After my first race of the L39ION of LA Crit Series (read about that here) I was keen to give it another go. My 20th place result in the first race had earned me a hefty ZwiftPower ranking upgrade, and I was thirsty for more!
But this time, I had a plan…
Planning Position
The truth was, that first race wasn’t terribly hard. Until the final 90 seconds! It was super duper steady, in fact, until that final bit. And while my finish had boosted my ranking nicely, I really hadn’t positioned myself well for the final effort.
I figured I could do better. And boost my ranking even more.
My plan was simple: sit in the pack and conserve. Then position myself close to the front in the final 2 minutes, so I could surf the wheels of early attacks and finish higher.
But as they say, no plan survives contact with the enemy. Or in my case – no plan survives contact with a race buddy’s crazy ideas!
Warmup, and a Last-Minute Change of Plans
My normal pre-race routine was executed to perfection. Two pieces of caffeine gum. Slap some PR lotion on the legs and kit up. Then as I spun out my warmup miles, I got a PM from Tom Meese (ODZ), a racer I’ve ridden with on many occasions. (I think our schedules just tend to line up.) Here’s our chat, verbatim:
Tom: Wanna try a break on the crit?
Me: Perhaps! Around what time you thinking?
Tom: Lap 3 might be good. But with a field this size, I really have no idea.
Me: There no way two of us would stay away for three laps.
Tom: I think we could get some more. We need 10-15.
Me: How about lap 4 we attack on the slight climb just after the Alley Sprint? See if we can get a small group.
Tom: That’s kinda what I was thinking. You tend to be marked. I think if we go we will get others and at least create a split.
Me: Agreed. I’ll probably blow up in spectacular fashion, but it’ll make things interesting!
Tom: That’s part of the fun!
And thus our plan was set. Admittedly, I was conflicted about this. I didn’t have much confidence that others would follow our attack, giving us a big enough group to stay away. But at the same time – wouldn’t it be amazing if we did?
The chance of breakaway glory in such a big race was just too tantalizing. And I rationalized it, of course. “If it doesn’t work out you’ll have a few laps to recover before the final effort…”
The Start
The race began just like last week’s. A bit of a hard effort for the first 30 seconds, then the pack settled in and chugged along around 47-48kph. I sat in the draft, riding as easily as possible without drifting off the back of the front group. We had 255 riders in the race, so a bit less than the previous week.
Efficiency is such a core concept when it comes to racecraft. Racers who win ride as easily as they possibly can, so they have the power to go hard when it’s needed. Those guys sitting in the wind at the front of your group throughout the race rarely end up winning. It’s not rocket science: they’ve spent their legs working extra hard while everyone behind worked 30% less.
For the first 16 minutes of the race I averaged 291W. Then we began lap 4. It was go time!
Mid-Race Attack
I’d seen Tom surfing wheels in the front group with me, so I knew he was ready for the attack. We sat near the front of the pack of ~100 riders, went through the Alley Sprint arch, then as the road tilted up we both poured on the watts, slingshotting off the draft of those ahead and rocketing into open space.
My aero powerup was activated for an extra boost. And it worked… sort of. We got away from the group, quickly creating a gap of ~4 seconds.
Tom saying what I was thinking… 
Not a bad gap!
There was only one problem. Nobody had followed us. It was just Tom and I against 100 other riders. “Nope,” Tom messaged.
We both knew it wasn’t going to work, so we eased up. In the end, the attack effort lasted around 30 seconds, with an average wattage of 518W. My heartrate spiked up to 187 (my max is 189). It was time to let the group catch, then sit in and recover.
The Finish
Lap 4 and 5 ticked over quickly, then we arrived at the back half of the final lap. My legs felt good, so it was time to put my original plan into place.
As we rode through the Castle Sprint arch, I worked my way toward the front of the pack. There’s a bit of a rise after the arch, then it’s a twisty, pell-mell final kilometer to the finish line. I wanted to make sure I stayed with the front riders during the final craziness!
Cresting the slight rise, I was positioned well. At first I thought, “The group’s not stretching out like last time,” but then I realized the stretch was happening behind me instead of ahead. Splendid!
I’d held onto an aero powerup, and used it as we neared the final wooden arch. It was go time! I hammered with everything I had, crossing the line in 15th place at 189BPM. Woosh!
See activity on Strava >
See ride on Zwift.com >
See results on ZwiftPower >
Takeaways
I crossed the line 0.513s behind the winner this time, compared to 1.304s in the previous race. I’d say my positioning plan made all the difference. And for my efforts I received another ranking upgrade (-10.75).
