Good hard race in the C’s. The pace on the beginning circuit was pretty tame. @eloy @RichFreeman and me rode the front a ton and held it together. We ended up going into the climb with a group of 8, Eloy set a nice steady tempo and we shelled 4 pretty quickly. From there out It was the Kissena show and Rich showed everyone how to do it.

RICHARD FOR THE KILL!!

that was so fun!

Matt looking super sharp too, second place for him (Matt rode over 100km in the trainer yesterday, btw), I'll finish fourth, Richard totally killed the second half of the climb and eventually got over 20 seconds on all of us, winning the race. HOTNESS.

also, a screenshot of the 3 of us patrolling the front before the climb... 

Which race were you guys in? B was def not a B event....ppl riding like animals. 

@JohnOlsson glad I’m not the only one. The whole 3.2-3.9w/kg range means little when everyone in the top half is averaging like 3.9w/kg

Enjoyed the race today, didn’t feel great but decided to stick with it till the base of the climb and see what everyone else was capable of. Realized fairly early in that I didn’t have any explosive power so just went straight to diesel...Was cool to see so many KCC names in the race and taking control. Strong riding dudes! 

How do we get KCC jerseys?? Noticed CRCA has a pixelated jersey

JohnOlsson said:

How do we get KCC jerseys?? Noticed CRCA has a pixelated jersey

A pet peeve of mine. Charlie's wife just had a baby though, so I suppose we can cut him some slack

yes, charlie just had a baby! 

the CRCA jersey has been around for like 4 years. I'm afraid that getting jerseys into zwift has become almost impossible, so we might have missed our beta to 2020 covid window

Worth note, Charlie puts all communications for these races under Kissena Cycling Club, even now, even over his own job as zwift VP of events. Sharp.

Anyone else entering the B category tomorrow?

What has two thumbs and needs a rest week? 👍👍

Handicap race tomorrow so we are all in together. 

starting in the c, will be hard af — hoping it stays together longer than the usual

Starting in the As. Looking to gun you all down

I'll be with the b bois in a bit! So the objective is to not get caught by the group behind you and to catch the group in front? 

That race format was sweet. I enjoyed trying to catch all the other groups but could've done without the random people. 

Agreed! It seemed like there were fewer attacks until the race was almost done. Charlie mentioned in the B Chat that he messed up the culling process and apologized. 

riding with all other random watopia riders kinda messed up the racing, as zwift drafting has a level of stickiness, so if your avatar snapped to the draft of a random rider you would have to accelerate out of it, while the race rides away, lasted about 15 minutes before that got to me, I have other excuses too, let me know if you wanna read them  

The longer TT style and rando draft opportunity definitely helped me, basically doing 1hr ftp watts and hiding behind faster folk. Without hills I knew I could plow through the race miles and I could burn the few matches during the attacks on the few incline sections. My paranoia of being dropped kept me near the front and before I knew it, we had a group of about a dozen after the first lap. I knew I had no chance of winning and saw Matt with me so just kept rolling at the front making sure I stuck around to help him out, covering the few moves. Somehow found myself off the front with a smart guy attacking during the chaos of other Zwift rides/races. He finally calmed down and the rest of the group including Matt caught us. Matt rolled off the front and I tried doing the old trick of going juuust hard enough so everyone else kind of got lulled into the pace. I also surged with and slowed in front of guys trying to bridge. At one point he had maybe 15"+ but despite my disruptive behavior the motivated group of about 6 came back together. The winning move was when a way faster group shot past us and the eventual C winner jumped on their draft and disappeared in the chaos that was the course. Matt went after him and eventually made it to 2nd. I don't have a good jump anymore and ended up with 3 guys to go after 4th - 6th for the last 4k. Again, without a good jump I played my only card which was to roll hard off the front around 1k to go, but they were on me and sprinted around me at 200m. Oh well oh smell. Fun times!

oh uh!! tomorrow's race includes the Jungle dirt roads, for which a Mountain Bike is better, Charlie suggests changing bikes!! for that portion! the rest of the course is also hardcore

Who's in, who's changing bikes? what virtual gear would you be using?

Oh man the method for switching sounds like a cheat code 

I'm in the B race. Gonna jump on Zwift now and practice this bike change trick!!

practice makes perfect! remember wear the ‘basic 1x’ bumblebee jersey and if you can, orange hat orange socks

That was terrible for some reason lol. Power was down, HR was up and I got popped on the first little bump 🤷‍♂️

What's the euro pro saying?  Some days you're the hammer, some days you're the toe... Wait that's not right...

At least you made it to the first climb...that Cervelo gravel bike is not fast or I am also not fast. 

@David Yang and I signed up for the C's -- smallish virtual field

It started chill enough, as we all knew the course would be hardcore, David and the eventual winner Kevin Scott attacked the first climb, I stayed with the pack for a moment, but had a 'feather' power up, that helped me chase and catch up, and eventually a fourth rider, Pedro Arias, joined.

We would end taking the first four spots of the race.

As we reached the jungle, Kevin and I stopped to change bikes, Dave and Pedro Arias kept riding, they opened about 20 seconds on us. The MTB was definitely faster, and we were all back together by the bottom of the jungle. Changing bikes was NOT the right strategy however. as I would need to give up another 15ish seconds to change back to the road bike. 

Dave had a few power issues, and dropped back coming out the jungle, and we all started the KOM with 15~20 gaps between the four of us, with me in 3rd as the bike change was fast but too slow.

Dave fought hard and eventually caught me on the climb. We rode the rest of the course together, which made a huge difference, as at some point up the climb I almost turned my computer off and quit semi-bonked. Was haaard.

Kevin Scott won, Pedro, then me, then Dave. Later got a new HR threshold email from Training Peaks.

And that longest virtual race report I will ever write.

Was fun. 10/10 would do again. 

Cheers to Dave who made all the difference and made it so much fun.

Some photos of our avatars dealing w/ the virtual epicness.

Wowowowow. I thought you were kidding about bike changes. I opted for outdoors. Should have brought an extra bottle.

https://www.strava.com/activities/3392901445

signed up for the C race tomorrow. if you are racing please wear the bumblebee “basic 1” jersey and orange socks orange hat if you got’em — race should be fun

smallish field in the virtual castelli c field, maybe around 11 starters.

Quickly off the gate it turned to 6 riders, then 5, some attacks 30 minutes in left 4 of us, there was a little flurry at 45ish minutes, but the 4 stayed together, content to start the virtual Leith Hill together. The race will end at the top.

Was aggressive once it all started going up, but Leith is tough, as it is not very steady, gaps created on the steep parts would close on the quick flat moments.

The last 2km or so are straight up, which did finally allow me to use the feather I was holding, open a small gap, and push push push, holding it to cross the line for the win.

Celebrate the small victories. Even if virtual.