet, Sierra Nevada, Aubisque, Mortirolo… all in my checklist. Mr. Tim Perkin, we definitely need to organize one of those…)
Despite its 21.5km at 7.5% gradient average, the afternoon climb was way more enjoyable than the first one. The temperature was ok, with some fog from time to time, but it was nothing compared to the apocalyptic conditions of the morning.
One hour into the climb, just after Chalet Reynard, Stefano could not resist making a sneaky/traitorish “same watts attack” with 5km to go. A same watts attack means that while Maxime’s and my power output inevitably faded, Stefano left us behind merely by sustaining the same 4 w/kg during the 90 minutes. “Same watts attack”: Stefano patented.
The Brotherhood
In conclusion, we did not complete the Cinglés Challenge, but Maxime, Stefano, and I definitely sealed our brotherhood. A way more rewarding trophy. I love these guys.
The brotherhood at the top of Mont Ventoux
Special kudos to Giulia and Nicole. Giulia drove the minivan all day long, adapting her schedule to ours. Many Directors of Pro Tour teams would learn a lot from her unconditional way of conveying support and reassurance. Nicole is a wonderful little girl whose curiosity and permanent laughs made my day more than once. She says that one day she will be a magician.. she does not know she is already one.
Lucianotes: Evil Ideas Come From Evil People (Tiny Races)
Many of my fellow COALITION teammates have been singing the praises of the Zwift Insider Tiny Race Series created by Eric. From my side, since they were created I have been reluctant to register for two reasons.
Tiny Races? Not my type.
First reason: the format is exactly the opposite of my natural skills. Everything is decided in short and extreme efforts I am not good at.
I am the lousiest sprinter in the world. I am super bad at 1-minute efforts. Okayish at 5-minute efforts. And my best at 10-minute+ efforts.
If you don’t believe me, take a look at my power profile. Data does not lie:
My Training Peaks Power Profile
Second reason: I know Eric well enough, and nothing good can come from his grey cells. One way or another, whatever he has conspired within the four walls of his pain cave will involve enormous amounts of pain, absurd quantities of acid lactic production, and humiliating post-mortem analysis.
If you know me as well as I know Eric, you have already anticipated that anything combining pain, acid lactic production, and humiliating post-mortem analysis will be the most appealing event ever for me.
That is the reason why, on October 22nd 2022 at 4PM CET I was in the pen with another 91 half-brained category A zwifters. Normally there are some exchanges in Zwift chat, but this time it seemed nobody was cynical enough to wish others good luck. For once most of the participants were still connected to reality and acknowledging that the next hour would be like living beyond hell. Silence seemed appropriate.
First Race: Discovering New Limits of Pain
The first race was a tiny 3.2km race on Hilly Route, including a 0.9km climb at 6%. 3, 2, 1, GO! I go immediately at 600w to make sure I am not left behind. But still I am left behind! Fast-forward 6 minutes and I am totally blind, HR is at 178 BPM crossing the line, I have a weird metal flavor in my mouth, I am a little dizzy and barely able to remember my name.
I pretty much feel as if I have had one round boxing against Tyson, followed by one round fighting against The Rock, with my hands and legs tied. I have barely enough oxygen in my brain to click to join the next event (Race 2 of 4) starting in exactly 8 minutes. No way no way no way!!! Eight minutes!!!! I need at least 8 days to recover from this one!!! And the worst thing of all is that I was ranked 71st!!!! I almost died to arrive 71st out of 94!!!!
Second Race: Steamroller Feeling + Dance
The second race is a close to 6km flat race on Bell Lap. 3, 2, 1, GO! Fast-forward 7 minutes and any resemblance with an actual human being is pure coincidence. I am uncontrollably drooling, my knees are shaking, I hear something similar to a whistle inside my head and I don’t know where it comes from. This time I feel like those cartoon characters that have been run over by a (this time the powerup one) steamroller.
And I finished 62nd!!!! Not that I can be proud of it, but at least it is not as laughable as the first one!!! And still 2 to go. What did I sign up for?
At that precise moment I remember I promised I would make a video of myself dancing to the Dirty Dancing tune “Time of My Life” to cheer up a Coalition teammate. And I still have 5 minutes to do it. I’m sure you are desperately hoping for me to share the video…
(I don’t know if I have mentioned it previously, but since my English is ok but not perfect, my wife reads and corrects my articles for Zwift Insider before I send them to Eric. You can rightly assume she is quite immune to the things I share and I am convinced at this point in time there are very few things that I would write or post that would embarrass her. The following picture, a screenshot of the short video of the dance, is definitely one of them 😳.)
