Simon, Shane, and Nathan reconvene for Episode 83 – and to celebrate a minor victory: the return of the famous First Attempt Very Intens Strava segment on Zwift. Simon has a little insight into how it happened.
Lionel Birnie, one of the co-hosts of the popular Cycling Podcast joins Simon for a chat about the recently-updated Meetups in the game and to discuss what the prospects may be for a return of IRL bike racing this year.
The Zwiftcasters spend a few minutes riffing on the behaviour of pro riders in group rides on Zwift, ranging from the exemplary… to the not-so-good. The chaps have a few thoughts on how things may be improved.
Monica Schlange, writer for Zwift Insider, is recovering after her monumental Route Hero achievement. Simon talks to Monica about the best bits and the hardest bits.
Do we even need to see The Fence back? Simon, Shane, and Nathan discuss whether self-regulation on group rides has settled into something acceptable.
And the podcasters round off this episode with awards made on the Zwiftcast Pants Podium… jeans, track pants, and all-day pajamas… who’s wearing what and why?
This event was Zwift’s first test of running a ride for a club where only the members could participate. As such, the event didn’t show up in the main Companion events list – it was only listed under “Club Events” on the Club Jarvis homepage. Clicking to join the event was easy enough – the same as joining any other Zwift event.
Family Reunion
When Friday morning came around I led my weekly Sprintapalooza ride, then hung around until the start of the Club Jarvis event. The ride’s description included a Discord link, so I hopped into that as I clicked to join the event.
This was two laps of Sand and Sequoias, at 2 w/kg. A casual social ride, with HQ’s Wes Salmon listed as one of the leaders. The other leader? One “Jarvis Bear”. Interesting!
The ride began, and I started looking around at the names of the 70+ riders. We had a pile of folks in Discord as well, and a sudden feeling of Zwift Nostalgia rolled over me. Maybe it was the OG Zwift Carbon bikes we were all riding, or the Beta kits on our backs. But mostly, I think it was that so many prominent, long-time members of the Zwift community had joined this ride!
Only beta users can join Club Jarvis, which meant everyone on this ride had been on Zwift since before November 2015. I spotted Kim Little, one of the first top racers on Zwift. Another top racer (and Kim’s teammate on TeamX), Casey Schumm, joined us – but only on Discord. Because he was “working” from home. Their teammate René Rolighed was there, the guy who created ZwiftNation, one of the earliest race results tracking sites. Team ODZ’s Justin Wagner was prominent on the Discord chat (as he always is), bringing fun sound effects and jokes to the crowd.
Jesper Rosenlund Nielsen from ZwiftHacks was in attendance. David Desrosiers was there – he’s the guy who figured out many of the early Zwift hacks, and is still quite active on the Zwift Coders Facebook group. There were many others I’ve seen for years, including Zwift forum stalwart Gerrie Delport and Morten Tillquist Nielsen who created the kit unlock graphics for this post years ago.
It really felt like a meetup of old friends. We shared long-running inside Zwift jokes, made fun of Wes Salmon for his inability to get Discord working, and generally just had a good time as we spun around Fuego Flats and into the redwoods.
Jarvis the Pacer Bear
As it turns out, ride leader “Jarvis the Bear” was actually a pacer bot being controlled by Wes. So Jarvis stayed at 2.0 w/kg steady while Wes rode nearby with his own beacon. Wes asked what we thought of Zwift creating the ability for ride leaders to control/set up a pacer bot like Jarvis the Bear, to keep rides from surging. A lively discussion ensued – keep in mind this group is packed with experienced Zwifters, many who have led hundreds of rides over the years.
We discussed the merits of the “pacer bear” idea – most saw the value in it for certain group rides, but noted that many group rides wouldn’t want such functionality. We also discussed how ride leaders would need to be able to control the pacerbot easily from within the ride. In the end, it sounds like this is one of those ideas that may come to fruition well down the road – but I wouldn’t expect it any time soon.
So Well-Behaved
The inability of Zwifters to stick to stated pace in group rides is a long-running joke/complaint at this point. But guess what? Our group stayed tightly packed, even though the pace was 2 w/kg and we had many strong racers in the bunch. So it really is possible to keep a group ride together without a fence. It just requires people who know how to ride with the beacon, and are willing to do so.
