How the Race Was Lost: The Breakaway That Got Away

September 5, 2023

LAST UPDATED September 4, 2023

I’ve heard many stories of solo breakaways winning Zwift races since PD4.1 went live. Here’s a fairly dramatic one, told from the perspective of someone (myself) who was merely pack fodder as the victor stormed to the line in a glorious, long-lasting solo break.

The race was KISS’ regular Wednesday event at 7am local time. I was looking for a longer race, as I’m growing a bit tired of the sub-half-hour ZRacing events. This one would take just about an hour, which sounded lovely. Four laps of New York City’s Park Perimeter Loop. Let’s race!

Lap 1

19 B riders jumped out of NYC’s start pens, and we quickly settled into a rhythm. Everyone seemed to know that the first sparks would fly on the Harlem Hill climb 3km into the lap, as this is the first and largest climb of the Park Perimeter Loop. 670m long at 5.1%, it takes a little under 90 seconds to finish in most B packs.

Someone always gets dropped on Harlem Hill, but there are also three more short climbs just afterward (the Three Sisters) where you can get tailed off the back if someone attacks and the pack follows. So Harlem Hill is really more like a hard 90 seconds that kicks off another ~3 minutes of solid work on the hilly back half of the Park Perimeter Loop.

We dropped 8 riders on the first Harlem Hill effort, and I put in some work on the front to help our group stay away. But our group didn’t want to work hard to stay away, probably because they reasoned that anyone dropped the first time up Harlem Hill wouldn’t survive the next 3 attempts.

So the chasers caught us, and we were a group of 17 as we finished up the lap and joined up with a straggling A rider or two.

1 lap down. 3 to go.

Lap 2

We recovered for a few minutes, then the group hit Harlem Hill a bit harder than the first lap. I was able to hang in with the front, but as we made our way over the Three Sisters, Danish rider “Martin Wang” attacked.

With my legs tired from the hills we were still in the middle of, I didn’t feel like chasing. There was an A rider up the road, and I just hoped he wouldn’t work with Wang to stay away.

Fortunately, Wang rode right past that A rider. Unfortunately… Wang seemed to have really good legs! He kept putting in a steady effort around 4W/kg, and the gap widened to 18s by the end of lap 2.

Lap 3

On the third time up Harlem Hill, I thought my goose was cooked. Twice!

The front group of 6 was 2 seconds ahead of me by the end of the climb, and I figured the front of the race was riding away. But 5 riders from behind joined me, and a few kept the pace up so we stayed within striking distance of the front 6.

Then, just when I thought the two groups were joining… I fell off the back! I knew if I eased up now I wasn’t coming back, so I decided to give it one last go. Shifting to a tougher gear, I got out of the saddle and went hard to catch the group. And made it!

Note to self: Pack Dynamics 4.1 has a shorter draft “fall-off”, meaning you can’t dangle off the back of the pack as easily as before.

Near the end of this lap a couple of riders from our group tried to bridge up to Wang, but nobody made it. Wang was still 17s ahead at the end of lap 3.

Lap 4

After nearly getting dropped (twice) on lap 3, I knew I wasn’t contending for the win today. Instead, my goal became hanging with this front pack to the finish line.

A couple of halfhearted attempts were made to work together to catch Wang, but they came to nothing. Was everyone tired like me? Did they think we would catch Wang automagically, as in Zwift races of yore?

Wang began extending his gap. Every time I looked at his power I felt like it said 4.2W/kg. “He must be cheater,” I said, comforting myself in my glycogen-depleted state. “Surely no legit B rider can stay away for 2.5 laps…”

The last Harlem Hill was fairly tame – I think riders were keeping their powder dry for the finish. With 5k to go, Wang had 26s on the pack. He wasn’t coming back.

With 700 meters left some riders from our group jumped. I just tried to surf the wheels, because I didn’t have much left. (Probably shouldn’t have skipped breakfast). I sat up as I finished last in the front group for 8th place. Wang? He took first by 10 seconds. Well done, sir.

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Takeaways

My first takeaway is: don’t do hourlong fasted races. 20-30 minutes I can handle just fine, provided I had some carbs the day before. But I seem to run out of juice somewhere in that 30-60 minute window when I’m pushing hard in a fasted state.

The second (and bigger) takeaway is that our group’s lap times were remarkably slow. Looking at my Park Perimeter Loop history, our lap times were 30-60s slower than past races. I’ve done social rides here that were faster than this race!

It just proves what we’ve already been saying: Pack Dynamics 4.1 slows packs significantly, to the tune of 1.5-2 kilometers per hour slower. And that’s why Wang could pull off a well-timed attack and stay away for more than 35 minutes to take the solo win!

Wang’s power, in the end: 4.2W/kg for 20 minutes (highest in the race). 3.7W/kg average (302W), also the highest in the race, but not by much. His numbers were well within Zwift’s category enforcement range for B category – he just rode brilliantly and used his strengths well.

It’s a new day in Zwift racing land, and breakaway riders are loving it. Riders in the pack will have to learn to truly work together if they want to pull anything back. Things are going to be interesting!