That’s all I am going to share here. I leave the rest to your imagination.
Third Race: as Good, or Not that Awful, as it Gets
I barely make it to the bike to start the third leg on time. UCI Worlds Harrogate Circuit, 6.3km with Harlow Hill climb almost at the beginning. Fast forward 8 minutes and this time I am having convulsions like you have never seen before. Muscles are tetanized and not even able to cramp. But I check the ranking and…. 44th!!!!
It means that others are dying faster than I do!!! I could not care less if there is nothing left of me that would suggest I am able to make the 4th race, because others seem to be suffering even more. YES!!!! Others suffer more!!!! YES!!!!
If you are asking yourselves if I am such an a**hole that I rejoice from others suffering more than me, I confirm it. For the third time, YES, I am so happy to be in atrocious pain if others are in even more atrocious pain. If the 43 guys crossing the line before me could simply abandon and not participate in the 4th race because of that atrocious pain I would be the happiest man in the world!
Fourth Race: Back to My Laughable Reality
Just a moment to think and the 4th race, a 7.5km one in Park Perimeter Loop, begins. I hate Park Perimeter loop! The succession of 30 seconds to 1-minute efforts is the antithesis of the rider I am. Eric did it on purpose only and exclusively to bother me. Fast forward 10 minutes (I should write slow forward ten minutes to be more descriptive of my performance) and I am literally crying like a kid who has been bullied by 65 other kids…
I literally drop from my bike and find myself with half my body covering the side of the rocker plate and the other half soaking the floor. Hyperventilating is already a superlative, so if you manage to get something representing the superlative of hyperventilating, that would be me. I feel I am just a pile of stinky bones previously chewed by the Titans Grove T-Rex. The adjective stinky is very relevant here, as Luna, my dog, approached and smelled me, also started hyperventilating, sneezed five times, and ran away to the upper floor of the house. Luna had at least the decency, out of respect for me, not to howl and scratch the front door of the house.
Back to data. My final ranking: 69th.
Booing is allowed AND deserved.
A good ten minutes later, I miraculously find the strength to jump back on the bike and join the after-party Tiny Race group ride chit-chat.
My intention is just to be polite. Enter the ride, send one message to congratulate Eric on the event and disconnect immediately.
But the second I send my message to the crowd “Great event, had a lot of fun!” I receive a private message from Eric: “Hey Sir!”
Spontaneously, my reaction was to answer « don’t freaking Hey Sir me! Don’t behave like nothing happened and you were not accountable for my misery! You tricked hundreds of us into this obnoxious trap! »
But I had no physical capacity to be upset and threw back a simple « Hey! »
Eric: “B race level was stratospheric, I can’t imagine what you have endured in cat A Luciano”
So, not only did Eric invent this abomination, but on top of it he was making fun of me pretending he would not know how hard it was going to be?!
The following image, accompanied by a replica of the evil laugh of Jack Nicholson in “The Shining”, seized my soul.
(You can’t see it but he/it also has a dorsal fin)
I remained strangely silent, but in French we say “la revanche est un plat qui se mange froid”. Eric: you can Google translate it and take it however you want. 😈
Last Words
The format is great, dynamic, and is the essence of having fun while Zwifting. Four huge shots of adrenaline in less than one hour. It hurts me to acknowledge it, but for once Eric did something right, as I got all the suffering, pain, and post-mortem humiliation that he originally promised.
Tiny race, huge blast. I am definitely coming back.
Editor’s (Eric’s) note: while Luciano may have cursed my name during the Tiny Race, he did manage to earn ZwiftPower ranking upgrades in all 4 races. Well done sir. You’re welcome!
All About the New World Indoor Cycling Rankings Race Series
A noteworthy new race series has been announced beginning November 5, 2022 and running through February 2023. The unique setup of the series was designed to appeal to all types of riders, with races for climbers, sprinters, and those in between.
You can race as a team or as an individual, and there are a variety of race lengths and courses on offer. Let’s dive into the details!
