Over 1,000 teams worldwide have signed up to the league with over 5,000 riders and so far it has run remarkable smoothly.
Last week was the first race and it was a bit of a brute. WTRL are using the results from the first 2 races to sort teams into similar ability ranges. The races and leagues are already set up according to rider’s Zwift category (A-D) but the WTRL sifting will then place teams in the top, middle or lower league within those categories.
The first race was 50km long and had 4 recognised climbs in it, so it was a baptism of fire for us all. It will however give a better differentiation for WTRL than using shorter races where results will be much closer.
Cyclechat have 2 teams entered; #68 and #23. We jokingly want to convince others that we have that many teams (i.e. at least 68!). Both of us are in the B Leagues. I’m in #23 at the minute at least.
So race 2 last night was the TTT. The format is that races will alternate between road races and TTT each alternate week. The course was RGV (Route Grand Vitesse) which I hadn’t ridden until last week when I did a recce ride and then our team also did a recce the day after. It is pan flat for the first half and only has 351 feet of climbing in its 15 miles duration so is ideal for the bigger more powerful riders.
I had been looking forward to this race although slightly nervous as most of our team have a better 20minute power and FTP, so I was going to have to work hard to stay with them and to contribute. I’m also on a 2 week “break” prescribed by my coach so my fitness is down due to less riding although my freshness is the highest it has been for a long time.
One downside to the series is that it starts at 7.45 which is far from ideal for me at any rate. I like to be finished training by 7.15 ideally, but heyho.
I got myself ready and the bike set up and started warming up. I’d charged my Garmin and my earphones (for Discord) and checked my PC was plugged in and charging. It was.
Around 7.30 I joined the race. Zwift does not really have the native functionality to support TTT’s so WTRL have created a workaround which is a bit clunky but works as proven by their successful TTT series. Teams are given start times as a number of minutes after the race “starts” and usually they are separated by 1 minute for each team. So we had a 10 minute wait from the official start. It is important not to pedal once the race starts because if you cross the start line before your allotted time you will be dq’d.
Bridgy was our timekeeper and he kept us updated until we heard the 3, 2, 1 and started pedalling. Immediately there was a gap. Some riders who shall not be named (ok, Tommy, Al and Bridgy) were pushing 7 watts/kg off the line, leaving Andy and I somewhat behind. We pushed hard to catch back on as they slowed a bit and after a minute we were in line and rolling.
Our plan was to ride in single file and in a set order. We’d changed our Zwift names to include the number to help this – so I was 3Martin Norris (Cyclechat #23). We’d also read it was best to “sink and sprint” at the end of each pull, so we were all trying to do this.
PeteRob had messaged Tommy to say he had lost Discord and he didn’t seem to have started so we were down to 5 riders. Andy was with us but his name wasn’t showing on the leaderboard so we were worried his result may not show up. After a few minutes though Andy appeared on the board and his results are on Zwiftpower so all looks okay.
We had a couple of splits which we recovered but largely we were riding okay in our pace line and making decent progress. Practice will improve us hopefully as well.
We got past the KOM and into the twisties and it was really beginning to bite. My average power was less than I’d hoped but I think it is the repeated VO2 efforts that take it out of you. We were all still together though.
With a mile to go I had to do one VO2 max effort too many and whilst I caught back on, I was then unable to stay with the group and with 0.7miles to go I shouted “go on, don’t wait” and let them go. After a bit, Al shouted back “keep pushing in case we need the time”. I hadn’t thought about that but of course someone could have a wifi drop or maybe the earlier shenanigans with Andy’s time may come back to bite us. So I pushed with what I had left and managed one final semi sprint to the line 15 seconds behind the guys. That was ‘kin ard.
A look at the results on Zwiftpower suggests we did a time of 35 minutes which is slower than we had hoped for. It was a shame PeteRob had his dropout as he is another powerful rider and would have made a difference. So many people tried to access the WTRL website to see the results, that their website crashed and is still down now (9.30 the following morning) so I can’t see how we did against other teams yet. I’ll update this blog when they come through.
EDIT: - the results are still not out, but WTRL have just posted the following:
While we sit and wait longingly for our website to return (if you have auto-refresh or tools you are using to attack our website PLEASE turn them off or we will find you and tape you to the start banner in Watopia).
Yesterday was officially the worlds LARGEST ever Team time Trial (Guinness World Records have been contacted to update WTRL's existing record)
- 5,956 Racers
- 1,112 Teams
- 106 Countries
- 106 Spoiled Team tags (I have been able to correct 70 of them)
- 19 teams with no result as you started in the wrong pen
The TTT is on the YouTube video below - ignore the first 8 minutes as this is just us waiting to start.
FURTHER EDIT: - It turned out that Bridgy had a small error in his naming and that meant his result did not count. This meant our team time DID come down to my time, as I was the 4th legal rider crossing the line. We ended up with an official time of 35:15.232