DIRT teammate Shawn McAfee and I had been talking about getting into a race together for a while, and we finally found a race that worked for both of us. Tuesday night: the Midweek Criterium Race. 18 laps of Crit City’s Downtown Dolphin.
Shawn (a B racer like myself, but ranked significantly higher) wanted to race the A’s, but I didn’t like the idea of a long 18-lapper with A racers. “Are you sure you don’t want to do B’s and have some fun trading off attacks?” I asked. “OK, I’m convinced,” he quickly answered. Apparently he wasn’t too thrilled about trying to hang with the A’s, either.
Then we invited the rest of the team. That’s when things got interesting.
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Double Draft and Tactics
We thought it would be fun to introduce some mayhem into the race, via good old-fashioned team tactics. At first we thought just attacking off the front in ones and twos would be a good way to whittle down the field and make others burn matches – then we realized this event used double draft mode.
If you’re not familiar with it, double draft mode is a significantly stronger draft effect than Zwift’s “standard” draft. Zwift racers know double draft makes it very difficult to get away from the pack. This is because double draft boosts the overall pack speed by 1-2 miles per hour as riders on the front continuously churn between hammering in the wind and recovering in the big draft.
In a double draft race, unless you’re able to break away from the group with at least several riders, you probably won’t stay away. This changes your tactics.
Eventually we had 9 DIRT riders signed up for the race. We agreed to hop into the team Discord server for voice comms. This was going to be fun!
The Warmup
My legs would be well-rested heading into Tuesday, and I wanted to get some miles in and make sure it was a big training day. So Tuesday morning I put in around 30 easy miles on Zwift, with a few sprints as leg openers. Since the race was 9 hours later I figured this wouldn’t negatively impact my performance much (if at all). Who knows, it might even prep my legs a bit for a hard effort!
After the morning ride I made sure to recover properly: replacing my carbs, hydrating throughout the day, and stretching my legs. Everything felt good.
I wrapped up my workday a bit early, and 30 minutes before the race I was on my regular Tempus Fugit warmup routine. I had already chewed my caffeine gum and applied the PR lotion to my legs, so my pre-race ritual was completed. I was really stoked to race as a team, knowing it adds an entirely new dimension to the race experience!
The Start
The start of the race wasn’t any different than other Crit City starts. The first lap was a hard effort as the initial selection was made – I averaged 347 watts as we completed the first lap at 35.9mph. 2:01 – a new PR for me!
The second lap was easier, then we settled into a rhythm: hammer up the prime climb, keep the power over the top, then recover on the descent and through the lap banner. Maintain a good position, and don’t get gapped on that prime climb!
Once things settled down the initial group of 85 was whittled down to 45. Now it was time to talk team tactics.
The Middle
Teammate Jason Muchler made a few solo attacks off the front, happy to play the sacrificial lamb because he was riding one-armed with a shoulder injury and knew he wouldn’t factor in the sprint finish. Each time he told us he was attacking we would be sure to stay off the front of the group, forcing other riders to pull us back to him.
Unfortunately, the effects of his attacks were blunted by the high pack speed and ease of sitting in the double draft. Attacking as a team was the only way we would have an effect on the race, given the large pack size and double draft mode. The question was, when to attack?
As we hashed it out on Discord it was clear that most of the team wasn’t feeling especially strong. There wasn’t a lot of confidence in an early attack being able to stick, but we did think that an attack or two before the finish would be a good way to drop a few riders and soften the legs of some of those who would be in the final mix.
Our first attack was decided: on the 11th lap, we worked our way to a good position near the front of the pack as we hit the bricks of the prime kicker. Then just as we neared the top of the short climb we went all-in to break away from the main group.
Only five of us had the legs to make the attack, which meant we didn’t stand much of a chance against the 40 riders behind. But we hammered all the way through to the lap banner anyway.
DIRT teammate Pete Butler had joined the Discord chat even though he wasn’t in the race – he was our directeur sportif, giving us tips about other riders, encouraging our hard efforts, and advising us on strategy. He was great!
Our breakaway only stayed away for less than a lap, but we dropped a few riders and made others work a bit harder. Now what?
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The End
Given the frenetic pace and size of the pack, we didn’t fancy the idea of another group attack. Instead, we decided to go for a leadout train effort on the final lap. We would try to save those who had a chance at a strong sprint finish for the final meters, which meant other DIRT dudes would need to lead out.
This is classic cycling teamwork: the leadout train. In outdoor races with a flat finish you’ll see teammates assemble in a “train” near the end of the race. The idea is that your team’s sprinter sits in, following the train’s wheel as each rider in front puts in a good hard pull before pulling off and letting the next rider do the same. This progressively lifts the speed of the team’s train until the final rider pulls off and your sprinter is “delivered” to go all-in for the finish.
