CTT Winter Zwift TT Series Event 1 - 15th November 2025

It's that time of year when Zwift riding is pre-eminent in the weekly schedule - and the CTT have set up a Winter Series of time trials on Zwift, Unlike the VTTA series I've ridden for the last couple of winters, they've selected a range of courses from flat to hilly, which promises to be a bit more interesting that riding the super flat Tempus Fugit course week in, week out as the VTTA have used.

That said, the first event was indeed on Tempus Fugit, but with a different finish point than the VTTA used last year, at 20km. Approaching this ride, I really wasn't sure how ready i was for it: after the best part of a week away from home with real disruption to my training routine and with a rather stressful journey home the day prior, most of my rHR and HRV metrics were a bit off kilter.

I got ready for the warmup ride in good time, but encountered a bit of a hitch with the networking of the Apple TV that I use to run Zwift. That sorted, I started my 25 minute warmup.

Warming up on Tempus Fugit

I finished the warmup with just over a minute to go, which meant that by the time I'd finished and saved the warmup file, I had less than a minute in the starting pen. At this point, I didn't recall the actual distance of this TT - I did remember it was a bit longer than the VTTA version last year. Taking into account the after-effect of travelling, I tried to avoid going off too hard. Well, kind of. 

I've always found Zwift TTs to be harder than the real thing. I suspect this is because all those small undulations on the road and especially turns and junctions that you get on a real road bring variations on the effort and a distraction from the discomfort of riding at high intensity. I succeeded in not actually blowing up in the first few minutes, but found myself pausing pedalling for a second or so every few minutes. This obviously made a hit on my speed, and on my average power.

More seriously, my failure to remember the distance of this TT cost me at the end. I could see a finish flag approaching on the 'mini map', and eased off after passing it. Big mistake. I immediately noticed that other racers were still horsing along, and started upping the effort again. As it turned out, the course took us round the turn and back down the course to the finish line! well, you live and learn!

I'd entered this race in Cat C (as recommended by Zwift) and I could see I was labelled as such onscreen. I had a bit of trouble finding my results in the Cat C riders, but this turned out to be because I was in Cat B in the results. By the day after, I was back in Cat C. I finished in 31:58, 60th place out of 114 in Cat C. I averaged adisappointing 217W (221W normalised), though that'll have been affected by misreading the finish line.

Next week sees a slightly hillier course - 24.5km with 201m climbing on the Triple Twist course. I'm hopeful I'll be able to improve my average power and overall position next week.