Split Categories
The number of categories is (nearly) doubled, with the typical A, B, and C categories split into two apiece so there isn’t such a wide performance window in each category. Here are the specific categories:
Race Category
FTP
Wattage Floors
A+
4.60 w/kg and above
300 W
A
4.00 w/kg to 4.59 w/kg
250 W
B+
3.60 w/kg to 3.99 w/kg
225 W
B
3.20 w/kg to 3.59 w/kg
200 W
C+
2.85 w/kg to 3.19 w/kg
175 W
C
2.50 w/kg to 2.84 w/kg
150 W
D
2.49 w/kg and below
110 W
3x3x3 – Flexible and Unique Race Selection
World ICR races are held on Wednesdays, Fridays, and Sundays – 3 days per week. On each of those days, events are scheduled in 3 different timezones for easy scheduling:
10:30am UTC/6:30am EDT/3:30am PDT
7:30pm UTC/3:30pm EDT/12:30pm PDT
12am UTC/8pm EDT/5pm PDT
You pick which events you want to race. Each day features a different type of event – one may work better for climbers, one may work better for sprinters. You choose which races you want to race, and race as many as you’d like.
At the end of the month, your top 3 scores count toward your overall series total.
3 Event Difficulty Levels
Events are categorized by their length, with longer events giving out more points. This makes sense, of course. If you ride for 60 minutes, you should be able to earn more points than you would in a 15-minute effort.
Regardless of race length, finish points are always awarded to the top 50 riders, and fastest through segment (FTS) points are always awarded to the top 10 riders.
Winners Points
250
500
1000
FTS Points
199
398
795
Race Time
15-20 Mins
30-40 Mins
60-70 Mins
One Powerup Type
Similar to the Zwift Insider Tiny Races, each race will feature just one type of powerup, so everyone has the same advantage.
As the series progresses, team and individual rankings will be available on the World ICR website at https://worldicr.com/rankings/.
Team Competition
You can race the World ICR series as an individual, or as part of a team. Teams can be made up of as many riders as you like. The top 10 individual point scorers from each team will then be added together each month. The total amount of points will then give you your team ranking.
It doesn’t matter what time zone, category, or gender your team member earns their points.
Team prizes are on offer for the 10 people who make up the winning team’s total score at the end of the series.
Prizes
Prizes are on offer for both individual and team competitions. See details here.
At press time several hundred racers were already signed up, with race organizers anticipating approximately 1000 signups before the event begins.
When I signed up, I received this message: Thank you for registering for the World Indoor Cycling Rankings. All race links will be sent out via email on the 30th October for the first week’s races and then every Sunday after that, for the rest of the series.
Learn More
Looking for more info?
Check out Si Bradeley’s intro to the World ICR series:
This week as well as highlighting the new Zwift Academy Tri, I am highlighting events from across the community to bring awareness of the different event organisers who week after week are working with Zwift to provide entertaining races and rides for us.
This week’s Tiny Races will be particularly special because they’re the first races on the calendar to use Zwift’s experimental new Pack Dynamics v4. Expect slightly slower pack speeds and an increased ability for breakaways to stick!
This is a 60-minute ride in France on the “R.G.V.” course. Paced between 1.3-1.5 w/kg, this is aimed at those wanting a more relaxed ride. If you are new to Zwift and not familiar with riding in a group then this would be a good event to try. This ride includes a leader and sweepers (people to help those falling off the back of the group), so you can expect this to be a really inclusive experience.
This is a chase race hosted on the “London Classique” route over 5 laps, which works out to 33km in length. Several months ago there were a lot of chase races on the calendar, and they were always good fun to race. I personally like them because they provide a bit of variety to the normal style of racing and the added drama and fun of wondering if those who started first could be caught!
⌛ Bike Workout #1 | Low Cadence Intervals | ZA Tri 2022
I’m such an advocate of structured training, and these sessions look particularly good. Now that I host my own, I can assure you that they take a lot to plan and deliver effectively! This session focuses on low cadence, as the description explains:
“Strength training is key to keeping up your speed for long-distance rides, and Low Cadence Intervals are the perfect exercise! This session forces you to produce a lot of muscular force without over-taxing your cardiovascular system. Research shows that training at a low cadence contributes to significant power benefits, so let the gains begin!”
You may have read my Behind the Scenes with NoPinz article, and I thought it only fitting to highlight one of the events they co-host with Saris.