After the first lap, Wes asked if we wanted to bump it up to 2.5 w/kg. We did, so Jarvis revved it up a bit and away we went!
Standing on the Brink
As our little group wound its way out of Titans Grove on the final lap, I couldn’t shake the feeling that we’d entered some sort of Zwift time machine. 5 years earlier, many of the Zwift luminaries in this group were just getting onto the platform for the first time. For me, and many others, those first Zwift rides turned a lightbulb on which never really turned off.
On those nascent rides we immediately saw how Zwift might just change the world of cycling forever. And we immediately began to test the game’s functionality. To break it, and request new features. We were the first Zwift fanboys/girls, and now years later we’ve seen Zwift evolve from a small group of beta users to a massive community with hundreds of daily events and pro racer participation.
Today we stand at another key point on Zwift’s timeline. An unprecedented number of new users have come on board, and Zwift is working to get the Clubs feature released and Meetup capabilities expanded. Once those tools are in place, the social side of Zwift will be taken to a whole new level. Combine community-building tools with a much larger user base and we’ve got a recipe for massive growth, both in terms of user numbers and engagement levels.
Welcome Michellie Jones AM, one of the most successful triathletes of all time! Olympic Silver Medalist, Ironman Hawaii champ, and more World titles than you can count. Now an accomplished coach, the hosts pick her brain on the best ways to optimize training during lockdown life. We’ve all had to make changes to our training, and the three of us chat about the best ways to adapt.
About the Podcast:
The Zwift PowerUp Tri Podcast is hosted by former pro triathletes Matt Lieto and Jordan Rapp, lending their in-depth knowledge of the multisport to the Zwift Tri audience.
This is an open invitation to our entire Zwift family to join us for a worldwide effort to get the “On Fire” badge together! To do so you must complete 25 laps of the Volcano Circuit.
When and How this Will Work
It’ll work much like the PRL Full event where we all ride on the same day, at whatever time is convenient for each of us. I (Monica) will start on Saturday, April 25 at 8 am PST (GMT-7), but you can start whatever time works for you. Since we’re doing a circuit we’ll surely overlap with others’ efforts and see each other out there often!
Each lap is 2.6 miles long. That means you’ll be riding 65 miles. Be sure to prepare accordingly.
Other Badge Options
Is 65 miles too far beyond your riding capacity right now? Still join us to get the “Hothead” Volcano Circuit badge for 10 laps (26 miles).
Is 26 miles too much? Still join us to get the “Warmed Up” badge for 5 laps (13 miles).
Don’t yet have the “100 Clicks” badge? Ride the 25 laps and you’ll get that metric century badge too!
Changing Your Name
I’ll have my Zwift name as “Monica Schlange (25 Volcano Circuit).” If you change your name to add Volcano Circuit too we’ll see each other more easily!
Let’s Do This!
Who is with me? Let’s get a ton of us out there so it’s more fun and we can draft each other!
Simply put, you want to make your hard days hard, and your easy days easy.
Zwift can be addicting, that’s for sure. And it’s a healthy addiction to have… until it’s not! (I know this from personal experience–I hit Zwift hard in my first 3 months before I noticed my power numbers dropping in races. Taking a week off helped me get back on my feet.)
Be sure to give your body time to recover between hard rides; otherwise your training efforts will become mediocre and thus less effective. And if you keep pushing long enough, you’ll overtrain and be forced to take extended time off! Remember: you don’t get stronger during the workout. You get stronger during the recovery.
If your riding schedule includes racing on Zwift, consider racing no more than three times per week, with recovery rides, days off, and lighter training in between. And even if your training load is more steady (with few “race day efforts”) taking a day or two for recovery per week is smart.
Lastly, taking an “easy week” every ~4 weeks is a common practice in many structured programs.
#2: Miscalibrated Power
Serious Zwift training requires the use of a power meter. On Zwift you can get accurate power numbers by using a standard power meter or a smart trainer which calculates your power output. Either way, make sure your power meter or smart trainer is calibrated properly so your power numbers are accurate!
