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Announcing the DIRT Friday Sprintapalooza

Eric Schlange
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Announcing the DIRT Friday Sprintapalooza

Announcing the DIRT Friday Sprintapalooza

The DIRT Friday Sprintapalooza is a group ride happening at two different times each Friday. I wanted to let everyone know about this fun ride because I’ll be leading the new Pacific version beginning tomorrow. Hope to see you out on course (and no, you don’t have to be a dad to join us)!

About the Ride

Sprintapalooza was created so Zwifters could have fun and still feel fresh for the weekend. We start out at 2.0 w/kg and slowly ramp it up to a steady 2.5 w/kg. When we approach a sprint area we try, as a group, to go as fast as possible. This means forming lead-outs and talking on Discord so we can all work together to meet our goal.

And what’s our goal? It’s to get the green jersey, and best our time from the previous lap.

Join us on Discord at https://discord.gg/sUnwqPZ

Ride Times

  • Morning Sprintapalooza happens at 2:25AM Pacific. Jason Stern is the regular ride leader.
  • Pacific Sprintapalooza happens at 5:25AM Pacific. Eric Schlange is the regular ride leader.

More DIRT

Zwift Academy 2018 Men’s Finals – Day 3

Eric Schlange
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Zwift Academy 2018 Men’s Finals – Day 3

Zwift Academy 2018 Men’s Finals – Day 3

Welcome back to Capetown, South Africa where our three Zwift Academy finalists are doing their best to prove they are worthy of a contract with Dimension Data’s U23 squad.

Their menu begins with a three-hour road ride punctuated with hill reps, all in preparation for today’s Zwift race which will see Martin, Alex and Oliver take on each other and 400 other Zwifters in a race up Alpe du Zwift.

Wondering how the Alpe race went? Watch it below…

Learn more about the 3 finalists >

Zwift Academy homepage >

This Week’s Top 5 Zwift Videos

Thomas Eichentopf
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This Week’s Top 5 Zwift Videos

This Week’s Top 5 Zwift Videos

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Racing Kona | The Specialized Zwift Academy Team

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We’re back with the Specialized Zwift Academy Team on this one. I really find this inspiring content to be on a very high production level. I’m not a triathlete, but now I’m cheering heavily for my buddy’s attempt to qualify. I’m sure he’d need someone to support him on site…

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The Only Headwind You’ll be Glad About

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I’ve been glad about headwinds helping me slow down on descents before, but this is Zwift Insider and that Headwind is a fancy new gadget. Ronald’s review of the Wahoo Headwind might change your Christmas wish list.

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The Ultimate Indoor Training Set Up?

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Maybe this one could spark some discussion. What really is the ultimate Zwift setup? As Juliett got hers sponsored by Zwift itself, we might say: this video tells us what Zwift thinks is the setup to own.

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Single Events vs. Seasons

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TrainerRoad’s “Ask a Cycling Coach” #184. Zwift and Trainerroad are an awesome combination, and just last week we featured a video on how to use both together. As we’re early in the trainer season, this feature on long-term training planning should be a must-watch. (Takes some time, but so does your Zwift session.)

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Zwift vs. FulGaz

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“Doesn’t mean I can’t go and date other apps” – twelve seconds in the video, Triathlon Taren demonstrates his standup talent. FulGaz has developed a little bit since we last featured it in the video series. Here’s how it can be a beneficial add-on to your Zwift training.

Zwift Academy 2018 Men’s Finals – Day 2

Eric Schlange
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Zwift Academy 2018 Men’s Finals – Day 2

Zwift Academy 2018 Men’s Finals – Day 2

Catch up with Matt Stephens in Capetown, South Africa as the men’s Zwift Academy finalists are put to the test on day 2. Their day begins with a three-hour road ride with some hard efforts, but it is followed by the dreaded Zwift ramp test.

Learn more about the 3 finalists >

Zwift Academy homepage >

All about TSS (Stress Points) in Zwift

Eric Schlange
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All about TSS (Stress Points) in Zwift

All about TSS (Stress Points) in Zwift

When you begin a workout in Zwift you may notice a “stress points” rating. And when you finish any Zwift ride you’ll see a guy at the top-right telling you how hard you worked.

Where do those numbers come from, and how are they useful?

Zwift’s “stress points” are really just TSS–the same number you see when you end a ride. Training Stress Score was developed by TrainingPeaks as a key workout metric. It combines both time and intensity into one metric which indicates how much stress your workout is putting on your body.

Let’s dig into TSS a bit more to learn how it is calculated and used.

First, a Big Nod to the Creators

The TSS (Training Stress Score) and IF (Intensity Factor) metrics were created by Dr. Andy Coggan and Hunter Allen. Coggan also created NP (Normalized Power). TSS, IF and NP would eventually be purchased by TrainingPeaks and trademarked.

