VTTA Zwift '10' 11/2/25 - altogether better

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. 

While on the virtual turbo awaiting start, I made sure I was in an appropriate gear to start, and then all too soon I was off. I took care not to try and rush off in too high a gear or at too high a power, both of which have been my downfall in previous Zwift TTs. Over the opening minute I set myself a gear that at a decent cadence of around 82rpm would deliver my target power. This turned out to feel quite sustainable, and if you look at the power chart below you can see how consistent I was in the first half of the TT. In the second half you can see brief momentary power drops - these are where I shift position a bit as my right foot was feeling uncomforable. Nevertheless, the average power for the 23:23 it took to cover the 16.1km was 257W, considerably higher than I'd achieved in earlier events in the series, and actually marginally higher than this time last year.

Cooling down after the time trial

By the time I completed the event, I still felt there was something left in the tank - unless I was deluding myself! So maybe a further improvement is on the cards in next week's event.