Zwift Century
 

At the risk of looking like I'm trying to flex (& possible just a little flexing), I went out to set a PR Zwift (imperial) century. It'd been a number of years since I'd tried to ride a fast century on Zwift, and I've learned a fair amount about using the game environment to my advantage (use the flattest route - Tempus Fugit, grab a draft anywhere possible, and pacing my effort). I did this ride with a Wahoo Kickr v5 and the Tron bike, might be interesting to use a TT bike, but TT bikes can't draft in Zwift (at least that's what I understand). I'm sure there are plenty of folks that can legit beat my PR (and more that cheat the game for a hollow sense of achievement), I'm only out there to beat my past self. Here are the details of my ride as posted on Strava - I was also super happy to make PRs on my power curve, best power for anything over 90 minutes:

https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...e9c674be59.png
I could shave a few minutes off if I wasn't such a big drinker ... I need a pee break every hour or so :lol:

I'm interested to hear from other endurance nuts and their experience with long indoor training rides. Tips and tricks for your fastest endurance ride on Zwift (or other indoor platform).



For reference, I'm an ultra endurance rider, I ride 4 to 6 centuries every year, including double-centuries and longer. Most of my long rides are gravel events, but once a summer I like to get the road bike out for a fast century. My PR paved century was last summer at 5:15 on mostly paved rail-trails on my Bianchi Infinito. My goal for 2023 is to break the 5 hour mark on an unsupported solo century, route planning is a big part of the challenge (avoiding traffic lights, busy roads/trails, and big climbs) ... my route last summer routed through downtown Minneapolis traffic and a couple draining climbs.

Dude! I'm sitting here browsing BF instead of hitting the trainer and you drop this bomb!!! Well done.

As long as we're humble braggin' here. The one & only Zwift Century I did used no game tactics & essentially was a brute force effort on a route I was sure the terrain was varied enough to force constant changes to stave off monotony & thus boredom.

I set the thermostat of the house to a slightly cool temperature, & left on/made sure the dehumidifier had a good run to get the air to around 30% humidity. I then set up a high volume fan on the floor in the doorway to the room to cycle in cool air forcing warm air moist with sweat out from above & another box fan to blow on myself directly...All this to simulate the airflow & cooling effect as if I were actually outside on a reasonably dry summer day.

Every 45 minutes I made sure to fuel & rehydrate. No dawdling. Off bike, kitchen, bathroom, back on bike.

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/...555b0536_o.jpgVolcano century by Richard Mozzarella, on Flickr

A year later my avatar still wears the virtual jersey proudly.

Good luck!

4+ hours in the saddle is too much for me in the virtual world. the last time i did that it was the 4 horsemen in zwift. i cannot image doing 4+ hours. yesterday i rode one of the Davos Swiss challenge rides in rouvy, came in at 2 hours 45 minutes. that was enough for me. 12 mins slower than last year. only 35 miles though. i had been three days out of the saddle and i can feel it in my legs now.

nice job by the way.

I did a century on Zwift once.









Took me four days, though. <rimshot>

Nice work, that's impressive. I still have a hard time finding 5 hours in a row to do something like this....

man this is crazy. I did a one hour TT on roller racing night once. That was my limit. Can't imagine 4+ hours of virtual. Impressive.

Nice job. I have to get past 2 hours on Zwift before I can think of 4+, but you have my recognition and a tip o' the cap to you.

I'm always in my century kit too! I can't think of any good reason to trade out my century jersey ... I don't see many in game, that's one hard earned jersey!

My current peak tolerance is about 2 hours before I just can't take it any more, but this is without taking any breaks. Doing a century is impressive.

Tyler Pearce (aka The Vegan Cyclist) put up a REALLY big Zwift ride recently... https://www.strava.com/activities/8309743027

that's the problem. i rarely, if ever, take a brake while riding indoors. it is one of the things that makes indoors so much more difficult. as much as i don't like traffic lights they are sometimes helpful.

For developing fitness, however, it's relentlessly efficient because there are no breaks.

^^^^ I can't imagine! :eek: ... or I could call it a goal ;)

I wonder how the effort would have compared had you been able to hook up with a large pace partner pack for the ride. Coco used to do Tempus Fugit in the 39-42 kph range depending on pack size. That'd be about 4 hours for an imperial century. No ability to take breaks though, unless you expect to get dropped and then just wait for them to catch you their next lap.

I was deep into my ride (roughly mile 75), and a fast pace group came up on me. I burned a last match to get into the pack and enjoyed a late boost to my pace. But they didn't make the turn around to stay on Tempus Fugit .... and I cried a little.

In the ride by Tyler Pearce that I linked above, he was with a bot group (Coco possibly) on Tempus Fugit. It's my understanding that when he needed to take a break, he would stop just before one of the end loops, do his business, and jump back in the group as they came by after the loop.

I read in Bicycling! magazine a couple of decades ago that the coach of the East German national cycling team had his riders do 5 and 6 hour rides on rollers that were set up so they were looking at a blank wall as they rode. Mental toughness!

Bob Roll describes something similar in his book (as best as I can remember, it's been a few years) --at training camp the DS would weed out riders by putting them in a small room, solo, in the dark, the trainer set at like a 5% grade or something until they blew up. Brutal.

WOW! Prior to Zwift, I'd lose my mind within a hours on the trainer. I'm nerdy enough to find the Zwift game environment engaging and keep me going for hours.

208W average over 100 miles is a very decent effort, well done!

Thank you! :)

I love Zwift, but 2hrs or so is my max. I have no problem doing 3-4hr outdoor rides, but I don't think I have any desire to try that indoors.

Now I'm sure this is flexing, but 4 hours was much less time than my longest Zwift rides. I've done at least four rides that took longer, including:

https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...48f1a2c1a4.png

In the next week or two, I'll add another long Zwift ride to my resume (expecting 6 to 7 hours) :

https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...da53b4a081.png

For reference, I'm training for an epic challenge, biking to the summit of Mauna Kea - details of this ride: https://pjammcycling.com/climb/1.Mauna-Kea Living in Minnesota, Zwift is a great way to train for the warm temps and long climbs .... oh and you should expect a post with ride report and pics and likely video, You've been warned ;)

Nice ride. What weight were you on this ride?

I updated Zwift with my morning weight: 170 lbs (which was frustrating since I gained a couple lbs the day before this ride, but on the pancake flat route, a couple extra lbs isn't gonna change much)

And that reminds me, why the #*@% doesn't Zwift sync with Garmin Index scales?!? I had a Fitbit scale many years ago, and my weight on Zwift was always my updated with the most recent weight in on the Fitbit scale. (it's been many months since I last tried to link the Garmin scale and Zwift ... maybe it works now?)

I'm was curious to get an idea of your Zwift category. Now I'm curious why you don't join us on our Vendetta team. It looks like a good fit.