The second race of ZRL Round 2 was on two laps of New York’s Rising Empire for A and B teams. This course features the New York KOM in both directions, which meant a total of 4x hard climbs, and nightmares for me in the days leading up to the race…
Warmup and Planning
Leading up to the race, my Delusion teammates had been chatting on Discord. The consensus was that most of us were dreading it, a couple of weirdos were looking forward to it, and team captain Neil was clearly dodging it by trotting out the old chestnut of “I just crashed my bike, haven’t ridden since, and can’t put bibs on over all the road rash.” Likely excuse, Neil!
We basically decided everyone would race their own race, battling to stay in the furthest forward group possible, because ZRL’s points structure is such that everyone has an incentive to get across the line ahead of others on every points segment.
Knowing this race would require everything I had (and likely a bit more), I tried every trick in the book when it came to preparation. PR Lotion to my legs, 300mg of caffeine thanks to MEG gum, and even a Nomio shot (broccoli, yuck).
Having learned my lesson last week, I was on the bike with plenty of time for a good warmup. I spun up the legs, which felt less fresh than they should. Still, I put in a few good efforts to wake up my heart, then joined the pens in New York on my full-upgraded Pinarello Dogma F 2024 with ENVE 4.5 PRO wheels – the best climbing rig at my disposal.
Lap 1
Everyone knew the first real fireworks would explode the first time up the NY KOM. With the way this route is laid out and the way segment points work, there just isn’t enough incentive to do anything except sit in until that KOM.
I proposed a helpful neutral lead-in, and got some yes votes:
Unfortunately, we clearly didn’t have the supermajority agreement required for such a measure to pass. The glass road ramp was our first effort after averaging just 237W in the first 5 minutes, and while the watts jumped up significantly, it wasn’t enough to drop anyone.
After several rolling kilometers on the glass, we hit our first KOM segment. Up to this point, I had done my best to convince myself that I might just be able to hang with the front group over this first KOM, unlike every other race I’ve ever done on here.
Unfortunately, it quickly became evident that I was living in a fantasy world. You know that terrible feeling when the peloton flows past, and you’re dropping back with no ability to move up? That was the feeling. From a pack of 50, I saw myself quickly drop into the 40’s. No front group for me today. I came through the KOM banner in 39th, and the Zwift gods rewarded my efforts with a feather powerup:
This was the first of four feathers I would earn on the day. One atop each KOM. You can’t make this stuff up.
After the first KOM, Andy and Rob had made the front group. Fabian and Chris were up the road from me chasing, and Dylan was behind.
We descended to ground level and quickly hit the NY Sprint Reverse. I put in a quick dig to pip an opponent at the line (every point counts!) and earn an atta boy from Captain Neil. I also grabbed an aero powerup at the banner, which I put to good use just up the road, bridging up to Chris and Fabian’s group.
Sauce for Zwift was earning its monthly subscription cost in this race, giving me a helpful and clear view of time gaps between groups.
Then it was straight onto the glass for the “pre-climb” to the start line of the NY KOM Reverse. The group’s pace seemed much more manageable now, but as the actual KOM segment stretched out, I found myself near the back again, with Chris and Fabian several seconds ahead as we hit the top.
An aero or an anvil would have been handy on the descent to follow, but unfortunately, all I got was another feather as I rode through the KOM arch in 37th. So I put in some well-timed digs on the descent, supertucking as much as possible, catching a handful of riders so I was in a group starting at 31st place as we hit the tarmac again.
My group caught up to Fabian and Chris, and I used my feather to ease the effort up to the lap banner in a pack of 9 riders as lap 2 began.
Lap 2 + Finish
My pack of 9 constituted 29th-37th place, and we now chugged along on the flat first portion of the route. The effort felt quite easy, but hard enough that pushing to bridge to the next group didn’t seem like the right move.
Sauce showed 22 riders in front (1:24 ahead), 6 riders chasing (39s ahead), my group of 9, and Dylan’s group of 8 40s back. Andy and Rob were still in the front group.
The second lap was, in many ways, similar to the first. Quite chill on the flats, hard VO2 efforts on the climbs, and some well-timed supertucks to catch riders on the longer descents. My pack of 9 had definitely calmed down, as evidenced by me being on the front near the top of the climb!
Another feather granted at the top, another slight sprint dig to grab some extra points, then it was back onto the glass roads for our final go at the KOM. The three Delusion riders lead the charge for part of it:
Once again, I got distanced over the top, and the Zwift gods handed me another feather as punishment. I supertucked to catch a rider up the road, then Chris put in a good dig to bridge up to me, and the two of us pushed to stay away from chasers just behind and finish in 30th and 31st place.
Whew. It was over. Good riddance.
Watch the Video
Results + Takeaways
Andy had our team’s best finish on the day, in 8th. Not bad for a C rider, eh? Rob was 15th, Fabian 28th, me 30th, Chris 31st, and Dylan 40th. Delusion would finish 4th overall, with the win going to Team Santysiak Epica Avvoltoi (that’s a mouthful). Nice work, SEA!
Interestingly, there’s now a 3-way tie for 1st place in our division (B1 Development, Lime):
It may be too early to say, but it looks like there are clearly 4 leading teams in this division. While we won last round, this round will be much more difficult, with three races featuring significant key climbs.
I think we can win the TTTs, and do decently well in Glasgow on the punchy points race. But those three hilly races? Those will be a real challenge. We’ll have to push hard to do our best in races that don’t particularly suit us, to keep our overall points high enough to have a shot at the title.
Personally, I was disappointed in my performance in this race. I’ve never done well on the NY KOMs, but I’ve done better than this! Looking at my power numbers up those climbs, I just didn’t have the power I have on better days. Instead of holding 350-370W for 4 minutes, I was doing 320-330W. Not sure what the problem was, not sure if a few more watts would have helped at all, but I’ll try to be better prepared next week when we tackle the Fox Hill 3x.
I’m not sure you could design a better Zwift course than this for a race-based VO2 workout. We had 4 VO2-length efforts, with easy riding in between to recover. So if nothing else, I got in a helpful VO2 workout, which is always a good thing. (I’ve been doing a lot of endurance work lately, but I fear that has come at a cost to my 2-5 minute power. Time for more targeted workouts.)
What About You?
How was your race #2? Share below!
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