The “Watts up with Power?” ride is likely the slowest group ride you’ll find on Zwift, because it focuses on learning the basics of power based training while riding together on Zwift. Each ride is streamed to Zwift LIVE by ODZ on Facebook, and focuses on teaching specific principles of power-based training. For viewers that are unable to attend live, the teaching is made available for all to review afterwards.
Here is the summary for April 26th from ride leader Nate Dunn.
Power meters enable us to learn more about ourselves as cyclists. Whether you’re using the TrainingPeaks Power Profile or the more granular WKO4 Power Duration Curve, your data tells a precise story about your strengths and weaknesses. Let’s start with the Power Profile Chart.
Power Profile Chart
Wondering how your W/kg stacks up against other cyclists? The TrainingPeaks power profile chart can give you a quick tool to compare some of your best efforts against cyclists across the competitive spectrum. The chart also helps to identify 3 primary “cyclist types.” The sprinter, time trialist, and all-rounder.
WKO4 Power Duration Curve
Accomplishing a similar task, the WKO Power Duration curve is essentially a smoothed/mathematically derived curve based on different mean maximal power durations. While the Power Profile chart gives you a quick glance at your strengths and weaknesses, the Power Duration curve allows a more granular look at the entire spectrum of the intensity/duration relationship of your riding.
So What?
So you’ve identified your strengths and weaknesses and made some basic comparisons with other cyclists, now what? The Power Profile chart and Power Duration curve can help improve your cycling in 3 specific ways.
1: Provide Context for Goal Setting
Hoping to win the pancake flat state crit championship? How does your 5s power stack up? Maybe another race more suited to your strengths is a more appropriate target to build your season training around.
2: Inform Race Tactics
Do you have a high 5s power but comparably low 20m power? In a criterium your best bet is to ride as conservatively as possible, avoiding breakaways, while positioning yourself in the final laps to produce 1 maximal effort in a final dash to the line.
3: Guide Training Decisions
Are you hoping to excel in a tough road race but your 5m power is comparably low? Doing specific workouts to improve your VO2max might make the difference and help you make it over a tough climb to contest the finish.
Final Thoughts
Don’t forget that at the end of the day, cycling is an aerobic sport. Don’t sell out your training to chase small improvements in a weakness. Regularly assess the cost/benefit of your training to make sure you’re still progressing toward the larger goal of improved aerobic fitness.
Along with World Bicycle Relief swag bag prizes for our first place finishers, three random entrants will also get a water bottle from ZwiftHQ. Those three winners are:
Since we have no way of directly contacting entrants, prize winners must email [email protected] by May 2nd with their full name and mailing address so we can get your prizes shipped out.
Castelli SkillZ and DrillZ Ride, 19 April – On a number of occasions, we have discussed sprinting during the Castilli SkillZ and DrillZ Ride. Today, we focused a little more specifically on sprinting on Zwift vs outdoors.
To see the video of this week go to Zwift Live by ODZ on Facebook or watch it below:
Intro
Sprinting on Zwift is a bit different than during IRL races. In IRL races, sprints are executed best when the sprinter has a few teammates or unwitting accomplices help ramp up the speed while blocking the wind. The sprinter then has the opportunity to conserve energy and gearing before launching. During Zwift sprints, though, some TeamODZ teammates and I figured out that putting a few riders up the road, spaced a few seconds apart, gives the sprinter a better draft zone and multiple sling shots. Because of this difference, we decided to focus only on the Zwift-specific sprinting this week.
Sprint Positioning
As we got into our drillz today, we started the class by discussing positioning. We have covered positioning many times during SkillZ and DrillZ, but I wanted to make sure that we reinforced the instruction by demonstrating the difficulty of sprinting from a poor position. So, we set it up to have two groups. Group 1 (G1) moved to the back of the bunch, and Group 2 (G2) held the front at 1.5 W/kg. When told to go, G1 jumped to 3.0 W/kg for 20 to 30 seconds. While 3.0 W/kg is not a full on sprint for most people, the doubling of pace of the main field is fairly realistic. The point was not for G1 to get away but to show how difficult it is to get away if the sprint is started from the rear of the field. In fact most of the riders were not able to get more than a second or two ahead of G2 after 30 seconds. G2 experienced the same effect when we swapped positions.
Teammates as Slingshots
Next, we shifted focus to Zwift-specific sprint tactics, specifically the use of teammates. During IRL events, the best way to execute a sprint is to have two or more teammates ramp up the speed, peeling off as they fall off pace, and ending with the sprinter launching off the wheel of the last teammate just before he or she loses steam. That works for IRL events, not so much on Zwift. Why is that, you ask? Well, there is one simple explanation. In Zwift, your avatar can ride through the riders in front of you. During IRL events, you can try that once. After you pick yourself up out of the heap of bikes and torn lycra, you will quickly understand how bad of an idea that was.
