Today, I guided our GGCC team through the virtual streets of “The Greenway.” We rode on one of the new courses in New York on the Zwift riding platform. In total it was a one lap training ride with an optional little longer mini-race at the end.
Thanks to JC for going with the red group and Jam for helping today – good job 👍🏻

We kicked things off in the lead-in with a very civilized 2.6 W/kg—basically a rolling coffee break. From the first sprint banner I tried to sit on a calm 200W average while the sprinters did what sprinters do best: disappear into the distance and make the rest of us look slow. It worked though—we ended up with some seriously spicy sprints 💪🏻

The bumpy course turned the ride into a bit of a salt factory. On the first KOM up the Manhattan Bridge we started shedding riders like loose bolts. But by dialing the pace back a notch—and with some heroic towing from JC and a few other friendly legends—we managed to glue the group back together.
That way we could tee up the sprinters for their big, glorious, “don’t-mess-this-up” final job.

We had three sprints, which was basically a full diagnostic check of the sprinters’ legs. Our sprinters threw absolutely everything at it right up to the line, chasing fast times and that glorious green jersey like it was the last slice of pizza. I kept nudging the pace up, pretending it was “just a steady tempo.” Today we even had a photo‑finish showdown between a few of the sprinters Let’s see what kind of numbers we managed to cook up:

Congrats to U. kawa andJ. Friis for going in green 🏆

Now the sprints were done and dusted, and so were most of our legs. We turned our attention to our optional mini race from the last “KOM”—because apparently we hadn’t suffered enough. I went at a slightly lower pace to herd the group back together, but it was still quick enough to feel like a proper race start. As we approached the start, I kept nudging the pace up, pretending it was all totally under control. At the same time I took the fence down to 2 seconds, because why not add a bit of panic? The pace, of course, went completely bonkers in the final stretch

Because of the downhill we had a good group going at full speed from the start line. For most of the minirace we stayed together until we did not. Two riders could bring a little more power and went away from the race leading group.
In the end a hard sprint did sort the podium, let’s see:

Congrats to Grandpa 🥇, M. Hofmann 🥈 and Martin B. 🥉 on the podium.

Thanks to all riders for coming and riding with us today. This was a lot of fun guys.

For more details, check out Zwift Power.