Another Tuesday, another Zwift 10 mile time trial organised by the VTTA.

After the debacle on 4th February, and the return to form on the 11th February, I had hopes of a (probably minor) incremental improvement. That didn't happen, and instead the result pointed to continued difficulties in pacing on a flat virtual time trial course.

My initial 6 month subscription to Athletica.ai was nearing the end, and I was keen to rationalise my various virtual cycling/coaching subscriptions. At the time, I had active subscriptions to Zwift, Rouvy and to TrainerRoad. I’ve been using TrainerRoad for the longest period, and only started with Zwift in 2020 while in Covid lockdown.  I also subscribe quarterly to intervals.icu for its superior data analysis capabilities. In the past I tried FulGaz (which was bought by Ironman, and now by Rouvy) for a year or so.

You can probably tell that I enjoy trying out new virtual cycling and training apps, but these aren’t particularly cheap if you have several of them, so I periodically prune some of these back.

After last week's debacle where my bike collapsed under me into a salty mixture of iron oxide and sweat, bringing my time trial to an abrupt end after 10km, I was uncertain how today's event would go. Because I'd been generously gifted an old road bike by a club mate - actually I already had this, but I was awaiting some 11-speed shifters from Ali-Express before mounting the bike on the trainer - I was able to get up and running again the following day, albeit on the 8-speed gearing the bike came with.

On the back of nearly a week of using this bike, I was aware of a slight gearing issue, where some gears occasionally jump slightly. I hoped this wouldn't be an issue. This week I took things pretty easy in the 48h ahead of the time trial. On Monday I just did an Athletica recovery session, and I didn't ride in the morning of the time trial. I planned out a 40 minute warmup routine, which consisted of the 20m ramp up, then a couple of higher power sets of 30s at 113% FTP followed by 2m30s at 95% FTP, separated by 4m at 69% FTP. Then a easy spin before my start time. 

I'd been somewhat concerned for some time about the state of the bike frame mounted on my Tacx Neo trainer - many years of heavy sweating had corroded it really badly. I had joked recently about it collapsing, and had obtained a replacement. But of course as I awaited parts to arrive, I hadn't set it up.

I completed a decent 40 minute warmup pretty well, though I'd noticed that the gears were sounding a bit rough, and occasionally the rear mech seemed to want to change on its own accord. Oh well, I thought, I have a look tomorrow. A few minutes before my scheduled start ay 19:04, I moved to the start pen and waited a few minutes to start.

So this was my third attempt at the VTTA 10 mile time trials on the Tempus Fugit course. Last week I went backwards with lower power, so I was feeling a bit apprehensive about this one - would I continue my backwards trend? On the plus side, I've been completing the Athletica workouts with a bit more gusto than over the past few weeks, and many of my physiological metrics have been going in the right direction. But still...

To recap, I have been finding it difficult to pace myself properly on these events, and this is something I need to work on. After a carefully planned warm up, I did start off quite well, controlling my pace and holding things steady for about 6 minutes before everything started falling apart. I finished with an average power of 236W - somewhat less than I'd be happy with, but about 8W higher than event 2 and 4W higher than event 1. My finishing time was 24:09, and in the AAT table, I came in 34th out of 57 riders.

It has occurred to me that I haven't blogged about my journey through the 1001 Albums since Christmas Eve. I've still been playing each album on a daily basis, and I'll catch up over the next few days.

This set of albums started in fine form with two albums I scored at 5, then sagged a bit later on. The first on of the 5s was Penthouse and Pavement by Heaven 17. This album followed the split from Human League and went head to head against the League's Dare. I even think they were recorded in the same studio. In contrat to Dare, Penthouse and Pavement has a distinct polical edge to its synth-pop, and it's all the better for it. Album opener (We Don't Need This) Fascist Groove Thing is an absolute stormer that was banned by the BBC. It's possibly more topical than ever.

You might have thought that after the debacle of last week's VTTA Zwift TT, I might have been able to do a bit better. Well, if you did, you were wrong.

Once again I rode like a bag of spanners, and in fact did a marginally worse ride than the week before.

The first of the VTTA Zwift time trial series was preceded by a 'test event' that I missed. So I came at it a bit cold, not having done a Zwift TT in nearly a year. The TT was on the nearly pan-flat Tempus Fugit course. This is really quite unrealistic as even on the flattest real life courses there are minor undulations and variations in wind resistance that make the ride a bit more variable than in a virtual world like Zwift.

Anyway, I made the most stupid error (especially given the decades of TT experience I have), and shot off at the start at a completely unsustainably power. Subsequently I was all over the place power-wise and faded really badly towards the end. I could see my average power dropping...I finished in 24:20 (I think), with an average power of 232W. Apparently this was good enough for 7th place on Age Adjusted Time (so I am told). Maybe the re weren't many VTTA members taking part!

 I am a happy user of a Garmin Edge 840. In fact, since GPS-enabled bike computers became a thing I've only ever owned Garmin Edge devices (500, 520, 520 Plus and now 840). That, I think, says quite a lot about my perceptions of these devices.

Over time, the capabilities of these devices has increased, with new (and often connected) features available. I now routinely use live-tracking and a ConnectIQ app called Windfield which both require a bluetooth connection to a phone. Windfield is very useful as it provides upcoming weather forecast updates and shows current wind speed and direction.

I started using Zwift after recovering from my first (and so far only) bout of Covid at the outset of the first UK lockdown in spring 2020. At that time I was working from home and I settled into a routine of riding Zwift before and after each working day, with a significant impact on my fitness. I remained a home-worker until I retired in 2023, but I kept using Zwift along with some other virtual platforms after that.

For me, Zwift has generally been a bit of a solitary activity. I did try a couple of meet-ups with work colleagues, and took part in the VTTA Zwift time trial series last January, but really I'm just there on my own in the garage.