Watopia’s Seaside Sprint route has a special place in my heart, because it’s a route I created… the first Rebel Route I conceived which made it into the game’s official route list. It’s the perfect route for me as a racer, too – just enough punches to keep it interesting, no long climbs to get me dropped, and a flat sprint with a fast downhill lead-in.
So when I saw that Seaside Sprint was hosting week 3 of April’s ZRacing series, I knew I had to join.
The Warmup
I must be getting old.
Lately, I’m preferring a longer warmup. A 15-minute warmup used to be just right. Then it became 30. Nowadays, I like 45-60 minutes.
With a surprise XP Express event scheduled before my race, I knew I had the perfect warmup scenario. Ride with friends at whatever pace I’d like, getting double XP for 45 minutes. Then head over to the start pens for the race.
Before that, of course, I grabbed a couple of pieces of caffeinated gum. Because I’m not a coffee guy, but caffeine does wonders! 200mg of go-go juice.
The Start
We had just 35 B riders in the group. I checked the ZwiftPower signup list beforehand, and it showed only one rider ranked above me: Jan Itzchaky from the Danish team DZR. Jan ranks well above me in ZwiftPower and outperforms me at power levels, so I knew I needed to watch for moves from him and follow his wheel on any attacks.
The race started easily enough, with a short ramp into The Esses. P Warner from KISS put in a nice little dig on that ramp, and I followed his wheel along with a few others, hoping we might string the pack out and drop some riders or even better yet, cause a big early split and make things truly interesting! (With a smaller race, you never know what might happen.)
A handful of riders got dropped, but our 5-rider group got caught fairly quickly. There were 22 riders left as we finished the lead-in at the JWB Sprint banner. Three laps (18.9 km) to go!
Lap 1
Three riders (including Warner who had made the initial attack into The Esses) went up the road just before the climb into the Volcano, but our group of 19 didn’t give chase. I think we were all thinking the same thing: we’d be hammering soon enough. And hammer we did! Jan attacked up the kicker, and I followed, activating my draft boost powerup for maximum advantage.
We caught the three riders ahead, and the main peloton was now a few seconds back. Could this be the breakaway that sticks?
It was not meant to be. None of us were willing to put in hard pulls, and the pack behind had a rider or two who did. We finished the lap with the same 22 riders we’d started with.
Lap 2
Most of lap 2 was uneventful, until A Nordstrom attacked heading into The Esses and the group strung out. I gambled and sat in the wheels, hoping everyone else would pull it back. It worked! By the time we hit the descent into the sprint to the lap banner, I was sitting easily on the front.
(These are the kinds of split-second decisions you have to make in bike racing. It may be that the attack you let go is the one that sticks. But at the same time, you can’t follow every attack. You’re forced to take chances.)
I picked up a draft boost through the lap banner, which is exactly what I wanted for the final sprint. The Zwift gods were smiling on me today.
Lap 3
One lap to go, and 19 riders left in the front group. I expected someone to attack hard at the kicker into the Volcano, but despite lots of feathers flying, nobody pushed hard enough to get away.
As we hit The Esses with 1.8km to go, the pack was restless. Everyone was watching for someone to go long… then I saw Jan activate his draft boost powerup! The timing was strange, because he just sat in the wheels and didn’t attack through the group. (My best guess is that he activated it on accident… or he was having a bad leg day. Maybe he’ll see this post and comment about what really happened.)
Knowing Jan had no finishing powerup gave me a bit of a confidence boost. With 700 meters to go we hit the last little kicker before the descent to the finish, and I saw a rider activate their feather and attack hard through the group. Go time!
(This was too far out for me to sprint solo, but if I could sit on that wheel for a bit, they might just prove it be the perfect leadout.)
I pushed hard up the final bit of incline, with Warner kicking hard behind to try to grab my wheel. The rider ahead had a bit of a gap, but I knew I was still getting some draft benefit. I had to keep pushing!
Down the descent the rider started pulling away, but I had activated my draft boost anyway, knowing it would last through to the finish. We had a 1-2 second gap on the group behind, but the rider in 3rd place pulling the group back was none other than… Jan Itzchaky!
I used my Play Controllers to cut the corner on the hard left turn at the bottom, then kept hammering, flying past the rider ahead (Olsthoorn) with 150 meters left in the race. I still had a gap, but all the numbers behind were orange. I had to keep pushing! Head down, I put every last ounce of strength I had into the pedals. And I crossed the finish line… in first place!
See results on ZwiftPower >
See activity on Strava >
Watch the Race Video
Takeaways
This was my first B win in a long time. And I mean… I really long time. I won a small experimental race with just handful of riders several months ago, but the last time I won a legit race with a decent number of riders was December 2022. Yup, you read that right! It’s been over 15 months.
So this felt good.
Everything came together perfectly to make this win happen. My legs felt good on the day, strong riders didn’t make the kind of repeated attacks that might have sapped me, the finishing sprint laid out well for a rider like me, and the rider who attacked early was the perfect leadout.
The B category is stronger than ever thanks to how category enforcement works these days (the B upper limit is a zFTP of 4.2 W/kg and my zFTP is currently… 3.49 W/kg). I can finish in the front group on flatter races, but everything has to come together perfectly for me to win. Today it finally did.
Got a nice 2024 power curve bump in the 35-100 seconds range, too. Hurray!
Your Comments
Have you had any recent race wins? Got thoughts on the Seaside Sprint route (it’s now officially my favorite). Share below!