It’s a challenge of timing and fitness, not to mention pack positioning and handling skills as multiple teams jostle for position.
Leadout trains happen on Zwift as well, but they’re a bit… messier. DIRT’s finish in this race was a good example. A couple guys agreed to do the initial pull from the top of the prime kicker. The rest of us (whoever had the legs to hold on) would go with them, sitting in the wheels then unleashing a well-timed sprint and powerup for ultimate DIRT glory!
That was the plan, anyway. My buddy Shawn put in a great pull and got off the front. I was on his tail, but so were a few other non-DIRT riders. We descended the twisties at lightning speed, and before I knew it the sprint was upon us! I waited too long to activate my aero powerup and really hammer, and I ended up finishing in 5th. 4th on ZwiftPower.
See my race on Strava >
See my race on Zwift >
See race results on ZwiftPower >
Overall our DIRT team had a decent result, although we just missed taking the win. 3 of the top 5 in ZwiftPower were DIRT riders, with the best result coming from Jeff Beltramini in 2nd. Congrats to winner Matthew Downs!
Shawn recorded and live-streamed the race. Watch it below (you’ll hear me on Discord):
Takeaways
A few takeaways from this race:
- I like PowerUps. Especially in Crit City. Having done races here with and without them, I really appreciate the strategic element they bring. And I enjoy being able to use them at just the right time to provide just a little bit of relief or to boost my attacks.
- Teamwork is a blast. Probably 95% of the races I’ve done have just been solo efforts, because I’m too lazy/busy to organize anything. But the team dynamic totally changes the race for everyone, and it can give teammates who wouldn’t otherwise get a good result a real feeling of accomplishment if they’re able to fill a role in the team’s strategy. I want to be in more races like this.
- Timing is everything. I still need to work on my Crit City sprint timing. I should have attacked this finish more aggressively, following the wheels ahead a bit closer and gone all-in a bit sooner. Perhaps hindsight is just 20/20 – or perhaps I need to get a better sense of timing.
- Double Draft is fast. My previous best times on this route were set in 8-lap races where power numbers were even higher, yet those times were 5-10 seconds slower than today’s race. Like I said earlier: double draft boosts pack speeds by 1-2mph.
What About You?
Have you been able to work together with teammates in a race? What did you do, and how did it work out? Share some stories below!
Nice work, Eric. Don’t trust those lap times, though – they are still being impacted by the Strava bug that sometimes ends the laps early by cutting off the hairpin. There is another lap at https://www.strava.com/segments/22514745 that seems to include the hairpin consistently — not sure how it manages this.
Fun race guys. The tactics really made it interesting.
Great racing Poochiemoomoos. You had a great kick at the end.
I’m the C. Stewart in the pink hat in the screen shot at the top of the page. My plan for every race is mayhem. I’m not a great sprinter, and at 95kg I can’t do much on the climbs except make sure everyone else suffers a bit. The short climbs in Crit City are manageable; I always get dropped on the longer climbs. But this is Crit City, so mayhem it is. At ~10 miles and ~12 miles, I hit the climb hard and popped an aero power-up at the top, just to spread out the pack and try to drop a few folks. Once, I got 3 seconds ahead on the downhill, but I slowed up once I realized there was only one other rider with me. Like Eric, I waited too long to start my final sprint, but in my defense all that mayhem-making drained me as well. At the top of the KOM on the last lap, I purposefully rested for a few seconds before pushing to catch back up to the front, just to recover a bit. Instead of starting to hammer at the start of the rollers, I waited until towards the end of the rollers. 11th in Zwift, 8th on Zwiftpower.
Where did you start your sprint? Did you use the hairpin turn as the marker to go or before that?
Hairpin is too late, in my opinion. It’s about 10s from the hairpin to the finish line. So I popped my aero around 5s before the hairpin and started hammering.
I think just a few seconds earlier would have been the way to go. And probably having the power just a bit higher before that, so I was closer to the front. (Of course, that’s easy to say now, when I’m not on the rivet!)
Great analysis as always!! Love these posts.
I also really like the idea of a team train and would love to see this aspect developed further. I think it would be cool to have some sort of in-game option to link teammates where for example, if teammates are within 2m of one another, other riders can’t jump in. If the gap opens, it’s fine for them to slip in. If the gap closes, other riders get bumped or less draft.
Question on the Crit Race results: you often see the overall race times are quicker as you go down the Cats, is this because they complete less laps (after being lapped) and are therefore racing for less time?
Sometimes it’s a lap count thing. But it’s also sometimes because the C and B cats are much larger than the A cats, and big groups just go faster!