About this Series

Since March I have become obsessed with the weekly Team Time Trial… so I asked Eric if I could share my obsession with you all, in weekly doses.

Each week on a Friday I will give you a profile of the upcoming route, guidance on bike choice and some target times if you want to aim for the Premiere League (top-10 in each coffee class get to be in a special race televised on YouTube). 

If you can’t ride, or even if you can ride, but want more action! Don’t forget to tune in to the live TV show on Zwift Community Live’s YouTube Channel at 6:15 (UK time). 

Review of TTT #81 UCI Richmond

Over to RIchmond VA for the TTT last week. I took a break from my time targets – and well done to Joy Murphy of the ZSUN Saturn Frappe team – for calling me on it. ZSUN are one of those great forces in Zwift racing – and they have almost 30 teams! It’s great to know you guys have your eyes on the weekly recce, and even better that you like the target times!

Going into the TTT this week I felt very good about the R&K Hyenas. As a feeder and training team for R&K we are constantly getting new riders… then waving them goodbye. Over recent weeks so much has changed that I am the only rider left from the summer! That said, the mix of riders we have going to Richmond seemed the perfect squad for 8 ½ km flat and 8 ½ km with those three bumps. Two riders with a lot of oomph to go with their mass, four lighter climbers, and two all-rounders. We had a plan that would get us through lap one together, and a plan for the endgame.

Mike Tyson, famously, said “Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face”. My plan got punched in the face pretty early on when two of our climbers got dropped – and in the aftermath the DS (that’s me) made the totally wrong call about whether to go back for them, leaving himself in the wind for a couple of minutes. These are the things races are made of – and while the team performed amazingly, their DS let them down (#sadface). Ah well… next week is another race!

Results are finalized now – so here are the PL times from UCI Richmond:

Category	#47 PL	#81 PL
Vienna	1:14:45 (10 teams)	49:51
Espresso	48:06 (7 teams)	43:58
Frappe	49:17	46:00
Latte	53:17	50:45
Mocha	1:08:10	57:31

Massive gains between #47 and #81… demonstrating the level of professionalism and competition between March and November. Well done and “Ride On” to every team that rode out yesterday!

Thursday 12th November – Two laps of Tempus Fugit

We were last on Tempus Fugit in April this year (WTRL #52), and before that in January. WTRL #52 was my second TTT, and I went out with the CICC lads, a fine bunch of (mostly) expats living in France. Why they adopted this lost lamb from Colorado I don’t know. But they did, for which I will be forever grateful! 

Tempus Fugit has to be the flattest route in Zwift, making it the least technical TTT possible. That is perfect for any team wanting to show off their perfect paceline skills to reach max-aero without interruption from course-related complications. The highest mountain you will climb here is… 7m tall. A welcome change from Richmond perhaps. 

The Fuego Flats desert course that makes up Tempus Fugit is one of the most popular spots on Zwift, so I’m pretty sure every one of you has been there. The course for Thursday is two laps – so from the Fuego Flats pens it’s a 2.4km lead-in, up and around the cool futuristic building in Saddle Springs (the LAX control tower), back and through the start/finish arch, around the loop and back through the start/finish to complete the first of two laps. This is a fairly long TTT at 37.1km, but it is fast… very fast. A top-flight Espresso team will average 50kph and be done in 45 minutes… while the slowest Mocha team will be in and out in just over an hour.  

What to ride?

This course is flat… aero-rules-all kind of flat. At the top end, you are looking at Venge S-Works + Zipp 858/Super9 over Tron, with the Aeroad following close behind. Whatever you do, don’t ride the one in the picture above… however sexy it looks!

Here are the recommendations at various levels:

• Level 6 Zwift Aero frame and DT Swiss ARC 62 wheels
• Level 13 Canyon Aeroad 2021 and Zipp 808s
• Level 33 S-Works Venge with ENVE SES 8.9
• Level 35 S-Works Venge with Zipp 808/Super9
• Level 45 get those 858/Super9 wheels and pair them with the S-Works Venge

I know I say it every week but it is doubly important this week. Get the Tron! Someone on one of the Zwift Facebook groups asked “what is the one thing you wish you’d known at level 1”… the answer is I wish I’d known how important Tron was! So, I cannot stress highly enough that if you are racing you need to be working on Tron. It’ll take a while, but just set the Everest Challenge and forget about it for nine months… like having a baby. On this course Venge S-Works beats Tron… but Tron remains the perfect “set it and forget it” bike.