This event is a big one in terms of length. It’s 3 laps of the “Triple Flat Loops” course in Watopia, totaling 104.3km. It certainly will be good training and suited for those who have strong endurance as well as a good finishing sprint.
“Race Makuri” ZRacing November 2022 Series Details
Zwift’s monthly ZRacing series are growing in popularity, with September’s Get Rolling and October’s Race Like a Champ bringing many top racers out to compete for the monthly GC. Today Zwift published the details of November’s ZRacing Series, and as the name indicates, it’s all about the Makuri Islands map. Let’s dive in!
New Urukazi Routes!
This month’s series includes two not-yet-released routes from Zwift’s upcoming Urukazi map. This map is releasing in early November, so we don’t yet know its details. But we do have two screenshots:
Series Structure
The ZRacing series consists of monthly sets of weekly races. Each race is scheduled for seven days (beginning 1:10am UTC on Monday and running through to the next Sunday). Timeslots are consistent week to week and month to month.
Races are scheduled ~15 times each day, so there are plenty of available times to find a race:
Each monthly set of races has a time-based GC (general classification) which tracks riders’ best finishing times for each week’s race. The overall winners in each category for the month will be the riders with the lowest overall time for that month’s set of races.
Each month’s series has its own achievement badge which you can unlock by finishing every stage for the month.
One and Done
Zwift has planned these events around the idea of a solid 1-hour workout. So each race should only take around 1 hour to complete, including your warmup and cooldown.
The Tour of Makuri Islands is a tour of new things coming to Zwift! It happens between November 3-30 and includes a completely new tour experience for riders, as well as the chance for runners and riders to get a first look at new Urukazi routes releasing in November.
Here are all the details we know (this post will be updated with fresh info as we receive it)…
Your Tour, Your Way
For the first time, the cycling side of this Zwift tour allows you to complete the stages on demand. Ride the stage as a free ride, a Club event, a Meetup, in a Pace Partner group, or even as workout! As long as you complete either the long or short route designated for the stage (see stage details below), you’ll get credit for completing the stage.
It doesn’t matter when or in what order you complete each stage, either. Just make sure you register, then complete the stages between November 3-30th.
All this flexibility makes the Tour of Makuri Islands Zwift’s most accessible tour to date. No more fussing about with a schedule of events. Just complete the stage as you wish!
(There are, of course, events scheduled for each stage. We highly recommend taking part in these tour group rides which are always a blast.)
Run vs Ride
It’s worth noting that this tour for runners will behave like a typical Zwift tour. That is, the only way to complete the stages is to take part in the scheduled tour events. Additionally, runners will not see tour progress in the Companion app or in game.
New Homescreen UI
While we haven’t seen it yet, we’re told the Tour of Makuri includes a new homescreen experience for riders that shows more visually what stages you have left and which you have completed.
Stage Details and Schedule
Here is the list of stages and routes. (Event dates are included, but keep in mind riders can complete the selected stage routes at any time during the tour as a free ride, workout, Club event, etc. Read more about completing Tour of Makuri Islands stages >)
Looking to go fast? Sprint segments on Zwift are typically flatter, faster, shorter stretches which include leaderboards, leader’s jerseys, and HoloReplay functionality. If you can put out big watts for short intervals, sprint segments are where you can top a leaderboard and grab a temporary leader jersey.
Below you’ll find a master list of every sprint segment on Zwift. Click a sprint for details including routes using that segment, recon notes, ZwiftPower leaderboards, and more.
A word about accuracy: as much as possible, we’ve used Zwift’s in-game numbers for segment length, gradient, etc. Occasionally, in-game data is incorrect; however, we will post accurate numbers whenever possible. (Strava data may differ slightly from what is shown in game as well.)
Watch the Femmes: Ride with Van Vleuten, Vos, and Van der Breggen This Week
This first annual Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift took the cycling world by storm this past summer, and this Thursday (October 27th) the route for the 2023 edition will be announced at the Palais des Congrès in Paris with great fanfare.
To celebrate the occasion, Zwift has invited three absolute superstars of the women’s WorldTour to ride with the community in three separate events! Everyone will be wearing “Watch the Femmes” cap, kit, and socks for these special rides.
Ride Schedule
All events are 30 minutes long.
