It is too cold and snowy for many of us to ride outside so it is time to take to the trainer and keep the fun and fitness going. To that end I will be co-ordinating Zwift rides for any members who would like to join us. The plan is to set up two rides per week, one on Wednesday nights at 7:30pm and one on Sunday at 11am. Most rides will be less than an hour but we may occasionally do shorter or longer rides. I will try and keep with a theme to keep it interesting. To start, I think we will ride the stages of the Tour of Makuri Islands.
To join us you will have to be signed up and able to ride through Zwift. For those new to Zwifting, they have all the details of setup and configuration on their website (Zwift.com).
At a minimum, you will need a wheel on trainer, something to run the Zwift app on (computer/tablet) and a bluetooth capable speed sensor on your rear wheel. If you have a bike computer setup on your bike now, you can usually use the existing sensors (speed, cadence, heart rate, power meter). The other things youāll need you likely have around the house already:
something to prop your computer tablet on
a fan to cool you down
water
a towel handy
summer riding kit
You can spend lots to setup an indoor Zwift space but you donāt have to. I bought an inexpensive mat to go under my bike/trainer and a simple fluid trainer, (magnetic ones are a bit cheaper but donāt increase the load progressively as you ride - a fluid trainer feels more ārealā than a magnetic one). All the other pieces I already had.
For those that are interested, the first step is to go into the Zwift app and follow me (Robert Elder) and then indicate on this thread that you are interested in participating. As I set the rides up, I will include you in the meetup request, if you want to join us for that ride, just accept the request and show up, (probably easiest to do this from the Zwift Companion app for iOS or Android which runs on your phone. You will also want the phone app to chat with the group as we ride). When we ride, we will stay together regardless of how many watts you push which is great when you are riding along comfortably in Zone 2 and then Carla starts pumping out the watts but never gets out of view
You can read more about ride meetups on Zwift here:Meetups or post a question here and I will do my best to answer.
I will setup the first ride for Sunday Nov 20th at 11am. The request will go out on Saturday afternoon to all who have followed me on Zwift and indicated that they are interested by that time.
Iāll look to join you guys on the Sunday rides. One thing you might want to consider is setting up a discord channel for these rides so you can chat. It works really well.
I would like to join in on the Sunday rides. Just starting on Zwift. Finished my free kilometers today. Need to figure out how to pay. Would think it is sime enough but I am really not very teck savvy!
Log into your swift account, Go to the menu bar (actually three lines) and choose your account overview then there will be a menu on the right hand side that you can choose āmembershipā from.
We do have an official Zwift Club (WaterlooCyclingClub) @Oliver_Smith and I are thinking of arranging some official rides, but Oliver has been getting over COVID. We are still figuring out the best approach, but we can arrange rides through the club.
@HappyOne happy to add you as a moderator to the zwift WCC club is you like so you can arrange rides via that? It isnāt my club I just set it up
As @Sean_MacCormack mentioned, Iām still getting back from COVID but hopefully will be looking to run some rides too ( once I can actually ride again!)
Handful of regular WCC Zwifters are headed online this morning.
Until we are organized and have Club optionsā¦ we can do a roll call to see where people are thinking of riding.
Given the new āStay Behind The Gateā or youāre out rule. You have to chose your watt range wisely or youāll be frustrated behind the gate for the whole ride or dropped like a sack of hammers.
A few of us from Thursday/Saturday group 3 are doing the 3R C (2.5 watt kg) at 9:00.
Thanks for the offer. I am just trying to keep things moving for the Rec crew over the winter and provide some ride encouragement for us lower wattage riders.
Indeed. @HappyOne I just noticed this post is called āRecā rides.
Very happy that youāre organizing the virtual rides and keeping the Rec club riders motivated going through the winter.
Thought I could piggyback on the Zwift chat and see if anyone in the āintermediateā range wanted some options. Right now we are texting each other to coordinate Zwift rides.
Perhaps @Oliver_Smith a new forum category or āGeneral Zwiftā thread for the new āWCC Zwift Clubā might open up and organize the content.
The forum continues to be a great platform to find like-minded riders and group rides to suit everyone. Real or virtual.
@HappyOne and @Francqlife I have made you both moderators to the Zwift club so you can run rides from that now.
I was chatting with the ride committee about making things more formal and it was suggested running one official ride per week to try and build some steam. It does look like people want to do it on a more adhoc basis so unofficial ones can run whenever. To organize you just need to be a moderator of the zwift club. Anyone else who wants to do it let me know! (not my zwift club I just organized it!).
I came back to training too quick after COVID so Iām still on the way back (this will be my third attempt!). Going to take it easy this week but hope to be in some sort of shape sooner rather than later.
Iāll see what we can do with regards a zwift thread or catagory for virtual cycling.
Ha! Seems that weāve accidentily hi-jacked @HappyOne 's Rec Thread hereā¦but thatās okā¦ itās freezing and weāll all looking for ways to stay connected.
@CWilson I remember when we first rode together in your first LTGR. That must have beenā¦~5-7 years ago??? Anywayā¦seeā¦bikes and this forum keep us all together. Alsoā¦I too kinda like the Elastic Band Stay Together function. It allows those who want to put more watts into the ride the freedom to hammer and the rest of us to not get dropped, and we all āstay togetherā.
@Dinoz My daughter was up at 6:30am this morning. She was the Life Guard on duty at the UW pool from 7-9am this morning. Our kids might have been on deck together? ā¦while you and I could have been zwifting!
P.S. Thank goodness I donāt do triathlon anymore. I swam in that pool at 6am before work for a decade. I donāt miss that. Leaving that to @AlexV and @AngQuick
Thanks @Oliver_Smith ā¦ letās see how it evolves. An official WCC real world ride certainly requires alot more structureā¦ times, routes, leaders, etcā¦than a virtual Zwift ride. But, it really helped with the motivation this morning knowing that a few of my WCC friends where going to be somewhere online at 9am and that I better get my butt out of bed.
We had 5 WCC people on-line this morning. We set up a DISCORD channel and chatted about warmer places, F1, the World Cup, comfy saddles, the new Zwift Draft dynamics and chirped at each other like we do on normal rides. Makes the time pass so much faster.
At peak in a few weeks, weāll have 8-10 people online in the 2.5-ish watt/kg range.
Our first Rec ride is done and dusted now. The next ride is posted as a club event in Zwift so any club member should be able to join. The club event setup wonāt let me choose the ākeep everyone togetherā option that we used in the meetups so we will have to try and do that like we do on the road. Target is a nice, no drop, zone 2 ride.