This is a good example of the fun Zwifters can have riding “repeat races” against a similar field on the same course. If you learn something each time, and apply it to the next race, you can see measurable improvements. And that’s gratifying.
Was the mid-race attack a smart move? Nah. We should have done something to get more riders involved. What I’ve done in the past (and this may sound crazy) is simply message everyone in game something like “Going to attack on this false flat. Join me?” This always gets more people attacking than if you go for it solo. Sure, it telegraphs the attack, so more riders can surf the wheels and hang on. But it also works better than going solo, in my experience.
If there was another L39ION crit to race, I’d probably give this a try. Sadly, the 4-race series is over.
Could I have finished higher without the mid-race attack? Perhaps. It’s interesting comparing my power numbers for the two L39ION crits:
- Race 1
- 299W average
- 312W normalized
- Final 2 minutes: 415W average
- Race 2
- 306W average
- 328W normalized
- Final 2 minutes: 433W average
Normalized power is better than average power at quantifying the difficulty of a race effort, and clearly my mid-race attack plus a bit more effort in the final minutes bumped up the difficulty significantly. (My average wattage for the first 16 minutes was actually 4W lower in the second race. Apart from the mid-race attack and final effort, the rides were quite similar.)
Your Thoughts
Did you race multiple L39ION crits? Did you apply your learnings and improve your results? Share below!
In my case it meant finishing in pretty much same spot losing to pretty much same guys whether I went hard to get a few breaks, or sat in massive pack and cruised. For crit races (in fact many races on zwift) I’m convinced people overtrain threshold, yes you need a good enough engine to make breaks and cruise in draft but key difference between podium and 30th is ability to smash yourself for 2-3mins at end, probably with another gear for 800W+ in final 30s too. Anything else is great training, but useless for big pack or flat races.
Bit of a noob at racing- struggling at the back of the Cat B pack. Definitely see how easily I get dropped in last 1km of races as something I need to work on. Is there a particular training plan you would recommend for improving those full gas efforts after long threshold ride?
I am no expert or even particularly successful mate, but I’d recommend VO2 max sessions (the Gorby is particularly horrific) plus anything with repeated trips to mega high watts for prolonged periods (10s just isn’t enough). What I’m trying at moment is using sprint banners with pace partners, there’s always someone cranking it up so go early with them and try to set PB every lap.
Used your strategy at finish. Knew that being in oak and making move as we neared end of garden where to hurt. Fun all 4 races, didn’t show hand but made several power up to me on climbs so they wouldn’t know where I planned to go. Understand the series was a success and heard L39ion, Rapha, and zwift would like to do a few more in 2022? I hope so!
I’m a new group B racer, I’m learning how to survive to finish with peloton now…hahaha,you inspire me !!
Good series, mostly because of the huge and fairly consistent participation
1) Neokyo a bit too computationally intensive to handle a 400 rider B field at the moment.
2) races 3 and 4 worked well, but 1 & 2 were heavily impacted by the finish line placement. Zwift should provide more support in advance of such a high profile series, their obsession with hardware continues to take a toll off the platform
3) having gender mixed leaderboard doesn’t make sense – they are separate events with separate sign ups and deserve separate leaderboards
4) ZP is great but leaderboards aren’t their strongest suit – Zwift Insider should launch a template function to support affiliate race series in their marketing and presentation / support for events. Possible business op for you Eric. The Zwift Dad Olympics (and Mum Olympics!) needs marketing, same as the real Olympics! Zwift Insider link was what led many of us to sign up in first place.
5) Points extending further down – I was lucky to finish in the points but why aren’t good efforts in the battle between 100th and 110th rewarded? There are still good zwift power points across the finish board, 20 ranking places might not be enough keep a 400 field coming back for more seasons? I wouldn’t bother with intermediates, ZRL has this covered.
Overall enjoyed it and would race future L39ion events or similar if they/you can generate the interest this series did!
i raced the 4, finished top 10 in 3, but was sick on the 3rd and couldnt hold the front pack. last race was best result but worst sprint – because i’d learned to even be at the front you need to go early and long, so i was dying in the last few seconds, but had the overall speed and jump to get those extra positions. with fields this big, the pack sprint is huge and between 1st and 30th, its only 1 second
this course should be a permanent weekly crit.
Raced all four races in the EU/UK series, including the two Eric took part in. Finished 15th, 14th, 13th, … and 9th, so progress was made through repeat participations. Interestingly, after zwiftpower disqualifications, these placings were enough for a 5th place overall in the series. Main takeaway was that these races are won in the last 60 to 90 seconds, and a 14 wkg 15-second sprint is less useful than an 8 wkg 1-minute.