Since the leadout train is not very effective on Zwift, some folks have figured out how to get the same effect. Basically, it involves sending riders up the road, spread out every one to two seconds. Spreading out some teammates, creates a series of draft zones for the sprinter to use as slingshots and keep building speed. We executed this drill by sending myself and one other rider slightly up the road and having the two group take turns using us as slingshots.
Sprinting From a Distance
For the grand finale, we moved on to sprinting from distance. This is a tough move to make, but may be entirely necessary depending on your opponent. Sprinters come in different types. Some have immense power from 200 meters. Others have a quick, explosive start but can’t go for more than 10-15 seconds. Still others can go from 600 meters and beyond, despite not having super explosive power. Today we worked on going from longer distances to neutralize those short-burst sprinters because there truly is a technique to the long sprint from a bunch.
For the final series of drillz, we broke the long sprint into three parts. First, the burst is needed to create space from your opponents. Second, the gap maintenance is required to set up the finale and hold off any chasers. Third, the finale is needed to close out the sprint, closing the door on any counterattackers trying to come over the top. The burst can be roughly equated to three times your FTP. No, you cannot hold that for very long. That’s not the point. That effort is only a 10-15 second effort to get away. After that short effort, you transition into the gap maintenance phase, which is the longest phase. During this time, you have to hold at least 1.5 to 2 times your FTP. The further out you start the sprint, the longer you have to endure this lactic-acid, lung-searing, heart-pounding pain. The best part of this phase is that you only have another 10 to 15 seconds of effort remaining once you finish it. The bad part is that the remaining time has to be done much closer to the 3x FTP from the burst phase. Basically, you have to give everything you have.
The ability to endure this pain is what separates first and second place, more often than not. We executed a number of these intervals ranging from 30 seconds to 1 minute. Pretty much everyone felt that the 60 second effort was pretty horrible.
Conclusion
As we discussed at the end of the ride, sprinting is much more complex than just being the rider with the highest 10 second power. Placing yourself in a tactically beneficial position and utilizing your teammates to maximize your advantage will help you neutralize the strengths of your opponents. Then, following Sun Tsu’s advice to know yourself as well as your enemy, you can turn the tables on your adversaries. Understanding your capabilities and limitations will allow you to dictate the terms of the race, rather than reacting to the plan of another rider. Practicing the long sprint and developing the long power can give you an edge by disrupting the plans of those monster-legged, Greipel types. Notice that I indicated the need to practice. During the last drill of the day, the common theme was going too hard, too early and fading out of contention. Keep working on the drillz that we did during the class and really try to learn your capabilities, and you will put yourself in the best possible position.
Next week, we’ll work on our climbing skillz, including when it is appropriate to go over the red line. Until then, Ride On!
CNNMoney posted a video today featuring Zwift CEO Eric Min talking about how our favorite game works, how it all began, and where it’s going.
In the interview, Eric breaks Zwifting into three activities: Exploring, Group Rides, and Workouts.
We also see some “vital stats” which I found to be interesting, especially since Zwift has never really stated how many subscribers they have.
Zwift’s Vital Stats:
80 Employees
120,000 subscribers
$45 million in funding
Sneaky Peaks
You can also passing glimpse of some work in progress at Zwift. At 39 seconds Eric is looking over the shoulder of an artist working on a course with a more narrow dirt road–a running trail, perhaps? And at 2:06 developers are working on an updated mobile app which looks to have mapping functionality. Cool stuff!
Eric also talks about how it’s the community, not the game, that has made Zwift a success. I heartily agree!
The “Watts up with Power?” ride is likely the slowest group ride you’ll find on Zwift, because it focuses on learning the basics of power based training while riding together on Zwift. Each ride is streamed to Zwift LIVE by ODZ on Facebook, and focuses on teaching specific principles of power-based training. For viewers that are unable to attend live, the teaching is made available for all to review afterwards.
Here is the summary for April 19th from ride leader Brett Jenner.
Power-Based Training: Where to Begin (*Bonus: Benchmark Testing for Triathletes)
Owning a power meter is often said to the be best investment a cyclist or triathlete can make–after hiring a coach that is. These devices allow us to quantify our efforts, guide our training, create benchmarks for training and racing, and inform us of increasing and decreasing levels of fitness.
