Zwift - Tempus Fugit in Watopia

Zwift - Race: Stage 5: Fresh Outta 24 - Coastal Crown Loop (A) on Coastal Crown Loop in Watopia

Zwift - Race: Team DRAFT Monday Race (A) on Sand And Sequoias in Watopia

Fast, technical and beautiful.

Man was that hard… 

Race started out really fast, as always I was no where near the front and had to do a big bridging effort to get there. Gaps were forming in the first few minutes. Then we had a shallow climb which was fast. Ended up averaging 388w for the first 20 minutes. Then we turned on to the first dirt sector and I got fucked. Caught behind 1 crash and dropped my bottle out of the cage probably got passed by 25 riders. 

This sector had what everyone here calls “whoops” basically the path is just waves and I did not handle them well I went to fast a few times and almost flew over my bars and ended up taking them really slow, that’s the real reason I fell so far behind. At this point I was probably in like 70th position.

Finally we got some road and dirt road and I was feeling good so I hammered it. I was no where near racing for the win so I really wanted to push myself and make this a hard ride. So I wasn’t really looking for drafts today and ended up towing some groups for over 20km of road. I actually only really drafted the first 20 minutes and the last 10 as I took turns pulling with someone who caught me. 

Slowly throughout the day I was catching people with some passing me. At the 2 hr mark my bottle flew out of the cage again and this time it exploded so I ended up losing 1 full litre of sugar water. I was able to pick one up at an aid station. But I really missed that sugar water later on.

Hr 2-3 was tough but at hr 3 I found my rhythm and after being mostly passed the previous hour I was catching all those who passed me and more. 

After 100km our course merged with the short course and I ran into so much traffic on the single track made for 30minutes of hell sprinting around people having to get off my bike for congested traffic on steep parts. 

Once I finally clear the technical single track mid course it was 20km of mostly climbing I got a good pace going on the lower slopes getting a small gap on a group of 5 that had been behind me for a while and breifly passed me at the end of the technical section. At the base of the big climb (10km long) I probably had 10 seconds on that group and I really didn’t want to get caught. 

So I held a strong pace up the climb and I actually passed a lot of people in the ball park of 10. Never seeing that group again.

Once I reached the top I was dead and out of water with 20km to go. 

I limped my way down the rolling decent and finally hit road with 10km to go. I was straight toasted but someone I just passed caught up to me and we worked together to keep the pace up to the line passing one more rider.

Overall I did not expect the course to be so technical, it was about 50% MTB trails and 50% paved or dirt roads. 

I definitely realized I can work in my technical skills a ton more and was super proud of my self for not giving up and going deep till the end.

Not sure why but I love this shit, guess I love pushing myself to the limit and growing from it.

I ended up averaging 307w NP for 6 hours so hella happy with that and also had my raw power PB for 4/5/6 hrs. 

Now that’s a wrap on my AZ roady, now I have 32 hours of driving ahead of me, but that’s okay cause I’m way too tired to ride tomorrow lol. Gonna miss the weather but it’s been a fantastic experience. So excited to race more gravel. No more races in March (I think) but April brings many.

Oh I also finished 46th (i think… so not too bad there were likely 200 plus riders) and I pushed my own wind all day.

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Craig Luinstra

BWR Arizona 2024

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Zwift - Tempus Fugit in Watopia

Zwift - Tempus Fugit in Watopia

Zwift - Race: Stage 5: Fresh Outta 24 - Coastal Crown Loop (A) on Coastal Crown Loop in Watopia

Zwift - Race: Team DRAFT Monday Race (A) on Sand And Sequoias in Watopia

Zwift - Tempus Fugit in Watopia

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