Zwift/WTRL Racing League

bobmcstuff

Anyone have a team racing? How did you find it?

We've a team in the Bs - I was best placed at 20th in our race so we are pretty rubbish. But I enjoyed the race as a whole - I like the longer ones anyway and I had far fewer issues with sandbagging and incorrect categories than the other races I have done.

I really need to work on my short power - my power over the race as a whole is pretty good but I just don't have the ~1 min (<5 min) kick to go with people over the top of the climbs (can see this by comparing power curves on Zwiftpower pretty clearly too). Got dropped at the steep kicker at the top of the Volcano KOM in the end, and that was that. My goal was to try and stick the main bunch until that point so I am fairly happy with that.

Still feeling it today

mpatts

Hi,

Yes - in the A's with Team 3r. The bigfoot hills race was brutal, but great 'fun' - I came 60th, with a new FTP. I got dropped on the first ramp into titans grove, at over 7wpkg!

bobmcstuff

mpatts said:

Hi,

Yes - in the A's with Team 3r. The bigfoot hills race was brutal, but great 'fun' - I came 60th, with a new FTP. I got dropped on the first ramp into titans grove, at over 7wpkg!

Haha yes I set a big new FTP too! 16 watt jump. I also set all time records for HR average and max too...

I nearly went on the first go up Titan's Grove too. Then again on the Zwift KOM - I was actually dropped there but managed to get back on after the banner before the descent really starts. It's that bit on the short climbs where people do a really high w/kg for short periods at the top, I just can't do that (also makes winning races nigh on impossible). But I seem to be able to keep the watts up for a long time to get back on etc.

Still no sign of results - apparently lots of issues with rider tagging and people having dropped 10kg the day before the race...

dannbodge

Can I join your team?
I've been looking for one for a while, but never got round to doing anything (tbh I don't really understand who the whole team thing works)

I'm a solid B racer (4.0w/kg, 274w@68/69kg)
Generally finish in the top 1/3 or 1/4 in the flatter races (I don't have the power to beat heavier guys on the flat)

thistle_

I'm in a team (our RL cycling club) but we're yet to do an event together, it's just for a bit of fun and we're all different categories.
Most of us do ITTs rather than group races anyway so it's not much different.

bobmcstuff

dannbodge said:

Can I join your team?
I've been looking for one for a while, but never got round to doing anything (tbh I don't really understand who the whole team thing works)

I'm a solid B racer (4.0w/kg, 274w@68/69kg)
Generally finish in the top 1/3 or 1/4 in the flatter races (I don't have the power to beat heavier guys on the flat)

Almost the same stats as me! I'm doing it with my IRL cycling club, and I'm not the admin for this series unfortunately. There is a facebook page for people looking for teams https://www.facebook.com/groups/wtrlzwiftracingleague/permalink/764067291044628 or some people posted on this Zwiftinsider article looking for a team https://zwiftinsider.com/zrl-s1-w1/

dannbodge

bobmcstuff said:

dannbodge said:

Can I join your team?
I've been looking for one for a while, but never got round to doing anything (tbh I don't really understand who the whole team thing works)

I'm a solid B racer (4.0w/kg, 274w@68/69kg)
Generally finish in the top 1/3 or 1/4 in the flatter races (I don't have the power to beat heavier guys on the flat)

Almost the same stats as me! I'm doing it with my IRL cycling club, and I'm not the admin for this series unfortunately. There is a facebook page for people looking for teams https://www.facebook.com/groups/wtrlzwiftracingleague/permalink/764067291044628 or some people posted on this Zwiftinsider article looking for a team https://zwiftinsider.com/zrl-s1-w1/

I'll check it out.

I've just joined the DIRT facebook group, so going for that team instead (baby number 2 due in 2 weeks)

bobmcstuff

thistle_(mbnw) said:

I'm in a team (our RL cycling club) but we're yet to do an event together, it's just for a bit of fun and we're all different categories.
Most of us do ITTs rather than group races anyway so it's not much different.

