All Flat and Very Fast – Tips for WTRL TTT #102 – Watopia’s Waistband

My passion for cycling started in a hotel bar when I was 49 years old, tipped the scales at 120kg and never exercised. Three years later I’ve lost the weight (down to “almost” 75kg) and I’m on Zwift most days! I climbed real-world Ventoux twice in a day, and I vEverested Alpe Du Zwift. I love the WTRL TTT, and each week I publish a recce with a course profile, bike recommendations, and even some target times. I have also started posting video recces and highlight reels, and you can find me on YouTube here.

For over a year now, the Thursday WTRL TTT has been the center of my week and Eric has been wonderful in letting me share that obsession with you here on Zwift Insider.

The TTT is an amazing ride… but if you can’t ride (or even if you can ride, but want more action) don’t forget to tune in to the live stream on Zwift Community Live’s YouTube Channel at 6:15 (UK time)… or even my own livestream event. 

The big news this week: WTRL are introducing Race Pass to the Thursday TTT. Race Pass was used all through Zwift Racing League Season 2 which WTRL runs, and is intended to remove the faffing about with ZwiftPower tags (among other things). It’s dead easy.

• Step 1: Go to wtrl.racing and register 
• Step 2: Your team captain will get an email with a dedicated link for the race and give it to you. 
• The link will take you to the WTRL website which will record your entry… then redirect you to Zwift so you can select the correct pen.

It sounds a little daunting, but it’s not. My ZRL team did it with zero hiccups and it really streamlines the admin processes around race day. 

Review of TTT #79 Greater London 8

You went back to London again this week for a single lap of Greater London 8, the first time for this route in a TTT, and more importantly, the first time up Box Hill (and down Fox Hill the other side). Personally, I had a mare of a ride – kept up with our faster riders to the foot of Box but had to bail. I have a multitude of excuses but at the end of the day I let the team down! But a bad day on a bike is still a good day!

One of the things I do love is finding new teams out there… this week was the turn of TotalTeamTraining from Knutsford in England, who run 16 teams in the TTT most weeks. Literally all I knew about Knutsford was the motorway services, so it’s good to know something else is there as well! Trainer Claire Sutcliffe reached out to me letting me know they had a new Mocha team starting… Total Tri Training 16 (love the catchy name!). The squad has a wonderful post-ride tradition – the Sweaty-Selfies. I checked the results on wtrl.racing – 8 riders went out, and 8 came back in… perfect! 

Over in Paris (or wherever the global CICC community reside) Mark B decided his ride report should make a joke about last week’s video recon… 

So last week was the Hokey Cokey this week was Monty Python’s Ministry of Poor Excuses. @Phil’s being the most viable (vaccination hangover) – although according to Team Sky injections are supposed to make u faster not slower. Only 5 lined up with 2 climbers, me (average at everything), Carlos-misfiring-turbo-Belmonte and Olivier. This was gonna be a challenge as we needed 4 from 5 finishers.

Was all reasonable on the flat with 325w pulls for a minute taking us to the bottom of Box Hill (not Fox hill as advertised in Sherpa’s video – he apparently confuses F’s and B’s, thank goodness he never mentioned us passing Buck Palace).

Mike disappeared into the distance with Fraz, Carlos’s turbo caught up with him. I worked with Olivier to try and get up. Fraz dropped back to help and Mike waited at top (to be passed by us going warp speed) meant a shambles of a descent too. At one stage, to allow us to regroup, I was pedalling 10w to slow down as that was slower than supertuck. Last 4K wasn’t any better. In summary OK for 16k, shambles for 8. 

Our last spotlight team is again from Camden – this time the Mad Jalapenos:

I have missed the last few weeks due to health issues, but this week with improved iron levels and more oxygen coursing through my veins I was raring to go. As a Brit living in Germany, I’ve not been able to go home for over a year now, so riding round a virtual London is the next best thing. Charlotte, Kate, Lou, Pilar and Sharon – we were rotating and pulling. Into the Tube station we went. “Mind the gap!” and out into the Surrey Hills. Pilar had been lucky enough to ride Box Hill IRL last weekend so gave firsthand guidance. We blobbed our way up on the hill and supertucked down. 

Our Vienna Latte team had started a minute ahead of our Vienna team of Mad Jalapenos, so we had been keeping an eye on the leaderboard and were pleased to see that we had managed get a bit of a lead on the other ladies. Checking the results we were also ecstatic to finish ahead of our Mixed Latte team, the Eagles. We’re a little bit competitive amongst our Giant Camden teams!

So: France, England, and Germany have stories to tell. I’d love to hear (and publish) stories from around the globe. Reach out in the comments section, through the WTRL TTT Facebook page, or in the comments section of the Youtube recon.

Thursday 1st April – One Lap of Watopia’s Waistband 

After a week away in London we are heading back to Watopia. This time we have one single lap of Watopia’s Waistband. This is the flattest 25km in Watopia and was originally one of the community-created “Rebel Routes”. It was adopted as an event-only route by Zwift shortly after. Being event-only recce rides are a little harder – you can’t just hop on and ride, and Meetups don’t work either… more on that later!

