National VTTA 10 Mile TT on Zwift

We ran our first dedicated VTTA time trial event on Zwift on May 29^th. We know that many members use Zwift as part of their training and we hoped it would be an opportunity that members would welcome. Of course, there are well known issues on Zwift with regard to the accuracy of race results and it is not practical for us to go through the elaborate processes of trying to calibrate different member’s turbos or carry out weight checks as is done for elite Zwift championships. We relied on member’s honesty and an acceptance that this event is more for fun and the result should not be taken too seriously. We have not awarded medals!

This was a private event, so we provide the link for entry to the event on the national website and facebook page. The link took you to a dedicated Zwift events page where you simply ticked to enter the event. We used the popular Tick Tock course in Watopia which measures an exact 10 miles (16.1 km). We discovered that there are people around the world who somehow visit our facebook page and we got 92 entries including riders showing the flags of the USA, Canada, Turkey, Zimbabwe and Ireland! We used Zwiftpower to provide the results and to identify those whose names are on the VTTA national membership list – but if riders used a name on Zwiftpower that was unidentifiable then we treated them as non-members. We also calculated the ‘age adjustments’ independently as the Zwiftpower times in their ‘VTTA/VHR’ column do not match how we determine them.

On the night itself there were 35 riders, most of them VTTA members, and an indication that on Zwift you can get even more ‘DNS’ than in the real world! Results are provisional on the basis that we have correctly identified the right VTTA members from their Zwiftpower names. The fastest time, 20:55, was set by Paul Duncan, a new Midlands member this year. Judy Brown (East Anglian) was the fastest woman with 23:05. The top 3 men and women on age adjustment were:

Men on AAT - Kev Fowler  (West) 19.54; James Wood (East Anglian) 20.26; Adrian Hughes (Manchester & NW) 20.27

Women on AAT - Judy Brown (East Anglian) 18.24; Linda Hones (East Anglian) 19.48; Sue Semple (Midlands) 20.42

If you have a Zwift account, you can see the full Zwiftpower result on https://zwiftpower.com/events.php?zid=3684899

but ignore their VTTA/VHR calculation.

As we said in announcing the event, this was more for fun and we are not issuing medals or including the results in standards improvements! However, the watts per kilo numbers on Zwiftpower were typically within the expected range of mid 3 to mid 4 watts per kilogram and there were no ‘superhuman’ power outputs to worry about.

We have had several appreciative comments via facebook after the event and would be interested in further feedback from the riders and other members as we consider arranging further events on the Zwift platform. Finally massive thanks to Steve Jenks, Recorder at Midlands Group, and the excellent James Bailey at Zwift for facilitating this event for us.

Here is the full result on Age Adjusted Time