Tour of Watopia 2020 is upon us, and my plan is to participate in both a race and group ride for each stage. The tour kicked off today, so I scheduled the 6:10am stage 1 race. Two laps of Watopia Flat – a route I’ve ridden a lot, but one I haven’t raced for a year or so.
I had a lot of questions going into this race. How would my legs feel after riding a century two days earlier? Would the race get blown up by sandbaggers like Tour de Zwift stage 1? And what the heck should my strategy be for this race?
In terms of strategy, I was having a hard time deciding if I should treat this race like a workout, or go for a win. With nearly 80 B’s signed up and my legs not super fresh after Saturday’s long effort I thought maybe I should take the “easy” out and treat the race like a workout. (I say “easy” not because the effort would be easy, but because I wouldn’t have the pressure of chasing the podium.) But then I looked at the signup list on ZwiftPower, sorted by rider rank:
Not only were 67 of the 77 signed up riders on ZwiftPower (that means few if any sandbaggers) but I was ranked #6 in the list! That left me with no choice – I had to go for the glory. That meant sitting in and conserving as much as possible while hanging with the front group. My end goal: be in the mix for the final sprint, with a useful powerup. Let’s race!
Warmup
The alarm went off at 5:15am, and I rolled out of bed to head upstairs for race prep. Two pieces of caffeine gum, some PR lotion on the legs, then a weigh-in (183 pounds, the lightest I’ve been in months) and kitting up. Next it was onto Watopia Flat for a warmup.
The legs didn’t feel great for the warmup, but they weren’t terrible either. What was not feeling great was the saddle sore I’d developed on Saturday. Ouch! I adjusted my position a bit to reduce that pain, but it wasn’t going away entirely. Fun stuff!
Soon enough my 20 minutes were up. Time to head for the pens, cue up the Zwift Racing playlist, and get ready for some Type II fun.
Key Points on the Route
While attacks can happen anywhere, there are four key sections of the Watopia Flat route where you can expect the pack to surge hard:
- Ramp out of the ocean tunnel: this short (15s) ramp is the first uphill portion of the route. Try to stay near the front of the group here, because it will stretch out even more as you hit the dirt sections immediately following.
- Dirt sections: three short dirt sections follow the ramp out of the ocean, and rolling resistance increases dramatically on dirt. This means the dirt basically acts like an uphill, which means you’ll have to go harder to stay with the group.
- Climb off of Ocean Boulevard: the last bit of Ocean Boulevard is an S-curve climb. It’s not steep (2-3%) but again, you’ll have to up your power to hang with the group. The uphill continues for a bit after you turn off of Ocean Boulevard – watch for that final surge on the last uphill bit!
- Kicker into the Esses: after the sprint segment there’s a short, straight climb into the Esses. Hammer this to stay in contact with your group, then stay alert and modulate your power accordingly through the Esses rollercoaster so gaps don’t form ahead.
The Start (Lap 1)
There were 86 riders in the pen when we blasted off, but unfortunately none of the 4 DIRT teammates who had signed up for the event were in the group. No big deal, really – it’s nearly impossible to implement real team tactics when everyone is stuck in the same flippin’ kit anyway. (Zwift – please stop doing this in races!)
The clock hit zero and we blasted off from Watopia’s start pier. The archway above read “ENJOY YOUR RIDE” but I knew from experience the enjoyment would come afterward. For the next 25-30 minutes I would be on the rivet, riding near threshold and wondering if I’d even make it to the end with the front group.
That said, this particular start wasn’t bad. 330 watts average for the first 90 seconds got me into the front group. The initial selection was quickly made, with ~50 riders still in the front. This group would get progressively whittled down through each difficult section of the course until we finished with approximately 25 riders in the final kilometers.
Even though the start wasn’t particularly tough, we were pushing hard throughout the first lap. In fact, checking Strava afterward I discovered that this first lap was my 2nd-fastest ever on Watopia Flat. Fun fact: my PR was set exactly 1 year prior in a DIRT Dadurday Chase race!
Flyer Bug
The start also featured our first of two obvious flyers for the day. A rider named Ronan Arellano (registered on Zwift Power) immediately flew off the front of the pack. This wasn’t some A-rated sandbagger dropping the B’s – Arellano zipped away from us like we were standing still! I’ve seen this a few times in the last few months – it’s a bug of some sort where riders aren’t getting any virtual wind resistance, or rolling resistance, or… well, the truth is we’re not sure what the bug is. But it lets riders go fast with very little effort!
Want to smile? Watch a rider from team ODZ hit 196mph thanks to this bug in a recent group ride:
In Arellano’s case, he ended up riding the course twice as fast as the rest of us, but only averaging 157 watts. To be clear: I’m not calling Arellano a cheater here. This is a bug, and as far as I know, there’s no way to intentionally make it happen. Now back to the race.