This is a specific, team based leage from Zwift and WTRL https://wtrl.racing////zrl/Zwift-Racing-League.php

You enter as a team and score points based on performance, and your individual performances contribute to your team ranking within a league structure. It'll be alternating between races and TTTs. Mixed rankings are allowed - you're allowed to race up but not down (i.e., I could race in As but not Cs as I'm a B ).

In our race we finished I think 20th, ~60th and ~80th or something, there was no question of us riding together - but every finisher scores a point, there are points for positions over climbs/sprints, and then points down to 30th place at the finish, so all of your individual performances contribute to the team result.

thistle_

bobmcstuff said:

thistle_(mbnw) said:

I'm in a team (our RL cycling club) but we're yet to do an event together, it's just for a bit of fun and we're all different categories.
Most of us do ITTs rather than group races anyway so it's not much different.

This is a specific, team based leage from Zwift and WTRL https://wtrl.racing////zrl/Zwift-Racing-League.php

You enter as a team and score points based on performance, and your individual performances contribute to your team ranking within a league structure. It'll be alternating between races and TTTs. Mixed rankings are allowed - you're allowed to race up but not down (i.e., I could race in As but not Cs as I'm a B ).

In our race we finished I think 20th, ~60th and ~80th or something, there was no question of us riding together - but every finisher scores a point, there are points for positions over climbs/sprints, and then points down to 30th place at the finish, so all of your individual performances contribute to the team result.

Ah sorry. We're on Zwiftpower as a team not the Zwift/WTRL one.
I'll float the boat and see if anyone's interested. I think there's only me using Zwift at the moment and I'm currently sans trainer.

bobmcstuff

thistle_(mbnw) said:

bobmcstuff said:

thistle_(mbnw) said:

I'm in a team (our RL cycling club) but we're yet to do an event together, it's just for a bit of fun and we're all different categories.
Most of us do ITTs rather than group races anyway so it's not much different.

This is a specific, team based leage from Zwift and WTRL https://wtrl.racing////zrl/Zwift-Racing-League.php

You enter as a team and score points based on performance, and your individual performances contribute to your team ranking within a league structure. It'll be alternating between races and TTTs. Mixed rankings are allowed - you're allowed to race up but not down (i.e., I could race in As but not Cs as I'm a B ).

In our race we finished I think 20th, ~60th and ~80th or something, there was no question of us riding together - but every finisher scores a point, there are points for positions over climbs/sprints, and then points down to 30th place at the finish, so all of your individual performances contribute to the team result.

Ah sorry. We're on Zwiftpower as a team not the Zwift/WTRL one.
I'll float the boat and see if anyone's interested. I think there's only me using Zwift at the moment and I'm currently sans trainer.

I mean, it still requires Zwiftpower. The organisers are using Zwiftpower for "doping" control etc.. All riders need to be registered on ZP and have completed a couple of races (to get a baseline for their performance).

It's administered by WTRL who have been running team events on Zwift for a while, but this one is more "official" as it is done with Zwift cooperation (for example, there's a "premier league" on Mondays which is streamed on Youtube, we're obviously not in that...).

I presume you would need to join for the next "season" now (obviously with a league structure you can't just bring teams in and out whenever you like).

You can imagine it in real life like Zwift is the equivalent of the road, WTRL are the equivalent of British Cycling and Zwiftpower is a combination of UKAD and the race timing partner. Or something like that... It's simpler than it sounds though.

bobmcstuff

TTT tonight... I really enjoyed it (perversely). I've only done one WTRL TTT before and was with a bunch of much stronger guys I didn't really know, so was just hanging on, but doing it with the club like this was good.

We're a mixed B/C team and as a B, it was a bit more tactical as we could do 4-4.5 on the front on the flats but on the hills we had to effectively slow to the pace of the slowest rider to keep together. Felt like a real team effort. It was also a much more manageable length, about 35 mins rather than 75 mins...

Only criticism from me is that as a more official event I thought there might be a better start system than hanging around in the pen till your appointed start time. Like the regular individual TT starts but it puts your team on the same row and sets you off the same time, or similar. Maybe that will come in future...

bobmcstuff

Official results for last Tuesday's race came out yesterday... Apparently they have it sorted going forwards though.