Even something as small as calibrating with a cold tire can make a difference of 20-30w, which can mess up your training intervals and reduce the effectiveness of your workouts.
You typically sweat more on indoor rides than outdoor due to reduced air movement and increased effort (which reminds me: get a fan). That pool of sweat beneath your bike and that condensation on your windows is all fluid from your body that you need to replace before bad things happen.
So make sure you drink plenty of water–but not just water. Make sure whatever you drink also replaces the electrolytes you’re losing.
How much you need to drink depends on your physiology and effort level, but 25-45 ounces per hour is a typical range.
Here are a few popular electrolyte drink mixes for cyclists:
It is tempting to hop on the trainer and go hard, then hop off once you’re done. But a proper warmup helps your body prepare for a solid effort, and a nice cooldown is the first step towards recovering from the ride you just finished. So don’t skip either of these portions of your workout!
Warmups and cooldowns should last at least 5 minutes, but 10-20 minutes or more may work even better for you.
If you are truly wanting to train on Zwift, and not just ride for pleasure, you need to go into each ride with a plan. Otherwise, you risk riding too hard (or not hard enough) or too long (or not long enough). When your miles aren’t doing anything to help meet your fitness goals they are just junk miles.
When you have a training plan in place, each ride you take is done with a specific goal in mind: building sprint power, increasing aerobic endurance, recovering, etc. If you have a hard time avoiding junk miles, consider jumping into one of Zwift’s training plans, or paying a coach to plan your training.
New to training and want a good resource? Look no further than these two books:
Rouleur Magazine recently released an episode of its Longreads Podcast, centered around a day spent in a London studio with Mathieu van der Poel and a copious film crew to find out why Zwift is leading the way in the market.
The Rouleur Longreads Podcast brings you selected long-form articles from the magazine, especially recorded for Rouleur. Written by Ian Cleverly and published in Rouleur 20.2, this episode was read by George Oliver.
Zwift’s Volcano Circuit (and Volcano Circuit CCW) are popular routes for racers looking for a flat, fast, multi-lap effort. But did you know there are badges (and bonus XP) awarded for multi-lap efforts, and newer Zwifters can use these achievements to jump up several levels in one ride?
Here’s everything you need to know about how these achievements work!
Key Stats: Ride Length and Bonus XP
The “Warmed Up” badge is awarded for 5 laps, “Hothead” for 10 laps, and “On Fire!” for 25 laps. Each badge also awards 1000XP, helping you level up faster!
With a lap length of 4 km (2.5 miles), you’ll have to ride a minimum distance of 20.4 km (12.7 miles), 40.9 km (25.4 miles), and 102.2 km (63.5 miles) to get each badge, respectively.
All in One Ride
To earn a multi-lap Volcano Circuit badge, you must ride all the laps in one activity. So these badges are very different from the “Avid Climber” and “Masochist” badges you earn for climbing Alpe du Zwift multiple times – happily, the Alpe badges can be earned over multiple efforts!
It’s worth noting that these laps can be completed at any time during your single activity, even if you ride elsewhere on Watopia in between laps. So you could ride a few Volcano Circuit laps, then hit the classic Hilly route for a lap or two, then return to the Volcano Circuit for more laps. Two warnings here, though:
Don’t hop into an event in the middle of your activity, because Zwift automatically stops your current activity and starts a new one whenever you begin an official event. That means your multi-lap attempt will end as soon as you click to join the event.
If you decide to turn and ride up the Volcano KOM in the middle of a lap, that particular lap won’t count.
Any Direction
Here’s another little-known detail: you can achieve the Volcano Circuit badges in either direction. In fact, you can mix directions, completing (for example) 2 laps in the clockwise direction, and 3 in the counter-clockwise direction.
The counter at the lap banner keeps a tally of how many laps you’ve completed in both directions, making it easy to know how many laps you’ve got left.
There’s also a “100 Clicks” badge awarded the first time you ride 100 km in one activity. If you complete 25 Volcano Circuit laps you will hit 100 km, unlocking this badge and 500XP bonus if you haven’t done so already.