Route Recon Rides

A few places to go for information – a race-focused recce from Zwift can be found here. Of course, it is focused on profiling the course from an individual racer’s perspective, but worth reading anyway. 

There are so many ways to recce this route – the simplest being to hop on and select Tempus Fugit. If you want an organized ride or race follow this link to Zwifthype. There are a lot of individual TTs on the roster since this is one of Zwift’s iTT routes – and that can be an interesting way to test yourself. 

Paceline skills are going to be a huge differentiator this week – so if your team wants to do some paceline practice remember you can always set up a private group ride (Meetup) in Companion!

Race Breakdown 

There really isn’t a breakdown of the route that makes sense… other than scenery there is nothing that gets in the way of good team formation. Take a look at the Veloviewer profile (I have purposefully stretched the elevation so you can see the “hills”) and you can see the flatness… one rise in the middle of the map, and another even smaller one in Saddle Springs… 

Target times

Tempus Fugit has been ridden in two TTTs this year – in January and in April. January wasn’t competitive, perhaps because everyone was still hungover. #52, in April, was much faster – but I think the influx of teams and the honing of skill will drive up the speeds of the teams significantly in #82.

Category	#37 PL	#52 PL
Vienna	1:10:09 (6 teams)	55:20
Espresso	51:49 (9 teams)	47:30
Frappe	51:22	49:19
Latte	55:13	53:07
Mocha	1:02:36 (7 teams)	1:00:28

So what do I think will happen this week? Well… I think times will be faster across the board. I have assumed the same splits (10k, 20km, 30km) as the last time. Here we go:

Category	10km split	20km split	30km split	Finish
Vienna	14:40	29:20	43:30	52:25
Espresso	12:45	25:30	38:20	46:50
Frappe	13:20	26:35	39:50	48:40
Latte	14:20	28:45	43:20	52:50
Mocha	16:00	31:50	48:00	58:24

I took a little break to think about my life choices after being so far adrift 2 weeks ago. Let’s see how Tempus Fugit treats me!

As for the Hyenas, I don’t know who the team on the ground will be – but right now I’m going to set a target time of sub 54 minutes.

Wrap up

This race is all about team time trialing teamwork. There isn’t anything in the 34km that will get in the way of your team’s aero-excellence. Frankly, while I usually say get out there and recce the route, here I say get out there with your fellow riders… and practice teamwork!

The fifth week of Zwift Racing League is upon us, and it’s going to be a punchy climber’s dream racing New York’s Everything Bagel. Let’s dig into the course, including some tips for bike choice and key selection areas.

Looking At the Route: NYC Everything Bagel

Here’s a route preview from Rick over at No Breakaways:

Route Breakdown

This route is basically never flat, but it’s not as pitchy as the profile below might lead you to believe. Still, the key selections of the race will happen on the first climb, which begins just 2km into the race!

The NYC KOM Reverse climb is an interesting one, because it’s really two climbs. First you’ve got the lead-in of ~800m, then the actual timed segment of 1.1km. Make no mistake – the effort will began at the bottom of the lead in, and it will be an all-out slugfest because riders know that all the intermediate bonus points will go to the group that makes the front selection.

After a quick descent (can the chasers recapture the front group?) the next intermediate is a sprint at ~13km. This has a quick kicker climb leading into it, so keep your eyes open and hammer that climb if you want to take sprint points.

Our next climb comes at 18.5km as we transition from the ground-level tarmac to the glass roads. This section is about 1km long, and is the longest climb on this route apart from the two KOMs.

Then we arrive at the forward KOM, which like the reverse has a lead-in (at 24.2km) before the official timed segment. Expect another all-out effort here as riders push to thin the pack and increase their chances for intermediate points at the top of the climb and the upcoming sprint.

Our final intermediate is the forward sprint at the bottom of the KOM descent, 28.1km in. This is a longer sprint section, so timing is crucial. Then it’s 6km of rolling roads to the finish, where timing is also vital! Many riders go too early here – a course recce is recommended.