Ride with Annemiek van Vleuten: Oct 26 at 6pm CET/10am PDT on France’s R.G.V. Annemiek is the inaugural Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift champion. Shortly after the Dutch cyclist captured the yellow jersey, she won rainbow stripes at the World Road Championship in Willagong. She is a 4x World Champion and Olympic gold medalist.
Ride with Marianne Vos: Oct 27 at 3pm CET/7am PDT on France’s R.G.V. Marianne won the inaugural Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift Green sprinter’s jersey and 2 stages. Considered by many as the greatest cyclist of her generation, Marianne has won World Championships in road, cyclocross, and track, and has captured Olympic gold in road and track across the span of her career. She currently rides for Team Jumbo-Visma.
Because who would want to bear the psychopathy and non-assumed frustrations of a bunch of mixed-gen cyclist wannabes, right?
Phase 0: Getting Tricked By Ricardo
That was my mindset on August 8th, 2022, as I was falling asleep while slurping a mojito and contemplating the sea from Playa América’s beach. So you can imagine the level of hatred I experienced when I was interrupted by the following PM from Ricardo:
I was torn between my oath to never be a ZRL Captain and my commitment to COALITION, and especially to Ricardo. That is why it took me a whole day to get back to him. I made up an excuse for my late reply, but eventually accepted the immense honor of being COALITION Sonar Captain.
I thought I knew what I was getting myself into. But I was wrong. Really wrong.
I understood it immediately, as a few seconds after I answered Ricardo I was given access to seven billion additional threads on the COALITION Discord server.
ZRL Captain threads were ordered by category, topic, and region, and filtered by name and popularity. Then, they were ranked by an algorithm elevating the number of participants of each specific thread to the cube and rooted back to the immediate closest primary number. Or something like that. In any case, it was clear someone put a whole lot of effort into making it incredibly well-organized and easy to understand.
The first instruction you get is the following:
“If you are a new captain, please first read the Team’s Captain Manual.”
The concept of manual is misleading here. Calling it “Team’s Captain Definitive Universal Encyclopedia” would match reality much better.
The Captain Manual is a document regularly updated with version tracking to make sure nothing is left unattended. From weigh-in protocol to team naming convention to be COALITION compliant (how the names of COALITION teams originate is a secret I cannot reveal otherwise my fellow COALITION captains will have to remove me from the surface of earth).
I was given access to the origin of Universal Truth, to the source of good on Earth.
I felt like Newton being hit by the apple. I was finally seeing the Matrix.
Phase 1: Building the Team
This whole myth of a very coordinated captain community fell apart when it was time to allocate riders to teams.
If you want to imagine it as a steering group that closely monitors each team assignment, bearing in mind balance and cohesion, don’t read the next paragraph.
The reality is that the only place where I have faced a fiercer negotiation than “I give you Joe and Jack to Sonar if you give me Robert for Telepathy” is bargaining for a Persian carpet in the Zouk of Istanbul back in 2012.
I am joking. With the excellent coordination of the EMEA regional captain, Andreas, all teams were quickly created. A week before the start of ZRL, the Sonar team was definitive, and from the first exchanges with the teammates I knew we would be a fantastic team.
A basic introduction of the felons:
Getting the team to feel like a team was easier than anticipated.
I have to say I started with an advantage. The guys were great, I knew four of them from previous ZRL seasons, and I have a natural tendency to overwhelm the Discord server with nonsensical tirades which at best make me sympathetic, at worst make others feel sorry for me. In both cases I had something to build on.
Phase 2: Managing the Emotion Rollercoaster
What I could not anticipate is that being captain was a little bit like eating an entire jar of fortune cookies, every single day. Each fortune cookie contains a different kind of curse or unrealistic challenge. “Life is a continuous Internet dropout”, followed by “you will find a miscalibrated home trainer on your pathway to happiness”, and eventually the more down to earth “you should appropriately feed your dog if you don’t want him to eat the ethernet cable during the race”.
For every single race I was sure something unexpected would happen, but would not know what until the very last minute.
And those misfortunes made me actually wanna cry. Not joking.
I felt every single detail was the most important thing in the world. From the moment I would announce the composition of the team racing the following Tuesday, to the moment when the WTRL results page displayed our ranking after 5 minutes of frantically pushing the F5 key.
As a team captain, you need also to develop unlimited patience and/or project management skills and/or hunting skills:
I had to chase some of them to get a proper weigh-in video.
