My first club ride

The first Lothian Cycle group run I did was with Alison Johnston and Alan Hardie. Other members Kevin and Philip could not make it otherwise we would have had five virtual cyclists. A lot of time was spent getting Skype to work as you need the correct handle to find the person you want to conference with. We jointly worked out the best route to suit our needs would be the London Classique which is a 3.3 mile route and further decided we would do several laps of that. The other routes were considerably longer and higher climbs.

My conservatory, where my event was taking place, is colder than the Baltic at this time of year so I did a couple of laps just to warm up arriving just on time 8pm at the start line. Each lap was 3.3 miles taking about 10 minutes. It is remarkably difficult to stop exactly on the stop line as you don't have brakes, at least I have not found a control for that yet. We fafed around trying to locate a phone box unfortunately there are lots of phone boxes in London. Eventually we all connected via the leader board within a few yards. It is then easy to cycle together and we did 3 laps from that point cycling at a Monday Madness type of pace.

After the very convivial ride I received the results in Strava as normal. Instead of plugging my Garmin into the computer it just arrived like magic certified by Zwift as a genuine virtual ride. https://www.strava.com/activities/778337815
https://www.strava.com/activities/778293078

Strava presentation

Conclusions

The ability to join people you know in real life on a virtual cycle is awesome. I have tried cycling on my own and it is no where near enough fun. The purpose of all this is to keep doing it thought the winter months so the added motivation of meeting up with like minded enthusiasts cannot be understated. The addition of a Skype conference call just adds spice to the meal.

I think the meeting up on track is a difficult issue without brakes especially if the start line is on a bit of route going down hill. I have read the forum on this issue and there is lots of discussion.

The published map for London could do with some enhancements it is a bit devoid of reference points like Marble Arch etc

However the whole experience is well worth while and I may try and join an event.

FTP stands for Functional Threshold Power and represents the most watts you can expect to average over an hour. This can be used to improve your performance by joining training shedules that push your limits or you can use it to gauge which events you are suitable for.

On my Watopia flat route I averaged 132W and I currently weigh 77Kg so my FTP is  1.7W/Kg I can now use this to gauge where I go from here.

Checklist (before starting off)

* Open the windows
* Wear a hat to collect most of the sweat
* Water bottle
* Mobile
* Jersey to start with till you warm up
* Make sure windows/Zwift is up and running
* Old towel