Level Up
For newer Zwifters looking to level up, the multi-lap achievement is the fastest way to grab a pile of XP whenever you’re ready. Not only will you get all the XP for your distance (20XP per km = 2000XP for 100 km), but you will receive another 4000XP for the three Volcano badges and the 100 Clicks badge. That’s 5500XP, not included any bonuses you may receive each time you ride through the lap arch!
Join Us this Saturday!
This Saturday, April 25th, we’re hosting an informal event where Zwifters can show up and ride to achieve their Volcano Circuit badges whenever they’d like.
But I hadn’t actually participated in a ZHQ Beta Race, until today. Not only was I itching for a quick, tough race – I also wanted to see how the current sandbagging controls affected the out-of-category riding which has become more prominent thanks to the recent, massive influx of new Zwifters. Time to see the green cones of shame firsthand. Let’s race!
The Warmup
The race was at 8 am, which really isn’t an ideal time for me. Too late for my typical fasted morning ride, and right when I’m usually getting into my workday. But it had to be done. For science! So I chewed my caffeine gum – 2 pieces this time, and well before the race, because I’ve recently read that caffeine should be taken about 1 hour before the big effort. And of course I rubbed some PR lotion into my legs, to take the edge off the burn and help me push to my max.
I headed to Tempus Fugit for my typical warmup, and just as I was starting to get the legs warm my lovely wife Monica texted me: “Are you riding right now?” Apparently we’d had some miscommunication, and she was planning on riding Zwift in a few minutes. (While we have both of our own bikes set up, we only have one big-screen TV in the Zwift room). Since she had called first dibs, I moved my Zwift session over to my office computer, which meant a quick monitor move and game startup to get a session started there. A bit more warmup, then it was time to head to the start pens.
The Start
There were 102 riders in the B pack, and as we hit the first of our 12 Downtown Dolphin laps it became clear that this was going to be a tough race. Was it tough because my legs were more tired than anticipated, or were riders pushing the pace at the front? I wasn’t entirely sure, but I knew I was suffering! Instead of sitting in a few wheels from the front, I was struggling to hold onto the back of the pack, shamelessly tailgunning.
Luckily, tailgunning on Zwift doesn’t cause the sort of effort “accordion” effect that it does outdoors. It didn’t take long for me to see a pattern form in my pack positioning: I would work my way closer to the front up the brick prime climb, then drift back as we made our way down the twisty descent. Then I would move forward again as we hit the lap banner and made our way up the false flat toward the eSports stage.
Our first cone!
Green Cone Observation
I expected some green cones to show up after the first minute of racing, since the cone can be triggered by both 1-minute and 5-minute power. But we didn’t see any cones until the second lap, almost 4 minutes in, when one virtual-powered “L.Santamaria” got flagged.
By the third lap, 7 minutes into the race, several more green cones had appeared. Despite my high level of personal suffering, I couldn’t help but try to watch these coned riders, to see how Zwift’s “throttling” would affect their position in the race.
Most of the coned riders slowly drifted out of our front pack and into oblivion. But a couple stayed with our front group, and I made a mental note to check into their power numbers once the race ended. Because I wanted to find out: what sort of power did a B need to hold to stay with the front pack, even after their power was throttled by Zwift’s green cone of shame? More on this later!
More cones flying…
The Middle
5 laps in and our group of 102 starters had been whittled down to just 22. This was a tough race! As Monica spun her way around the Watopian desert in zone 2, my heart rate was squarely in zone 4, where it would stay for 92.9% of the race according to Strava.
My max heart rate is ~189, and most Zwift races find me averaging somewhere between 167-172BPM. Today’s average? 177. Was it the extra caffeine, taken a little early? Perhaps. Was it the fast race pace? Certainly a factor!
Garbage Thinking
Gaps opened up ahead of me occasionally, but I was always able to close them down before getting dropped. It was hard work, though, and as we passed the 20-minute mark my mind shifted from envisioning an incredible final sprint to wondering if I’d even be in the mix for end!
But this is just garbage thinking, right? For me at least, these thoughts occur in almost every Zwift race. I find myself on the limit, struggling to grab a wheel, and somehow think I’m the only one suffering. But of course that wasn’t the case. 80% of the field had already been dropped, and certainly most of the riders in this front pack were suffering just like I was.