Remind some of them that there is no advantage to clicking the racepass link at the last minute. That the only thing you get by doing so is to have your captain’s heart going as arrhythmic as the cadence of a sticky watter.
Repeat that the race is at 8PM CET time. CET time. CET time. CET time…. (this is not a mistake, CET time is repeated many times. CET time. Seems that some do not understand the notion of time zones, they live in their own time zone 🙂 )
Remind that COALITION kit is pink, and that if you are very dogmatic about the Bike & Beer jersey, we’ll have a problem.
Phase 3: The Competition
Least importantly, we finished 2nd in our Division. I am proud, I am not going to deny it, though I would have been as proud if we had finished 7th or 10th. (From 10th downwards maybe I would have been less proud…)
What is way more important are the incredible moments we lived together. And the most intense ones were not when Callum won the Volcano Stage, or the day Emiel scored points at all FTS and FAL.
Two anecdotes are still giving me goosebumps when I narrate them.
First one: Last stage. 54km. Emiel has a calibration issue just before the start of the race and only manages to start 6 minutes after the pack left the pen. He rides a 54km iTT. Those 4 points he gets finishing across the line made us maintain our 2nd overall ranking in the general classification. The team waited in the audio channel until he finished, laughing and joking at the misadventure of Emiel, but at the same time so thankful for his effort.
Second one: Champs-Elysées stage. The day Tobi earnt his “chewing gum guy” nickname. Tobi was giving it all at the end of each lap so as not to be distanced by the front pack of around 50 riders. In the fifth sprint his HR goes nuts. He is obviously going beyond his limits. I am DSing, and despite all the energy I put in trying to get him to suck the wheel of the guy before him, Tobi is dropped and crosses the lap line alone with 8 seconds delay on the pack. A landslide.
I announce it to the team and all congratulate him for the effort through the audio channel. At this point he had already gone way beyond the call of duty. Tobi remains silent, does not say a word. While I focus on Richard trying to break away for the 700,000th time, I notice that the delay between Tobi and the pack has now been reduced to 6 seconds, and soon 5 seconds.
Tobi would simply refuse to get dropped. Period. He knows, or better said, I know it is impossible for one guy to come back on a pack of 50 riders in a flat like Champs Elysees. Still that word, “impossible”, by all means is not in Tobi’s dictionary nor catalog of acceptable behaviors. So he continues permanently pushing more and more.
4 seconds. That’s when I put myself on Tobi fan view, and start mildly encouraging him again “come on, great effort, you rock…”. I was not totally sure what was happening though.
“Guys, I am witnessing something crazy, Tobi is battling by himself and is now only 3 seconds behind the pack.” I immediately get 4 guys shouting and saturating the line, hysterically rooting for Tobi. And Tobi pushes even more. “2 seconds guys!!!! 2 seconds!!! Come on you are going to make it!!! Dig deep you are making it!!! Tobi you are CRAZY CRAZY but you are going to make it!!! One second!!!! One freaking second!!!! YEEEEEEEEEESSSSSSSS!!!!!! You made it!!!!! OMG you made it!!!! WTF!!! You are freaking crazy!!!!”
A friend of mine once told me, “If Elon Musk and I meet in an elevator, on average we are billionaires.” It is kind of the same with Tobi and craziness. If the entire team and Tobi meet in the pen, on average we should all be sent to a psychiatric emergency facility.
Because in my 32 months at Zwift, I had never seen something like that. Just imagining it might be possible is crazy. If I would have calculated the probability of making it I would have instantly dropped the idea.
The celebration from the other teammates while Tobi rejoined the pack was one of the most beautiful moments I have experienced as a Zwifter. This is another perfect illustration of what it means to be a team. To fight and explore new limits to be 30th instead of 50th, just motivated by the commitment to others and your refusal to abdicate. Do you know something more fulfilling, more rewarding as a group than this?
Well, that was exactly the mindset of every single one of us during the entire season. Fighting at the front or at the back of the pack, we would all refuse to abdicate.
Richard, Callum, Stefano, Maxime, Emiel, Tobi, Basti, and Anders: you all rock big time!
Therefore, my selfish advice is super clear: don’t do it. Don’t ever be a ZRL Captain.
Because the fewer of you who are willing to be captain the more chances I have to keep my spot as SONAR’s. What a privilege to be part of this magic team!
