Wow. So I’m actually in quite a bit of pain after this one. And not for the reason you would probably think. I cramped up so hard on this ride that my calf muscle is bruised. I’ve had this before, but never quite as painful as this one. But, I guess that’s just a teaser as – fortunately – the cramp hit me about half way up the Alpe du Zwift. Before that, we had two smaller climbs to get out of the... Source ..read more

Today’s ride was intentionally on the easy end of the spectrum. So easy, in fact, that Zwift rated my custom workout as a 1 out 5 in terms of intensity. I actually messed up a bit when hastily creating this workout and it turns out that the warm up and cool down go to a higher intensity than the main block itself. Whoops. Anyway, not a huge lot to talk about here. I was on the bike late because I... Source ..read more

I rarely chose to do climbing rides when I’m left to my own devices. Usually I’ll opt for structured workouts so it doesn’t really matter what the terrain is showing on screen, I just pootle along at the target wattage as instructed. During these Tour of Whatever rides though, I seem to find myself going uphill far more frequently. Why, it was only on Saturday that we were plodding our way up the... Source ..read more

Good afternoon race fans. You’ve heard of the Formula 1. You’ve likely heard of the Grand National. But have you ever heard of Zwift’s Race London series, and its world renowned solidly middle of the pack B category riders such as yours truly? What do you mean, no? Outrageous. Well, Tuesday lunch times. 12:10 GMT. Online. That’s where these races go down. And today we were hitting 18km’s of one of... Source ..read more

Each week I try to review and reflect on my previous week on the bike. This allows me to see how my fitness and ability is progressing on a wider timescale than day to day. For previous weekly reviews please click here. A busy week both on and off the bike. It was hard to get in hour long rides during the weekdays without resorting to riding in the early evening, which I am not a massive fan of. Source ..read more

Feet still not right. Not right enough to walk on for any distance, anyway. Probably my walking boots are too big. I figure they must be the wrong size if they have done this much damage. Even cycling in my outdoor shoes causes horrible rubbing on the remaining blisters. Wild. But faced with either staying in or going out for a ride today, I chose a ride. It sounds a bit weird saying that. Source ..read more

This one has taken it out of me, pretty much as expected. My standard ride length is anything up to an hour. Anything over that and usually I notice a drop off in pace. But I knew this one was going to be a long ride. 70km, pretty much. With 700m of climb. I think it’s 5 climbs in total: It’s definitely the most challenging ride I’ve done this year, no doubt about that. Not the hardest ride I’ve... Source ..read more

The last two days have been fairly high effort rides. Short (under an hour, anyway), but fast (enough). Today should have been an endurance ride. But Zwift don’t massively cater for the “Endurance in Under 30 minutes” type of workouts. Probably because the statement is a total contradiction. Anyway, I should have done a custom workout. I know that now. Instead, I opted for the Flash Burn workout. Source ..read more

There’s no denying it, this years Tour of Watopia has some ambitiously sized routes. Certainly ambitious when it comes to week day riding, at least for me. The short ride is Watopia’s Waistband – 26km and mostly flat. The standard ride is Out and Back Again, 40km with 300m of climbing. And the longer ride… well, that’s Big Foot Hills. 70km with 700m of climbing. Fun times. So... Source ..read more

Oof, a nasty one today. One that caught me out. I have definitely completed the London Loop route before, but the gotcha on this race was that it was 1.5 laps… so we hit Box Hill twice. I’d had a dental appointment this morning so it wasn’t like I hadn’t had time to do a bit of pre-ride recon. Not only had I checked out the route on Zwift Insider, but I’d also looked at the Zwift Companion App for... Source ..read more