Name: Maria Holdcroft
Hometown: Banbury (Oxfordshire, UK)
How did you get into cycling? In 2018 a work colleague bought a road bike on a Cycle to Work scheme. She spent ages doing all the research of what the best value bike under £1000 was, and I figured if she had found a good deal, I should also get in on it! Then, since I lived 30 miles from work, and it was a Cycle to Work scheme bike, I figured I should probably try actually cycling to work, and that was really when the obsession started. It escalated to making detours to my 30 mile route, then finding longer and longer events to try. I got into bikepacking, audaxing, and then last year I started ultra racing.
In terms of Zwift, I joined it briefly during the pandemic when we weren’t really meant to go outside for longer than an hour, but it mostly just got me into indoor training rather than virtual cycling, and I ended up just using my trainer for workouts. A couple of years later I decided to try Zwift again, and got into the club/racing side of things which has made it so much more fun.
How many years have you been racing on Zwift? Since ~May 2022, so nearly 2 years. Though I did one singular race back in 2020!
Are you part of a Virtual team? Yes! I race with NeXT p/b Enshored, who started up a women’s team last year. I also regularly ride Thursday WTRL TTT with the Euroaliens at INC.
What do you love most about racing? The uncertainty – you never quite know what’s going to happen, and for me that’s exciting. That and the ability to race as a team and try different tactics to see what happens – I would say racing is where I learn most about myself and my teammates.
What is your favourite style of race (e.g. points, scratch, iTT, TTT, Chase, duathlon)? I’ve never actually done a chase race, though the concept seems fun. Probably points races are my favourite, since they can become quite tactical.
What is your favourite Zwift women’s race series? I haven’t managed to participate in that many outside of ZRL. I really enjoyed Fearless in 2022, and then Tour de Boudicca in January this year (I really liked that the events were over consecutive days, as it felt like for that weekend there was a whole community buzzing around the races!) But honestly I am not that fussy – what makes a series fun for me is to have high participation – so often women’s fields can be tiny on Zwift.
What is your most memorable racing experience, inside or outside or BOTH? Outside the most memorable is easily the Transcontinental Race last year – cycling from Belgium to Greece in 10 days is something I will not easily forget! Inside I have lots of small memories. One that sticks in my head lots is the time I snapped the drive belt of my trainer about 40 seconds into a race. I was high on race adrenaline for quite a while after but couldn’t cycle to get rid of it.
What is your favourite food to eat post-race? Sticky toffee pudding! Though it doesn’t often happen… In reality I normally have a protein shake and some toast/cereal, which is more practical but definitely less exciting.
What advice would you give to a woman entering her first Zwift race? Make sure to warm up first (ALL Zwift races start hard), and make sure you’ve Zwifted a bit beforehand to know how drafting and powerups work. There are some great beginner race series to get started, so look out for those.
More than anything, expect it to take a little while to get used to virtual racing and familiarise yourself with the courses – you’ll learn lots across the first few races. And if you can find a team to help you get started (there are loads), definitely make the most of that!