The route gate-to-gate itself is 25.5km – with the desert lead-in of 2.5km on top, making this 28km all-in. You start in the desert pens, head through Fuego Flats to Saddle Spring. Up the Col du Saddle Springs – the most arduous climb of the circuit (which tells you how flat this is) then down the other side and through the undersea tunnels. Turn left at the T-junction and carry on towards the fisherman’s village. From the upramp out of the tunnels to the land bridge to the volcano is probably the most challenging segment for the teams – a mix of gravel, false flat, and downhill – nothing to break you… but the changing terrain will throw off momentum. Round the volcano across to downtown and back to the desert. Phew I’m out of breath… but what a fantastic run-on sentence. 

Here’s the fantastic VeloViewer segment view along with a map. 

What to ride?

Bike recommendations on this route are straightforward. It’s flat and aero rules the day. For me it will be my trusty S-Works Venge and Super9 wheels – everyone should pick their most aero rig.

• Level 6 Zwift Aero frame and DT Swiss ARC 62 wheels
• Level 13 Canyon Aeroad 2021 and Zipp 808s
• Level 25 Cervelo S5 with Zipp 808s
• Level 33 S-Works Venge with ENVE SES 8.9s
• Level 35 S-Works Venge with Zipp 808/Super 9
• Level 45 get those 858/Super9 wheels and pair them with the S-Works Venge

For those of you working on Tron – don’t forget the ongoing series of Tron Hunter rides each Sunday. This week it’s Bologna!  I know I say it every week but I cannot stress highly enough that if you are racing you need to be working on Tron. It’ll take a while, but just set the Everest Challenge and forget about it for nine months… like having a baby. 

Route Recon Rides

Recon for the Waistband is a good news/bad news situation. Being so flat there are quite a few organized rides, but you can’t select it as a route yourself or use a Meetup. As always, Zwifthacks has the up-to-date events listing – all you need to do is click here – and I rode it so you don’t have to!

Here is the official Sherpa Dave Recon of Watopia’s Waistband – and a huge shoutout to BZR for hosting me on one of their group rides. If you are looking for a well-run group ride – you can’t go wrong checking out BZR.  

If you want to be adventurous, you can go old skool and ride it like the original Rebels had to. Here are the turns you’ll make to complete this route. Only turns labeled (manual turn) require you to change from the default turn selection, and this route only requires 4 manual turns:

1. Start by selecting “Out and Back Again”
2. Select Left towards Volcano Circuit (manual turn)
3. Left towards Downtown (manual turn)
4. Left towards Downtown (manual turn)
5. Left onto Ocean Blvd (manual turn)

Race breakdown 

Here’s how the ride breaks down for me:

• Pens to Saddle Springs
• Col du Saddle Springs then through the tunnels
• From the tunnels to the land bridge
• Around the Volcano and home

Pens to Saddle Springs

Flat. Hot. Desert. 

You know this route well… straight across the desert practicing your formation and gathering speed the whole way. It’s almost exactly 10km from the pens to the base of the “climb”.

Col du Saddle Springs then through the tunnels

Some wag on Strava coined this term for a segment and I couldn’t resist using it. After 10km flat this is the first real rise – a perfect opportunity for your lighter, stronger climbers to jump ahead and create a split! Rein in those riders and keep everyone together. This little hill is just 2% for 900m – but as you can see from the VeloViewer profile it starts around 3% before flattening out. 

After the hill it’s a nice downhill… but if you’re serious you won’t be resting on the downhill, you’ll be accelerating… then into the tunnels under the ocean. 

From the tunnels to the land bridge

The rather convoluted segment is tricky. It starts with the bump out of the ocean then heads into some gravel… from there it’s the false flat up the hill which tightens at the top. The downhill from there to the Italian Villas isn’t enough to supertuck, but it’s enough to pick up speed before hitting more gravel. They really need to fix these roads. 

As with Col du Saddle Springs, the challenge here isn’t that the riding itself it hard – it’s not… the challenge is the constantly changing terrain can throw off your formation. The descent into the Italian Villas in particular is enough to create a split with heavier riders breaking away faster than the poor lightweights can keep up!

Volcano, downtown and home

This last segment is pretty straightforward. Nothing that’s going to tax the team. The final sprint marker is a good time to begin a final acceleration and bring it home with a flourish. 

Target times

I haven’t ridden a TTT on this route – I started just a few weeks afterwards. The last time was TTT #46 on 5th March and before that it was number 35 in December, where there were only 91 teams… oh how times have changed!

The jump in performance from #46 to #48 is easily explained… we have a ton(ne) more teams on the field! In the last 20+ weeks since #80 we have seen significant professionalization which will reflect in our times. Here’s what I think will happen this week.

Wrap up

This race doesn’t have a defining segment like last week’s Box Hill. I believe this is about pain and suffering in the last third – from the Volcano to the finish line. The longer you can keep the team intact the faster your overall time. While that’s always true in a TTT, there’s nothing in this route that should break you apart.