Bike Frame/Wheel Choices

We tested various setups over this full course, and looked at segment times for the crucial KOMs. Here are the results:

Frame + Wheelset	Lap	KOM Rev	KOM
Specialized Tarmac Pro + Lightweight Meilenstein	56:41	3:34.69	4:34.00
Zwift Concept ZI (Tron)	55:54	3:34.90	4:34.10
Canyon Aeroad 2021 + DT Swiss ARC 62	56:10	3:34.91	4:34.23
Canyon Aeroad 2021 + ENVE 7.8	56:01	3:35.09	4:34.30
Specialized Venge S-Works + Zipp 858/Super9	55:55	3:36.00	4:35.44

Keep in mind the reverse KOM has a lead-in climb as explained above, so the time gaps above will actually be 30-40% larger over this first crucial climb. Is it worth going with the “pure climber” Tarmac Pro + Lightweights in order to gain an advantage of ~0.3 seconds, if you’re going to lose so much in terms of overall lap time due to the wheels not being very aero?

We don’t think so. Our pick for this course is the Tron bike, which performs next-best on the climbs and is fastest overall on the lap.

If you don’t have the Tron bike, look at the Aeroad 2021 + DT Swiss wheels for a rig that climbs almost as fast, but is available at only level 10.

And definitely do not go with a disc wheelset. That’s going to hurt you on the crucial climbs.

Strategic Options

There are 4 intermediates on Everything Bagel, each awarding extra points for those first over the line (5, 4, 3, 2, and 1 points). They come in this order:

• KOM Reverse
• Sprint Reverse
• KOM Forward
• Sprint Forward

There’s no escaping the fact that this is going to be a tough race for the sprinters. Because if you’re not able to get over the top with the front group, you’ve lost your chance at intermediate points.

There’s a slight chance that the front group will be small enough (and the chase group large and strong enough) that chasers could rejoin the front group on the descent after the first KOM. So if you find yourself just behind the front pack, don’t despair. Your group will have to work together to make something happen and pull back the front group, but especially if you’re still in or close to the top 30, it would be worth pushing to rejoin that group.

Some teams may attempt to “protect” their sprinters and try to get them over the first climb. We think this is a fool’s errand. The group will be too fast in the initial kilometers for you to attack and get a significant gap on the climbers, and that first climb is too long for you to preserve a gap of only a few seconds. (The only scenario where this may work is if your sprinter is just a few seconds back over the KOM, and another teammate gives them a wheel to pull them back into contention.)

This week’s race, more than any other on the ZRL season schedule, will see many riders dropped within the first 5 minutes, with no hope of getting anything except the single point for finishing the route. Enjoy your gruppetto time – it’s a rare experience on Zwift!

Lastly, powerups: there will be five opportunities for a powerup on this route. Make sure you know how each powerup works, and use them wisely! Hint: the anvil may prove useful on the descents following the KOMs.

Your Thoughts

Care to share your thoughts about Tuesday’s big race? Comment below!

This was the fourth week of Zwift’s groundbreaking Zwift Racing League, and the second team time trial of the series. Since this was our first TTT after being seeded into our division (Men’s EMEA East 2 Division 1B), we weren’t sure how we’d stack up against the competition. But we knew we were up against some very strong teams, and it would take every bit of power, technique, and strategy to come up with a good result on Watopia’s Magnificent 8.

The Warmup

My race prep followed the usual pattern – chewing some caffeine gum and applying PR lotion to the legs. Drank some beet juice as well, because I’m a glutton for punishment (that stuff tastes terrible). Then it was time to suit up and warm up.

My team (DIRTy Beasts Hellhounds) has members based in the USA, UK, South Africa, UAE, and Australia, so we’ve struggled to get together and practice apart from our pre-race warmups. On top of that, none of us have raced together prior to ZRL! But we’ve gotten along swimmingly and come to agreement on each week’s strategies via Discord text chat throughout the week.

Snowy Pruett, our team manager, had organized a Meetup on Tempus Fugit which began 35 minutes before we had to be in the start pens. Our plan was to chat on Zoom during this Meetup, to practice our rotations, and talk strategy. This worked out well, although our rotations were anything but smooth during these practice rounds. More practice is clearly needed, but we had no more time – to the pens!

The Start

We’d decided to try the start “launch” technique explained in a recent No Breakaways TTT Master Class video. Basically, you stay on the pairing screen (which prevents you from moving), rev up the watts as the final seconds count down, then hit Escape to close the pairing screen when the countdown hits “1”. This lets you jump up to full speed very quickly, as opposed to starting your pedaling when the clock hits zero.