Burritos and Ghosts
When we passed through our first banner, I was stoked to glimpse the ghost powerup as the spinner cycled through its options. I’ve been wondering lately when I would finally be able to race with the burrito and ghost powerups enabled!
I didn’t receive either powerup this race, but I did see a few burritos flying, so that’s fun. (I suppose I wouldn’t see if a rider used the ghost powerup, but I assume those were used also.) I’m glad Zwift enabled these – I think it can only make the races more interesting.
My first powerup was the aero helmet, which meant I had a choice to make: use it now so I can save a bit of energy, or save it for the final sprint? I decided to use it now, hoping I would get a useful powerup in the final two arches.
Second (and Final) Lap
The second lap was fairly unremarkable, with the effort staying near threshold. I had received a feather powerup through the lap 1 finish banner, then used it to take the sting out of the climb up from the ocean tunnel.
Flyer #2
As we hit the dirt sections a rider named “.K” attacked hard off the front, dropping the group quickly. Was this rider legit? I looked closer: no lightning bolt. Virtual power! I’ll be honest – I breathed a sigh of relief. Because the rider was already a few seconds up the road, holding 6.3 w/kg, and I didn’t want to put in the work to attempt a chase.
Happily, nobody else did either. If they had, it would have blown the race apart, dropping any riders who couldn’t hold on.
Final Minutes
We passed beneath the sprint banner and I prayed to the Zwift gods as the powerup spinner rotated, stopping on… an aero helmet! Hurray!
Next came the kicker into the Esses, which is a place where some riders will always attack on the final lap. I pushed extra hard to stay on the wheels of the front riders, wanting to avoid having to push extra hard to close gaps in the final minutes of the race. This worked well, then the group noticeably “sat up” as we turned right to head through the rock tunnel into the final sprint.
The final sprint on Watopia is always a challenge in terms of timing. Do I have the power (or powerups) to go early and stay away? Do I wait for others to go first, hoping to sit on their wheels and come around?
Even if you pick a smart time to go, just a millisecond of poor timing can move you from the podium into 10th place.
I had an aero powerup but wasn’t feeling particularly strong, so my approach was to surf the front wheels, using the first riders to jump as my leadout team. And that’s what I did, as aero powerups started to fly and orange numbers lit up the rider list around the 200 meter mark. But the riders who had initial jumped went hard, and I wasn’t able to come around them. I would finish in 7th place according to Zwift’s rankings – but 5th place if you remove the two obvious flyers.
If you recall, ZwiftPower had placed me at 6th according to my rider rank. Points to ZP for accuracy!
See my activity on Strava >
See my activity on Zwift.com >
See the race on ZwiftPower >
Takeaways
Two lessons from today’s race:
- A little research can be helpful: it was a bit intimidating seeing 80+ riders signed up for this event. But checking the list in ZwiftPower and seeing I was ranked #6 gave me a confidence boost, helping me believe I could get a good result in this race. That mental boost is a big deal.
- Need to tighten my timing: I let the front of the group get too far away in the final sprint, and that certainly cost me a few places. I need to be more heads up in the final 30 seconds of the race, especially on this particular finishing section where timing is so crucial.
What About You?
Did you race ToW stage 1 yet? Share your experience below!
You finished about 10 places in front of me. It is great to see a write up of my race. Those two flyers were very annoying. Rob (Killing Joke on Zwift)
Your name always sticks out in the crowd, Rob! I saw you there.
Today was my first ever race. I joined zwift last week after a long break from cycling and have only done a few quick free rides up until now. I Joined a cat D race and had a blast. I have never raced in real life either, only ever done group rides, sportives and “endurance adventures” with mates.
I got literally everything in the race wrong. I wanted to try and stick with the front group, which I managed for about 2.5k. I was quite spent at this point and dropped off, to be passed by I think two small groups, and then finally managing to hold onto another. At this stage, I was roughly placed 65/115.
I stuck with this group for the majority of the race, until perhaps 3-4k from the finish. Another group had caught us, some of our group joined them and I got stuck with the slow half of our original group in the choas. I tried to catch them but was too much.
Shortly after that, I heard what I thought was crowd noise so assumed we were approaching the final sprint. I started to break away from my group only to notice there were still 2.5k left!! (I had not noticed the count down to the right) and quickly got swallowed up and dropped again.
I was on my own for a bit but 1k from the finish I was drafting someone that I had caught. I started my sprint with just under 1000 metres to go, only to realise I had gone way too early, he caught me again, I drafted for a bit and then tried a second surge. It did not work. I finished 72nd.
