I bravely shepherded our mighty GGCC squad through the gloriously pixelated streets of Watopia, heroically tackling the “Two Bridges Loop” course on the Zwift riding platform as if we were on a quest for the Holy Grail of wattage. We knocked out five laps of this virtual adventure, because clearly one wasn’t enough suffering, with an optional mini-race at the end for anyone who hadn’t completely cooked their legs yet and still questioned their life choices. Jam took on the red group duties like an absolute champ — Gerald helping me in the peloton herding cats has nothing on leading cyclists, which is more like herding caffeinated squirrels on carbon bikes — well done

As always, we rolled out at a “let’s-not-die-yet” pace of about 2.6 W/kg—just fast enough to question our life choices—and cranked it up as we closed in on the sprint. After the sprint we hovered around 2.8 W/kg, marinating in a light drizzle of extra suffering on the bumps. I aimed for a heroic-sounding 195–205 W at 71kg average over the whole course, which my legs filed an official complaint against. Overall, the group was surprisingly steady: a few riders were permanently flirting with the fence like it was their prom date, and just a handful were casually drifting off the back to admire the scenery and reconsider their hobbies.

The sprinters did a good job hunting the best time. Let’s check out who got the green jersey in the end:

Congrats to M. Ferretti on the green 🏆

From the sprint banner at the last lap I unleashed my finest stadium-announcer voice with a big, dramatic GO GO GO for our optional mini race – because who doesn’t love a little end-of-ride chaos and questionable life choices?
Our racing group somehow stayed in one big, wobbly spaceship, rocketing along at a much higher pace than anyone had actually planned. Then, on the bumps, some brave hero cranked it up to eleven and launched a full-gas breakaway like they’d just been handed a wild-card entry to the Tour de France. Most of the time we could drag them back, eventually. The final climb and the downhill, though, did what they do best and shredded the bunch into “early,” “late,” and “heroic survival mode.” At the end everyone unleashed their best impression of a pro-level sprint to the finish line, legs screaming, faces doing things no camera should ever capture.
Now, let’s see what the stopwatch has to say about all this effort:

Congrats to R. enz 🥇, A. Sousa🥈 and Martin B. 🥉 on the podium.

Thanks to all for coming and having fun with GGCC today – amazing ride today.

For more details check out Zwift Power.