Everyone is hurting. This is something I have to remind myself as I race on Zwift. Doing so gives me hope – hope that I’ll be able to hang on until the end. Hope that maybe, just maybe, I’ll have a little bit more left than the next guy at the end. Hope for the elusive race win.
The End
With only 4 laps to go the front pack still held two green cones: “T.Gumpo” and “L.Santamaria”. Knowing they wouldn’t show up in final results on ZwiftPower, I just hoped they didn’t jump off the front and pull a legit racer to victory.
The final laps flew by, and soon enough the crazy last lap was upon us. I knew the drill by this point: everyone would jump hard on the prime bricks, then it was a question of surfing the wheels and staying near the front down the twisties before hitting the sprint with whatever I had left. I had a truck powerup, so I waited until I was ~30 seconds from the finish before triggering it, using the increased draft to work my way through the riders as we all gutted out the final meters.
I was in the drops, out of the saddle, head down, putting everything I had into my 50/11. Monica was my eyes, watching the screen and yelling “Keep pushing, go go go, you’re almost there!”
When I crossed the line, I looked up at the results: 4th place. And two of those ahead were obvious sandbaggers. Does that mean I got 2nd place? I headed to ZwiftPower to confirm: 2nd place it was. First loser! But I was happy with the result, given how difficult the race had been.
Looking at my Strava power curve for this race, I set some new PRs for power in the 27-31 minute range. So my legs were in good shape – it was just a super tough race.
This race is a good example of an event where my body wanted to quit, and my mind supported the idea. But I kept pushing, and finished in second place. Just .048 seconds from a win!
So the takeaway from this race is: do away with garbage thinking. Perhaps it’s time for me to dig into sports psychology a bit – a little mental training may do me good.
Sandbagging Details from ZwiftHQ
I reached out to Jordan Rapp, the game designer at Zwift HQ who is working to bring sandbagging controls to fruition. I asked him for more info on what happens when a racer receives the green cone of shame in these beta races. Is their speed artificially slowed, perhaps by increased Crr? Is their power actually reduced, like Zwift’s warning message indicates?
Jordan said, “Zwift is currently throttling power. We never touch the speed inferred from power (output). Only the power (input). There are some changes to how MUCH we throttle power coming in the next release.”
The level of power throttling was something I wanted more info on. Was it high enough, if two of the coned riders could stay with our front group until almost the end of the race? (Those two coned riders, by the way, averaged 6.4 w/kg // 480w and 6.0 w/kg // 447w for the race. Ha!) I asked Jordan if he was going to be increasing the power throttling, and he said:
“Yes, a LOT more. We’re bumping up the baseline throttling (and also making it easier to tune). And we’re adding in a multiplier that looks at how egregiously you broke the limits. An A racer in a D race will get hit a lot harder than a C racer in a D race.”
Sounds smart to me! I’m excited for Zwift’s next release, which I hear is just around the corner (next week or two). I know I speak for many other racers in saying I’m looking forward to seeing the green cones make their way into other races. If Zwift’s new sandbagging controls can eliminate most of the negative effects of racers riding below their proper category (and I think they can), it will be a huge upgrade to the Zwift race experience.
Your Thoughts
Have you ridden in a ZHQ Beta Race recently? How was it? Have you been coned yourself? Share your experience below!
Kevin Bouchard Hall is a top Zwift racer with TeamX and a top dad. He recently sat in with retired pro rider Ted King (newbie Zwift racer and neo Dad) to share tips on how to perform best in Zwift races.
Kevin is a former US national team stand-out, but he decided that unless he was making it to the Pro Tour, he’d rely on his intelligence to move forward in life. So he stepped away from cycling for a while. Now he’s back on the scene, but storming Zwift at all odd hours of the day because he’s married with two sons, and the Bouchard Hall family is busy as it gets!
As the duo participate in a 1-lap race of the Richmond 2015 UCI course, Kevin shares spot-on tips to help Ted stay with the front pack and in contention as long as possible. Their banter is entertaining to watch, but also educational for newer Zwift racers. Check it out!