So yeah, first ever racing experience real or virtual. Got it all very wrong and loved every moment!
Ha! That’s a great first race writeup, @Roger Walker-Arnott. You’re right–you got lots of stuff wrong. But what’s the saying… “If you lose, don’t lose the lesson.” Lots of lessons for you in this first race for sure. You’ll only get better as you keep it up!
(The “crowd noise” you heard was probably the waterfall–it’s noisy, and comes just before the cobbled Italian Villas which come before the sprint.)
Welcome to Zwift. The addiction is real!
Yeah, I think because it was my first time out I didn’t know quite what the competition would be like and how I would fit in. If I were to do it again I’d stick with maybe the second or third group that formed and not burn myself out. Hold more back for the last third of the race. If my legs feel up to it I’ll be going again tomorrow. Thanks for the encouragement.
I was also in this race with you Eric, but was a late sign up to the race, because of a problem I had joining the group ride ten minutes earlier. I had the draft boost (van) power up under the first arch, and kept it until the final sprint (I think a wise move). That gave me the opportunity to use it from further out than the other power ups. I went with the leaders at the final sprint and overtook a couple, just failing to catch the eventual winner. Zwiftpower has now removed the rider who did the race in half the time. Good race.
Nice work Andrew!
Yeah, a van would have been great for the final sprint. I like the van because it’s 30s long! That means you can deploy it early and use it all the way to the line.
Nice ride and write-up Eric! I’ve been on Zwift for about a little over a month and am already hooked. I was in this race with you, and it was my first Zwift race. I ended up 28th on ZP. Lessons learned: 1) need to have my pre-race warm-up more dialed in, and 2) need to draft with a pack better. Any tips on trainer difficulty for racing in general, do you change it from course-to-course, or do you always leave it the same?
Hey Brandon–welcome! Nice work on your first race! Yes, drafting is huge. Being able to sit in the pack without poking your nose into the wind or getting gapped off the back is definitely a skill worth honing.
I leave Trainer Difficulty the same… mine is around 30%. I don’t like to have to shift a ton, but I DO want to feel the inclines… so around there works for me.
Last week I had the same issue, race started and I flew away at 57 kph. Even when i stopped pedaling the speed did not drop that fast… very wierd. Did not know it was a bug,…
If it wasn’t a bug… what else could it be? 😆
I love reading your race reports, Eric. I used to dislike the Watopia Flat route because I ALWAYS got dropped on the first climb entering the Esses. But lately, I’ve been rolling thru that near the front of the pack, so it’s quickly becoming one of my favorite routes. LOL
Thanks, Dan! I love writing these, to be honest. It’s a good exercise for me to unpack the experience and write down what I learned.
Isn’t it nice when the parts we dread become no big deal? Proof positive you’re getting stronger (and/or smarter!)
I used to always get dropped on the snaking climb at the end Ocean Boulevard. Heck, when I first upgraded to B, my goal was just to finish above the bottom 1/3 of the race! But you get stronger, and you get smarter.
C cat is always interesting. After a few minutes riding above 3.5w/kg I was still 99th out of about 200. I had to do a big pull to close a gap and then somehow managed to hang onto the front group in around 30th place when we got to the climb after the sprint. First 10 minutes of the race was at 3.5w/kg for me, well above FTP. A lot of us couldn’t maintain that pace up the hill and we settled into a group of about a dozen to limp around the final lap. In the end I finished 31st on Zwift but 9th on ZP. The ghost was fun. From my point of view I went transparent. Other riders just vanished and seemed to pop up out of the road when their pickup wore off.
I did my first ever race in on Zwift on this last night. I was scheduled to do 30min Z2 so put myself in Cat D and tried to not race. It’s hard to resist though! I found myself in a reasonable group about half way down the field which was comfy but broke up on the first set of rollers then I sat in with one other guy on 2.4-2.5W/kg which was slightly higher than I wanted to do and we were not catching the group in front who dangled 10s away so I put in a 30s dig (hard to resist) to catch them in the water tunnel the 2nd time in the hope it would be easier in the wheels and worth the brief extra effort. The guy I was with chased and did the same thing.
I’d learnt me lesson from lap 1 on the little hills and was ready to stay with the group on lap 2 then (it’s hard resist) I put some extra effort in to not get dropped as the pace ramped up for the sprint and managed to time my sprint to lead the group – sprinting for 65th, ha ha! No idea why but on ZwiftPower I was ranked 15th in Cat D.
Turns out that racing, even when you’re not (really) racing is a great way to pass the time and further reduce the boredom of indoor riding. Overall it took 34mins so that’s close enough to my planned 30mins and the average power was pretty much bang on.
