I’ve done something bad

After almost two years apart, I’ve rekindled my relationship with Zwift and rejoined the platform. I didn’t want to, two years away proves that but the lure was just too much and I pressed the button this week to give it a month’s trial.

In the interim, I’ve spent most of my time riding solo workouts on MyWhoosh. In my opinion its the better of the two platforms in this space. Better graphics and of course FREE vs the now painful £17.99 Zwift subscription has become. However, the one thing MyWhoosh just doesn’t have vs Zwift is a community and that, right now for me has value and is the primary reason I’ve rejoined. More riders, more events, more choice. Simple as that.

I’ve ridden Rouvy a bit too, just some free km up Alpe d’Huez but that was solo riding too

Things have changed in the last couple of years on Zwift. I’ve been riding new roads this week, extensions to worlds that were already a feature of the game the last time I rode. This week I’ve pedalled south out of Central Park and crossed The Brooklyn Bridge, ridden some pave (cobbles) in France and a new coast road in Watopia accessed via the jungle. It’s been great fun but it has highlighted either how unfit I’ve become vs two years ago or how much harder the platform has become to ride in. Maybe a bit of both.

When I first joined I was a Cat A rider for a bit (just) but settled into being a decent Cat B but this week I’ve being playing with Cat C’s and finding it hard tbh. A heavy pace in a group + surges on inclines has really found me out but on the flipside it has made we want to improve and get back to a Cat B. Maybe I’m just not used to riding Zwift yet.

And the one thing that really used to frustrate me in Zwift seems to, at least, been addressed to try and quash it. Cheating. You used to get B and C cats riding at 4-5 w/kg and sustaining it for periods of time that were simply not possible for riders of my ability. Even at my best and it was getting worse. It was the primary reason I left I think. I was just dismayed by it. I wanted to be competitive and enjoy the racing but jokers were taking the piss. Zwift does it differently now. Rather than pick you own category to ride in (which you still can do), for some events you are categorised automatically based on recent performances. It monitors your metrics and categorises you by giving you a Zwift Score. It’s not a perfect solution and you can still sandbag (deliberately underperform to enter a race in a lower cat than you should be) but the monitoring is designed to catch this and adjust you back up automatically. It doesn’t eradicate it but minimises it in the hope it acts as a deterrent I guess. Maybe this is what has pushed the levels up a notch?

Anyway for now it’s a mix of rides and races when the weather is crap and hopefully I’ll see some improvement once the legs get used to it all again. I need to ride it regularly now to justify the subs cost.

Adios