Originally Posted by atwl77

I had my first experience with their Crit City Race last night. I joined the C group and went into the race not really expecting much, knowing full well a lightweight like myself doesn't fare well against others on a flat course where raw power numbers play a larger part than W/kg.

Anyways, like any other Zwift races I started out hard for about 30 seconds, then dialed it down and eventually settled in a group somewhere around 24th-32nd position. This particular race went anti-clockwise around the track. Shortly after the starting line was a bunch of rollers, followed by a flat section, then a descent, then another flat section up to the starting/finishing line.

The rollers were where I could use my light weight to my best advantage. On the flats I was mostly at the mercy of the group -- depending on the pace, I'm could be slightly below threshold, but often at or above threshold just to keep up. I was at a complete disadvantage during the descent though.

Based on the first lap performance, I figured my strategy would be to use rollers to get ahead of the group. I could then have a very brief rest along the flat section while the group caught up, using the draft (van) power-up whenever possible to help with recovery. I had to push over threshold shortly before the descending part and then hold at least threshold just to keep up with the group, then after that just try to hang until the start/finish line. Rinse and repeat.

My mistake was to maintain the same strategy on the last lap. I figured after the descent, I'll hang with the group until the second last bend before the finishing line, then push hard until the last bend, then go full gas and sprint to the finish. Unfortunately right after the rollers, the group was already upping the pace and I didn't have a draft power-up at the time to help me. By the time the descending section came the group was already splintering apart. I just time-trialed my way until I was nearly at the final bend, then went full gas and managed to beat one rider in front of me to the finish. Overall position within the C grouping was 31/54.

Ignoring all the very early finishers, many who were clearly racing outside the correct group (4.84W/kg in group C, really???), I think it was a pretty fun and intense group workout especially if you just focus on racing the group around you and not chase people clearly out of your league.

Originally Posted by Dan333SP

I hate racing crit city when they enable the power ups. I can put out a lot of power but I'm relatively heavy (81 kilos, ftp is in the 320 range), so if I somehow end up with an aero boost and everyone else is using the featherweight thing on that one climb and pushing 6.5w/kg, I get popped. The mini races at the Italian TT course are more my style, I've had a few top 3s there since it's just a matter of sitting in the top 10 for 6-7 minutes and then sprinting for 30 seconds.

Originally Posted by WalksOn2Wheels

All the talk about login lag got me wondering. I do notice the delay when switching worlds to do a Watopia ride (Maybe 15-20 seconds? Never counted), but last night I did the London world and from hitting "Let's Go" on the opening screen to being in the ride was maybe 2 minutes total? And that includes calibrating the trainer after my 5-ish minute warmup.

I do kind of wonder if there is an issue with lag between power output on the trainer to what you see on screen. When I do Titan's Grove with lots of rollers, it seems like there is a lag between me putting the power down for a sudden steep hill and I wonder how that affects my avatar's speed. As far as I know, there isn't any way to hook up the trainer directly to the computer, though.

Originally Posted by Cypress

Originally Posted by phenry24

I picked up a dehumidifier on your recommendation and after just two rides I can tell this is a game changer. Before my ride last night I turned it on just to check that it worked and it showed 55% humidity in my room. I turned it back on after getting of my trainer and it showed 75%. This morning I turned it on about a half hour before getting on the trainer and got my room down to 55% and left it on during my ride, during which it bumped up to 60%, but I was nowhere near as sweaty as I usually am during a vo2 max workout. I left it on while I got food and took a shower and it got the room back down to 50% during that time. I never thought I'd be this excited about a dehumidifier.

Originally Posted by himespau

Do you have Zwift set to show you instantaneous power or averaged power? For a long time, I unknowingly had the companion app set to show me one and the computer display set to show the other and was often confused. Now I have them both set up to show instantaneous and they seem to match each other and my Garmin display showing instantaneous power (I'm using a powertap wheel) pretty closely. For some reason, the averaged 3s power on Zwift did often differ slightly from my averaged 3s on the Garmin (maybe used slightly different 3s windows).

Originally Posted by Thomas15

About two weeks ago I did my first race with mainly flats. I was I think the London Loop with Box Hill. I was getting smoked, seriously smoked until we came to Box Hill. There I started passing riders left and right. This due to my light weight and hill climbing obsession. At the very end coming out of the underground tubes up the esculator I passed even more riders and finished in the middle of the C pack. For most of the race I was literally bringing up the rear.

Originally Posted by atwl77

I remember doing a race like that. Same thing, getting dropped and barely hanging on the flats, then getting back lots of position on Box Hill and Leith Hill. But had to work a lot on the descent and losing lots of position there. Even past 60km/h and going into an aero tuck, I would still get passed.

Anyways, for this Crit City race I was 9/22 on Zwift Power.

Originally Posted by colnago62

I read the other day on a Zwift website, that the descents are 25% less then what is actually set. So if you have the slider set to 25%, the climb will be be 25 of that 25. The reasoning was that people won’t want to just sit and not pedal on the long down hills.
If your racing, what it means is you have to keep pedaling all the time.

Originally Posted by atwl77

My trainer difficulty slider is at 100%, and combined with the Tacx Neo's downhill drive, descending in Zwift works exactly like descending in real life. Heavier guys are gonna descent faster than me, and those not running their trainer difficulty at 100% are going to have the advantage of being able to put out power easily, whereas like in real life, putting out power during a high speed descent is a very different skillset because you also have to overcome the natural effect of your wheel already spinning down very fast and have to drop into a much heavier gear to get some power in (or eventually spin out).