If you were scheduled to do Z2 then don’t enter a race, you spoil it for the rest of us, even if you just hang with the bunch you effect the draft. There are may group rides that you can do. Even the tour had a group ride 10 min before the race.
How my race was lost: Today. Lets back up to yesterday where I got 6th there was only 3 B sandbaggers. But today we had more than 10 of them and that is only counting on ZP who knows how many others was in game. So I was hanging on for dear life but the front was constantly pushing between 3.6w/kg and 3.8w/kg. So by the time we got to the sprint I said enough is enough and dropped back to the next group.
Bummer.
I’d like to see James over at ZwiftPower implement a sort of “sandbagger rating” for events, where we can sign in beforehand and see how many probable sandbaggers are involved. Would help us skip events that are just going to be silly.
Although if this was a B race… the sandbaggers were within the right range at 3.6-3.8, right? Or is that a typo?
O I should have mentioned that I am in the C cat.
Just an FYI – just because you’re not on ZwiftPower, doesn’t mean you’re a sandbagger…I just recently moved up from C to B and usually find myself close to last now. I’m usually the recipient of sandbagging in the Cs, but I’m loathe to sign up for yet another service. I raced the Crit course yesterday and took last in the Bs, but would’ve placed first in C (would’ve been first time to be first in the Cat C if I would’ve stayed – 3.3 w/kg in that one). I hope Zwift comes out with a race cat solution soon. Ride on!
Oh, I totally agree Han Solo. I would never say, “If you’re not on ZwiftPower, you’re a sandbagger.” I think of my local buddy who is a strong Cat 2 road racer. He races on Zwift all the time, but still hasn’t signed up for ZP because it’s just too much hassle for him. He races the A’s (even though he’s a B in terms of w/kg) and is totally legit. And doesn’t where a heart rate monitor.
But I would ABSOLUTELY say the vast majority of sandbaggers aren’t on ZwiftPower! So when you see an event that has, say, half of its registrants on ZP…. compared to an event where 90% of the registrants are on ZP… the first event will have more sandbaggers, guaranteed.
I do agree, with both of you, I would not call anyone a sandbagger if they are not on ZP. But if you are on ZP and you are a B and have been a B for the last few races and you enter the C group I will call you a sandbagger. In the race I described I call on the sandbagger by name during the race, and his response was he is doing a Z2 effort not racing. I went back to check his strava and he was sprinting for the line with the front guys, that is not Z2.
I have zero problems with a B racing with C’s for a Z2 workout, but as you say, @Gerrie Delport, if they’re sprinting for the line that ain’t Z2. Same as outdoor “practice races”–it’s fine to sit in with a lower group and just hang with the group, but don’t contest the finish.
I sort of agree…LOL But I wont say zero problems. Lets say you have 10 B’s in the C group in the front bunch of 15. Even if they don’t pull they are making the draft bigger and harder for the true C to catch back up if dropped. What if the group gets split and a few B’s open a gap, they can easy close the gap and drop the true C’s that was impacted by the gap the formed between the B’s.
You make a good point. I’m not convinced a C race would ever have 10 B’s in the front group who are legitimately there for a Z2 effort, though. But yes, if that was the case, they could affect the race outcome for some C’s.
To be clear: I’m not a huge proponent of allowing riders to participate in lower-cat races. I’m just not against it, because I don’t think it messes things up and I can see the reason why riders would want/need to do it. If Zwift decided that was against the rules, I wouldn’t shed a tear!
I saw no ghosts activated in my race (which I guess is the point) but I saw 5 burritos activated. I found that the hardest parts of the route were the climb up to the villas, the esses and the short downhill to the line. If anyone is wondering about bike choice, I found that the specialised allez sprint (for the flat bits) and the mielensteins (mainly for a kick in the esses) were a good setup for me.
(55th out of 90 in my first ever B cat race! Im happy with that!)
Maybe it’s cause I’m relatively new to Zwift that I don’t get it – today I did Stage 2 Race in Group D cause my FTP is 2.3w/kg. Not long after the start a group broke away that were all pushing over 3w/kg and one of the guys had a Tron bike. How in gods name can a rider who earned a Tron bike enter a Group D race? Anyway, I let that group go and stuck with a second group the majority of the way, however they pulled ahead towards the top of the big hill in the Sequoia forest and they stayed about 10 seconds ahead of me to the end.
Now this is the bit I don’t understand, according to the Zwift race results I came 26th, and looking at those who finished ahead of me, most had a w/kg over 2.7 which is above the D category limits. On Zwift Power, I came second in D category -https://zwiftpower.com/events.php?zid=356794 . Why doesn’t Zwift remove from the rankings people who exceed the category, just like ZP does?