While providing many key metrics we must also consider what, fundamentally, is required for an athlete to be successful? Beyond the obvious traits of grit – determination – passion – sacrifice – work ethic etc… what else is required?
The best answer I have come up with includes the following;
Smart Training Plan: French writer Antoine de Saint-Exupery famously wrote “A goal without a plan is just a wish.” That one may be obvious but important to note it is just one part of a multi-part mixture here.
Accountability: I believe that two of the drivers of performance are accountability and community; both of which a team provide. It is one of the reasons that I have always embraced trying to build belonging and community with my athletes.
Education and Feedback: Because you don’t want to learn all of life’s lesson the hard way… and feedback is essential to the process, be it numerical, muscular, or from an outside source like a coach.
Community: Perhaps the number one reason that Zwift-based TeamODZ has been as successful as it has. Community, in the end, speaks to that sense of belonging that we all have and, as mentioned earlier, can be a powerful driver of performance.
While cyclists interest lie in bike FTP, I was sure to include the following benchmark swim and run sessions for triathletes;
Swim 100 yard or meter and 1000 yard or meter times done after a proper warm-up. As a note here, I prefer to keep the warm-up consistent for my athletes allowing for limited variability between tests.
Bike FTP: 5min, 20min test for seasoned athletes or 3 x 8min for beginner.
Run – unless you are using a running power meter, you are going to want to setup your heart rate training zones based either off recent race results (i.e.10k or 15k) or a 30min best-effort run done after a proper warm-up.
The key is that no matter how much we try to take the guesswork out of endurance or multisport events, there will always be the need for energy management (pacing), gut feeling, and the necessity to train the ‘inner animal’ to be successful. All of the information and tools in the world can help create a picture for you, and deliver some practical real-world information but remember: this will never be a game of mathematics. It will always retain some pure and dirty straight-out racing. Use the tools to help you, but never at the cost of understanding the following things:
How it should feel
How it does feel
What to do with that feeling
So go ahead and embrace the adventure and enrich your life with something challenging but fun. Do this, and the benefits will bubble up, and your vigor and passion for the everyday will continue long into the season.
Making (and chasing) the break (Skillz and Drillz)
Castelli SkillZ and DrillZ Ride, 12 April – In the world of professional cycling, the breakaway is often the realm of those doomed to suffer for an extended period of time off the front of the group, only to have their hearts broken as the eventual winners catch and blow by them. Sometimes, this occurs within sight of the finish line, and the disappointment and anguish is apparent.
In Zwift racing and even in the non-pro ranks, the breakaway often rules the day. Today, we covered making the break and how to chase it down. Like usual, the video of today’s class can be found on Zwift Live by ODZ on Facebook or you can watch it below:
Warm-Up
As usual, we got started with our brief warm-up where we practiced maintaining our position and moving around the peloton. Then, we got to the meat of the day. This week, we again divided into three groups: group 1 (G1) last names A-H, group 2 (G2) last names I-Q, and group 3 (G3) last names R-Z. We would use these three groups to form our breakaway group, our passenger group, and our chaser group.
The How and Why of Breakaways
Before we get started into the drillz, let’s discuss how breakaways form and what makes them successful. Breakaways in the professional peloton happen for a number of reasons. A small team may want to get some camera time for sponsors, or a team wants to position someone up the road to use later in the day. In some races, the winning move starts in a late breakaway like we saw in Paris-Roubaix. More often than not, the early break is brought back before a winning move is made or a bunch sprint occurs.
In Zwift racing and for IRL racing for us mere mortals, getting in the break can be the difference of competing for the win or just participating in a hard group ride. When the break goes, you have to make that split decision of whether you jump on the train or not. Once the move happens, the initial push will be hard, but it will settle. How long it takes to settle will depend on the size of the group and the ratio of drivers and passengers. The more drivers in the group, the more likely it is that the pace will stay high. Chasing the break down is merely a math problem. Are there more strong riders in the break than the chase pack, and are they willing to work? Whichever group has more firepower that is willing to work will likely take the day. Normally, numbers lie with the group, so it often falls to strength of riders.
Chasing the Break
For our purpose, we practiced chasing the breakaway and disrupting the chase. The first drill was simple. G1 was told to go up the road to get small gap at a determined pace. After about a minute, G2 got on the gas to chase down the break. The key for G2, and G1 after swapping roles, was to work together. By keeping the bunch tight and rotating through, the chasers were able to pull the break back in short order, and that is the key. Short of having a monster on the front to do all of the work, you have to use the others in the group to share the workload. At the same time, you have to determine how much work to contribute to the chase while preserving enough energy to make the winning move later in the day. Be careful when making this decision. If you don’t catch the break, it doesn’t matter how fresh your legs are when you arrive at the finish because you will be sprinting for the lesser points.