Coggan, Allen, and TrainingPeak’s Joe Friel have done amazing work developing metrics and tools that help us train smart. They deserve kudos for the many ways they have helped cyclists take their training to the next level.

(Side note: if you’re ever looking for good books on training with power, pick up Coggan and Allen’s Training and Racing with a Power Meter and/or Friel’s The Cyclist’s Training Bible. Both incredible resources for anyone interested in getting faster on the bike!)

Power Required

It’s worth noting that calculating TSS requires power numbers. Twenty years ago these numbers weren’t accessible to most cyclists, but nowadays with affordable power meters and smart trainers many cyclists have power data for every ride. It’s a great time to be alive and training!

Connect to TrainingPeaks

If you haven’t yet done so, I recommend heading to TrainingPeaks.com (or downloading their app) and creating a free account. Upload all your ride data to this account and you will have TSS and other metrics stored for every ride.

  • Link your Zwift account to TrainingPeaks by logging into Zwift.com and clicking “Connect” under Profile>Connections.
  • Outdoors I use (and love!) my Wahoo Elemnt bike computer which uploads my rides to TrainingPeaks as well as Strava. If you have a power meter for outdoor rides, set up your bike’s computer to upload to TrainingPeaks. This way you’ll have all your rides analyzed by TrainingPeaks.

The Formula

Here is the formula for calculating TSS:

TSS = [(sec x NP x IF)/(FTP x 3600)] x 100

Where “sec” is how many seconds your workout lasted, NP is normalized power, IF is intensity factor, and FTP is your functional threshold power. Most of those numbers will be familiar to you, but “Intensity Factor” may be new. It’s simple though: IF is the ratio of Normalized Power to your FTP for any given workout. So if an athlete with an FTP of 300 watts completed a workout averaging 200 NP their IF would be .67.

TSS calculation examples (assuming FTP of 250 watts):

  • Ride at FTP for 1 hour: [(3600 x 250 x 1)/(250 x 3600)] x 100, or 100.
  • Ride at 75% FTP for three hours: [(10800 x 187.5 x .75)/(250 x 3600)] x 100, or 169.
  • Ride at 50% FTP for five hours: [(18000 x 125 x .5)/(250 x 3600)] x 100, or 125.

Once you understand the formula you will see that you can earn more than 100 TSS within a single workout, but only if the workout is longer than an hour.

It’s All Relative

Since TSS is based on your personal FTP, a TSS of 100 is relatively the “same” for a professional athlete as it is for a beginner. This is the genius of the TSS metric.

As an example, if a pro cyclist “Pro Joe” went out and did a 1-hour ride that resulted in a TSS of 100, this would be a max effort for him. In simplified terms, if Joe’s FTP was 350 watts, this means he would have held 350 watts for the full hour. Animal!

Then a mere mortal, let’s call him “Cycling Bob”, comes along with an FTP of 225. Bob goes out and hammers for an hour, holding 225 watts the whole time. His TSS will be 100 as well.

Even though Joe and Bob moved at very different speeds during their rides, they both gave it their all for that hour. Their relative effort levels were the same, which is why their TSS is the same.

What’s the Use?

This is a massive topic, and one in which I’m no expert. What I can say with confidence is it’s the best metric I’ve found for how hard a day’s effort really was, and that helps inform my recovery needs that follow.

Many coaches and athletes also use cumulative TSS (per week or per month) to figure out the volume of training which will leads to improvements but avoid overtraining. Athletes might ramp up their TSS leading into a big event, building each week from (for example) 600 TSS to 700 then 800.

There is much more to this topic, but we’ll leave it here for today. I’m curious: do you pay attention to TSS? How have you found it useful in your training? Comment below!

The Echelon Podcast: Mark Mermelstein – Zwift QA Manager

Adam Zimmerman
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The Echelon Podcast: Mark Mermelstein – Zwift QA Manager

The Echelon Podcast: Mark Mermelstein – Zwift QA Manager

This week I chat it up with Mark Mermelstein who is the QA manager over at Zwift HQ. Awesome to get some insight from someone on the gaming side of Zwift.

About The Echelon Podcast:

We are amateur cyclists who cover everything in the world of cycling. Co-hosted by Adam Zimmerman and Chris Smith, you can find us on Soundcloud or iTunes.

Zwift Academy 2018 Men’s Finals – Day 1

Eric Schlange
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Zwift Academy 2018 Men’s Finals – Day 1

Zwift Academy 2018 Men’s Finals – Day 1

Matt Stephens catches up with the three Team Dimension Data Zwift Academy finalists on day one in Cape Town. It’s the calm before the storm!