We managed to come top of our league in the race, placing 5th, 8th and 15th (you score points down to 30th), plus taking one intermediate sprint and having two other finishers outside the top 30 (each contributing another point each for finishing).

Turns out strength in depth i.e., trying to place as many riders as possible in the top 30, is the most effective way to win the points competition. The race winner's team had nobody else in the top 30, and while the guy in 2nd had teammates in 22nd and 29th that was only enough to put them in 2nd overall.

TTT tomorrow night - with the clock changes and the impending lockdown we have more riders interested in taking part, so hopefully we will be able to ride the whole thing at a B pace, and place higher than we did on the last TTT (where we were 18th out of 22 teams or something).

bobmcstuff

We won our TTT last night... It was very ragged at the end!

Great fun though, much more enjoyable than your average Zwift race.

mpatts

bobmcstuff said:

We won our TTT last night... It was very ragged at the end!

Great fun though, much more enjoyable than your average Zwift race.

Last nights course was SAVAGE. I was holding on for dear life in the last 10km.

bobmcstuff

mpatts said:

bobmcstuff said:

We won our TTT last night... It was very ragged at the end!

Great fun though, much more enjoyable than your average Zwift race.

Last nights course was SAVAGE. I was holding on for dear life in the last 10km.

Haha yes it was...

We're all a bit new to the TTT format, we messed up overtaking a bit - First team we overtook was fine, but the second one we put in a burst to go through, but dropped our 5th rider (the 6th had dropped before, on the climb out of the subway I think). Then I think we gave the overtake a bit too much effort, as we got caught by them not long after... Didn't really mind the excuse to ease off and let them past though!

But in the end we caught and passed them again in the final sprint, which I guess is fine as you're not going to ease off there, just seems silly to leapfrog like that.

You do really need Discord or similar to get a fast time, last night was the first time we have had Discord running properly the whole way through and we worked much more effectively together than previous weeks.

Getting the teamwork right is very satisfying.

bobmcstuff

Not a great race for me this evening... We had 3 in the points, 16th, 17th and 22nd (me in 22nd), plus 1st and 3rd in intermediates, good enough for 6th overall.

I tried to control the pace on the way into the finish since I can't sprint, but it was very hard as a couple of other teams were very organised, sending people up the road in turns so I had to do a lot of closing. Gave it a limp attack with about 2 to go, tried to do a fast final k then everyone else started sprinting so I sat up to finish back of the group... Always nice to finish with the front group but I felt I just rode around without really contributing a lot.

Disappointing when the winner averages 3.4 wkg and you've done 4!!! but that was 340 watts for him, definitely a race for the big powerful lads that one. The 2 guys in my team who finished above me are much punchier than me but still not really suited to a pan flat sprint like that.

bobmcstuff

Registration for Season 2 is now open if you would like to enter a new team: https://www.wtrl.racing/zrl/ZRL-registration.php

Starting 12th Jan (approx.)

bobmcstuff

We won our second TTT! Such a fun format...

Hitting heart rates I haven't seen for years in these races........

bobmcstuff

Gutted. Came 13th, was in a small group 7-9th, got caught right before the line, and was going full gas while the guy in 12th just rode away from me. I really need to work on that <1 min power.

I made two stupid mistakes as well, I closed down a break of 2 guys with 6 seconds which then got caught straight away. Then mistimed my supertuck on the last descent and just rolled along sat up.

I was absolutely fuming when I crossed the line, I should have come in the top ten easily. There's definitely a knack to this Zwift racing lark!

We managed 13th, 15th, 19th and 27th, so came 4th on points. 4th in the league. Should go back up to 3rd with the next TTT, as we have won the last two...

bobmcstuff

I have had to move up to the A category for Season 2... I am not looking forward to it, I am expecting it to be miserable this evening.

They have changed the points structure though so it is still worth racing for a high finishing position even if you have been dropped. So it should still be a good workout!