Disrupting the Chase
What happens when your teammate is up the road in the break, and you don’t want the chase to succeed? Well, that’s when you have to practice your disruption skillz. For the second drill of the day, we added the element of someone interrupting the momentum of the chase pack. How is this done? Well, it’s simple. Be annoying. I don’t mean that you should ride up real close to other riders and say, “I’m not touching you” in a silly voice. I mean, go to the front and ease the pace. Allow gaps to open up, sure and slow, messing with the group’s ability to get a rhythm. Any of these techniques work.
During the drill, a member of the breakaway group remained with the chase group and joined me in the fun. Using the same gaps as during the previous drill, we showed that even mild disruption techniques made the chase longer and more work than the previous iteration. Now, there is a caveat with disruptions: it’s a lot easier to do in IRL racing, as riders can just ride through you on Zwift. Thus, it is harder to slow the group, but surging and slowing definitely keeps the group from working together effectively.
Conclusion
Being in the break is a great way to give yourself a chance to win a race from a reduced field. By working with your breakaway mates, you give yourself a chance to stay away… unless of course, you just want television time. Next time you see a move go, try to make the jump and do the work you can. If you missed the move, organize the chasers. You will see how much organization matters. That’s it for now. Next class we will cover sprinting. Until then, Ride On!
Episode 24 of Zwiftcast has been released. Here’s the full episode description:
Simon, Shane and Nathan are together – in the same place, and that place is Las Vegas! The Zwiftcasters are in the Nevada desert for the very first CVR World Champs, which is virtual bike racing as never before. Whilst the event takes top billing in this podcast, it’s not the only things the boys find time to talk about.
In a more chatty than usual podcast, the trio discuss Frank Garcia’s ambitious staging of Zwift racing as an ESport. If you don’t know what this is, after listening to this ‘cast, you’ll be much wiser. But there’s room for more than just racing.
Simon talks to Any Tough and his six year old son Daniel, about Kid Zwifting, its benefits and how the game can inspire youngsters to get involved in exercise and fitness.
Simon, Shane and Nathan also mull over the E Fondo on Zwift; the film Zwift made about Mat Hayman and the advent of more data with the Zwift Ride Report.
But the birth of Zwifting as an ESport at scale does dominate this ‘cast, not least because of Shane’s “surprise” second place. The chaps dissect the event and debate what it may mean for the development of the platform.
This podcast is a little more chatty than usual – perhaps not surprising as the hosts don’t have to wrestle with the obvious disadvantages of being on three different continents. We hope you enjoy it.
Power Tools: Making the Most of Training and Racing with Power
The “Watts up with Power?” ride is likely the slowest group ride you’ll find on Zwift, because it focuses on learning the basics of power based training while riding together on Zwift. Each ride is streamed to Zwift LIVE by ODZ on Facebook, and focuses on teaching specific principles of power-based training. For viewers that are unable to attend live, the teaching is made available for all to review afterwards.
Here is the summary for April 12 from ride leader Taylor Thomas.
Power based training is becoming more and more accessible to cyclists of all abilities. With the wide availability of both smart trainers and more affordable power meters, most cyclists are at least familiar with power. However, do you know what to look for in a meter, what to do with the data, and how to use it in your training?
What to Look for in a Power Meter
With so many options available it can be hard to know what you need in a power meter. Decide first if you want one that only reads power on one side, or takes a reading from both left and right sides.
Where are you going to be riding? What type of bike is it going on? What types of rides will you be doing? These questions will help inform your decision and choose the best meter for you.
Analyzing Your Power Data
What information is going to make you a better rider and help inform your training? The tools that you use should allow you to gain access to the insights you’re looking for.
Looking for insights within a single ride or race is good, but tracking adaptation over time is also critical. Understanding that it takes time for your body to adapt and compensate to the training load you’re applying is key. Don’t make judgements based on small data sets.
Keep track of your historical data. Once you begin training with power, log that information, and reference it consistently. Knowing how far you’ve come, and how your body has historically responded to training load, stress, duration, and intensity will help further inform your training decisions.
Your metrics are only as sound as the validity of your data. The importance of a properly calibrated power meter can not be overstated. Power spikes and erroneous data can dramatically impact your core metrics. Zero and calibrate your meter, as well as delete any data spikes to ensure you’re working with reliable data.