Learn more about the 3 finalists >

Zwift Academy homepage >

Jon Mayfield Posts “Where Is Map Choice?”

Eric Schlange
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Jon Mayfield Posts “Where Is Map Choice?”

Jon Mayfield Posts “Where Is Map Choice?”

Last night Game Master Jon Mayfield published a long-awaited post sharing Zwift’s plans for “Map Choice.” Zwifters (including myself) are reading this post with interest since we’ve been requesting this ability for quite some time.

Jon’s post thoughfully lays out the reasons Map Choice is what it is today. He begins with a statement of what makes Zwift special:

From the very start we chose to focus our efforts on a connected experience where you are part of a world populated by others, rather than the typical solution of the day (and now) of having countless courses to choose from, each being a solo or sparsely populated experience.

No one will dispute the wisdom of Zwift focusing on a social, connected experience. In fact, I would argue that this, more than anything else, is what makes Zwift special.

Jon also shares a short history lesson on how the Zwift community thrived even in its early days on Jarvis Island in 2014 (read more about Jarvis). And even back then, Jon says, Zwifters were requesting more worlds and questioning the logic of having a very limited map selection!

So What’s Next?

Now it is November 2018, and everyone knows some sort of World Choice is imminent. The only questions are how will it work, and when will it happen? In typical mysterious Mayfield style, he doesn’t answer either question specifically but gives us some big clues.

How Will It Work?

Zwift’s vision for world swapping is to have Watopia always be live, working as a sort of “hub” for the Zwift universe. Want to ride somewhere else? You can join an event held in another world (this functionality launched May 30, 2018) or (coming soon!) you will be able to take an airplane to the “guest map” of the day.

The guest map idea is analogous to our current course schedule calendar. This “restricted rotation” has some advantages, as Jon explains:

With Watopia being a hub it also means our guest maps can be smaller, more experimental, and even seasonal allowing us to introduce fresh rides without having to spend so much time making something that can support 8,000 simultaneous Zwifters.

Zwift’s concept art for the “Watopia Hub” idea… from 2015! In this example Richmond would be the guest map of the day.

Is this what the new World Choice interface will look like once it’s live this winter? Jon says:

We’ve still got some work to do on the user interface for this, and while it’s not quite as cartoony looking as the 2015 mockup above, it’s probably not going to end up too far from it either.

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When Will It Happen?

We all want this to happen yesterday, of course. But to the question of “When?” Jon replies:

We’re actively working on this final step of having Watopia + a guest map (or maps), and it’s coming this winter.

My Comments

I see the rationale behind Zwift’s plans, and agree this is a big step in the right direction. It will be interesting to see how many riders choose the guest map of the day, because this will indicate just how much people care about riding in less-populated worlds. What if the vast majority of Zwifters choose to stay in Watopia? That means Zwift needs to focus on building it out further. On the other hand, if the guest maps also get crowded Zwift may need to make more than one available at a time.

I’ll also say Zwift is running late releasing World Choice. I would have liked to see it a year ago, because even back then free riding any course but Watopia had become a conga-line experience. Even the Watopia flat routes are quite crowded these days, so it is good to see Jon mention a flat expansion for Watopia coming soon as well.

With all that said, even if they’re running a bit late Zwift is still an amazing platform delivering a social indoor training experience like no other–so I’m excited about what the near future has in store for our community.

Read Jon’s full post here >

 

Ride with Reason Week 2 Challenge: Ride for Qhubeka

Eric Schlange
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Ride with Reason Week 2 Challenge: Ride for Qhubeka

Ride with Reason Week 2 Challenge: Ride for Qhubeka

Bicycles help people travel further faster while gaining fitness and access to more options in healthcare, education and work. In short, bicycles change lives.

This week the Zwift community, Team Dimension Data and Zwift are teaming up to unlock a 500 bike donation for Qhubeka. Qhubeka is a global non-profit organization dedicated to advancing education, health, and economic opportunities by providing simple, sustainable transportation with bicycles.

The Ride On thumb will be swapped for the Qhubeka High Five in all group rides this week. Zwift Academy finalist Ollie Jones and other Team Dimension Data pros will lead some group rides during the week (see ride list).

Learn more about Qhubeka >

Donate additional funds >

This Week’s Challenge

Complete ANY 2 group rides during the week to unlock an in-game cycling cap. If 25,000 Zwifters complete this challenge, Zwift will donate 500 bikes to Qhubeka. All group rides count. Races and group workouts do not.