It worked well, and we jumped off the Watopia pier and into formation quickly. I was to be behind Paul Robertson, and each of us had agreed to don a unique piece of headware so our avatars would be distinctive. Paul was in the a blue hat, then other team members had black, green, white, orange, and me with red.

Justin Wild took the first pull, then Paul, then I was up. I was feeling good so early in the race, so I let everyone know I’d take a 1-minute pull. My speed at the front, though, seemed stuck at 45kph, and we were shooting for 46-47 on the flats. I pushed harder, trying to hold 425W+ for the duration.

We quickly made our way through the Volcano and over the land bridge, then we encountered our first challenge: the twisty dirt climb to the Italian Villas. First the dirt slows you down, then the incline slows you even more! By the time I reached the top I was wondering if I’d overcooked it already. But I pushed to stay on Paul’s wheel and breathed deep, trying to recover a bit before the big climb.

Hilly KOM Reverse

Our plan on the climb was to push hard on the steep initial section, regroup on the flat, then ride as a blog to the top, letting stronger climbers pull at the front. Our strong climber Scott led us outup the climb as we caught and passed our first rider, then it was a hard effort up around the statues and back into blob formation. We kept pushing, then I went hard on the final straightaway, trying to pull keep our speed up, knowing recovery waited just around the bend:

We supertucked down the descent, made the neck-breaking turn onto Ocean Boulevard, then got back into formation. Fuego Flats was just up the road.

Fuego Flats

I made my worst rotation mistake of the race on the false flat leading into the desert. As I eased off to sink to the back of the group, Justin and Paul got stuck on my wheel, and no matter how much I eased they didn’t come around! A 20-30m gap opened ahead of me, forcing Justin and Paul to put in a harder dig once they got around my wheel.

This is definitely an area where I need more practice – timing my power so I quickly slide back after taking my pull, without taking any teammates with me or dropping off the back to far.

My poor technique aside, we arrived in Fuego Flats intact, with all 6 riders chugging along. We had already discussed the fact that the flat final section of this route would require efficient rotations and high wattage in front in order to maintain top speed, so we all settled in to make that happen. The desert kilometers went by quickly, and soon enough we were in the Ocean Boulevard tube, ready for the final push.

Here’s what a rotation through the desert looked like in the Zwift Insider Pain Lab:

The Finish

Our beautiful single-file formation had devolved into a blob starting on the Col du Saddle Springs ramp, and our speed seemed sluggish now as we made our way through the underwater tunnels. I voiced some encouragement over Zoom: “Just a few more minutes guys! We’ve got to push harder!” Justin Wild, the voice of experience on our team, said “If you’ve got power, move to the front.” Oh yeah – that makes sense!

I put in a dig as we neared the ramp out of the tunnel, and Scott let us know he’d be pushing hard up the ramp then dropping off, since we only needed 4 riders across the line. With just 1km to go, it was time to go all in. I gritted my teeth and pushed with all I had. “Push push push” Justin was saying from his pain cave in early-morning Australia as my wife cheered and teammate Alex from the UAE crossed the line first. I came in just behind him, totally spent!

Our final time was 40:30.837 according to WTRL – good enough for 5th place in our division.

See activity on Zwift >
See ride on Strava >
See results on ZwiftPower >

Watch the Full Race Video

This was my first time including Zoom audio in the recording, but I realized afterward that my own voice didn’t get recorded. Still, you may find our chatter interesting…

Takeaways

I set a few power PBs in the 36-38 minute range during this effort, so I’m happy with that. 5th place in our division (which, along with the EMEA East 1 Division 1B, is the toughest division in our timezone) is a solid result for the Hellhounds, moving us into 10th place out of 22 teams. And while it was nice to have a little extra to pull the team along in some of the final meters, I was toast by the time we hit the line – so I think I paced myself well.

Justin Wild is our strongest TT rider, and he’d been forced to drop out early in our first TTT event. It was very good to have him along for this effort – his watts helped enormously. It’s amazing what a difference a strong (or weak!) team member can make in a TTT.

As a team, we agree there’s still plenty of room for improvement in our TTT efforts. Keeping our rotation tighter is a big thing, and knowing just how hard to pull is another. We’re shooting for particular speed targets on flat sections, and will continue to hone our “sink and sprint” rotation method.

Your Thoughts

How did your TTT race go? Got any tips for me? Share below!