Using your Head Unit
Cycling computers, or head units, are more robust than ever. They offer tons of information to the rider in real time, but what’s important? Don’t crowd your screen with data that’s not useful. Hone in on 4-6 fields that you need visible during a ride.
Set up different screens for different types of rides. The information that’s valuable during an interval workout could be much different than during a group ride, or casual spin around the neighborhood. Know what you need, and when you need it.
Set up one of the data fields to register 5-10 second Normalized Power for interval sessions. Your computer is registering a power reading every 1/10 of a second, and that can make it hard to nail down a specific effort. Using a longer time period can help to “normalize” the data and provide a more consistent and usable number.
Castelli SkillZ and DrillZ Ride, 5 April – To close out the cobbled classics season, we finished off our series on the importance of positioning. While last week we focused on the short, punchy climbs, this week we stayed on the flats. Like normal, you can view the full class on Zwift Live by ODZ on Facebook.
Positioning is a common theme in many of the SkillZ and DrillZ lessons. That’s because positioning can be the small detail that can make or break your race or ride regardless of your fitness level. This weekend was one of the greatest one-day races of the year, Paris-Roubaix, and the need for being well-positioned is made abundantly clear. Over the 225-plus kilometers of racing, riders cross 29 sections of cobble stones, most of which are in the last 100 kilometers. Those sections represent 29 separate places where a positioning error can take a rider out of the mix. In this year’s edition, the favorites stayed right up at the front through the first two-thirds of the race. Then it happened. Tom Boonen slipped back to the back of the front group. Almost immediately, a small group went off the front and bridged to the leaders. Boonen did have a teammate go, but the gap jumped to over 30 seconds in the blink of an eye, too large of a gap to cross solo. Just like that, Boonen’s fairytale ending chance was over.
First Drill
After our normal warm-up and practice moving around the group, we got straight into it. Like last week, we divided the group into two, A-M for group 1 (G1) and N-Z for group 2 (G2). For the first drill, I had G1 move to the front and G2 sit at the back half of the group. When instructed to do so, G1 accelerated from 1.5 to 2.5 W/Kg. G2 had to wait to accelerate until they saw the G1 acceleration. Once the group stretched out, G2 was released to bunch the field back up. This caused chaos immediately. The accordion effect resulted in double digit gaps right away. It took us a while to chase back on, and the G2 folks had to expend considerably more energy than their G1 counterparts. After swapping positions between the groups, we confirmed for everyone that tail-gunning at the back of the field had potentially devastating consequences on energy expenditure and one’s ability to respond.
Second Drill
For the second drill, G1 sit at the back of the group and G2 moved to the front. On my signal, G1 attacked G2 from the back, but G2 was allowed to respond as soon as they recognized the attack. While the pace picked up, G1 never really got anywhere, as G2 was able to identify and respond before G1 riders could even get to the front. The same thing went for G2 when we swapped roles. Additionally, the attackers had to burn the acceleration matches just to get to the front, leaving little left to create a gap. And, as we have shown in previous classes, an attack is of no value if you can’t get a gap and consolidate it.
Crack the Whip
After finishing with the two DrillZ, it was time to play Crack the Whip. It is a very simple game. Stay behind the beacon. For those who break the rule, there is a punishment. Riders who pass the beacon had to sit up and stop pedaling for ten seconds, followed by a hard push to get back on the group. The purpose of the game was not to simply exact a toll from those who blew past the beacon. The focus is to keep another rider on the front. The purpose could be to have an advantage going into the final sprint or to make another rider work. In the end, the why is not important for Crack the Whip. The goal is just to keep the beacon on the front. Granted a few people simply sat two seconds off the beacon to avoid the risk of passing the beacon, but after a little cajoling, they joined the fun.
Conclusion
After about ten minutes of Crack the Whip, we ended the ride on the cool-down. To close out the day, we reviewed the day’s objectives. Remember, positioning can be critical to the success of a ride or a race. Sitting at the back is great if the pace is consistent and the terrain doesn’t change. Any accelerations, attacks, or rolling terrain, though, will make life at the back a horrible experience. Remember that when you try to position yourself during the next ride or race.
During the next Castelli SkillZ and DrillZ Ride, we will go back to covering breakaways where we will send a group off the front and chase it down. Thanks to those who joined us and those who watched the event streamed live. Until next week, Ride On!
Along with World Bicycle Relief swag bag prizes for our first place finishers, three random entrants will also get a water bottle from ZwiftHQ. Those three winners are:
Since we have no way of directly contacting entrants, prize winners must email [email protected] by April 18th with their full name and mailing address so we can get your prizes shipped out.