About Ride with Reason

November has always been “charity month” in Zwift, with riders working together to complete challenges and raise funds for worthy causes. This year Zwift has broken November into four weekly challenges, with each week focusing on supporting a different cause. Read more at Zwift.com >

Kit Unlock

Completing each challenge unlocks a small portion of the Reason Zwift cycling kit. Complete all four challenge and receive the full kit!

How to Enter the Challenges

Click the orange button to join the challenge. (For whatever reason no text was displaying on the button when we put this article together, but clicking it will get you entered so you can see your progress towards completing each challenge.)

Wahoo Kickr Core Review Roundup

Eric Schlange
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Wahoo Kickr Core Review Roundup

Wahoo Kickr Core Review Roundup

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We’ve combed the web seeking Wahoo KICKR Core reviews and information, summarizing our findings so you can learn everything worth knowing about this smart trainer. If you decide to purchase the KICKR Core, please consider doing so through the shopping links at the bottom of this post, as this will help support Zwift Insider. 

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Wahoo rolled out the KICKR Core mid-range direct-drive trainer at July 2018’s Eurobike show. Priced between Wahoo’s wheel-on offering (the Snap at $599) and their flagship direct-drive Kickr ($1199), the Core competes directly with the industry’s other mid-range direct-drive smart trainers, the Tacx Flux and Elite Direto.

The Core is essentially a stripped-down version of Wahoo’s industry-leading KICKR. How do the two differ? The Core’s frame is less robust, the flywheel is a bit smaller, its max watts/gradient are a bit lower, and it does not include a cassette. There are also some minor power inaccuracies showing up in early testing which will probably be cleared up with a firmware update.

Are those differences worth the $300 price difference? That’s for you to decide, but we will say many are calling this the best smart trainer for the money available today. In fact, the Core is DC Rainmaker’s top recommended mid-range trainer for 2018.

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Quick Quotes

Ray at DC Rainmaker says: 

I suspect it won’t take long for the KICKR CORE to become Wahoo’s most popular trainer, and for largely good reason. You can save $300 with almost negligible ‘loss’ compared to the full KICKR 2018.

Tom at GearMashers says:

With the Release of the KICKR Core, Wahoo has shored up a mid range trainer line that competes nicely with Elite Direto and Tacx Flux. In fact they have done such a great job it actually competes with its more expensive and heavier flywheel KICKR counterpart.

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Wahoo KICKR Core Promo Video

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Key Specs

  • Accuracy: + / – 2%
  • Maximum Grade: 16%
  • Maximum Power Output: 1800W
  • Flywheel Weight: 12 lb
  • 9″L x 23″W x 21″H (legs closed), 20″L x 23″W x 19″H (legs open)
  • Weight: 40 lb
  • Hub Types: 130/135mm QR, 12×142, and 12×148. Thru Axle Adapters included.
  • KICKR Climb and Headwind compatible
  • Cassette not included

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Pros & Cons

The Good:

  • Very quiet
  • Quality flywheel feel
  • KICKR Climb compatible
  • $300 less than KICKR

The Bad:

  • Cassette not included
  • Minor power accuracy concerns
  • Awkward to carry

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Video Reviews

We’ve taken a look at the best KICKR Core review videos and summarized them for quick digestion.

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Shane Miller

  • Nice and quiet
  • Pairs with KICKR Climb, no problem
  • Accurate power at steady state
  • Overshoots power on short, max power intervals
  • Some power overshooting means not quite a 10/10. Hopes firmware updates will fix this issue.

 

 

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DC Rainmaker

  • KICKR Core is virtually silent, very similar to new KICKR ’18
  • Tacx Neo actually has more of a hum than the new KICKRs

 

 

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SMARTBikeTrainers

  • Wahoo working on firmware fix for minor accuracy issues
  • ~5% power drift after 1 week with no calibration
  • 1800 max watts not an issue for most
  • 12# flywheel vs 12.5# of previous KICKR models (only KICKR 18 has 16# flywheel)

 

 

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Conclusions

While its 1800w/16% gradient max is lower than what the most expensive trainers offer, it is better than the other trainers in this price range. Besides, most Zwifters run their trainer difficulty at 50% or less, meaning they would never get close to a 16% gradient feel!

And while the 12lb flywheel is significantly lighter than the KICKR 18’s 16lb flywheel, it is worth noting that all prior KICKR models had a 12.5lb flywheel. It would seem Wahoo only increased the KICKR 18’s flywheel size to differentiate it from the KICKR Core!

With all this in mind, Wahoo’s KICKR Core looks to be today’s best choice in the mid-range direct-drive smart trainer market.

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Read KICKR Core Reviews

DC Rainmaker
Gearmashers
SMARTBikeTrainers

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Where to Buy

Direct from Wahoo
Clever Training
REI
Competitive Cyclist

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