RACE 1 USES THE LA VUELTA 2023 | STAGE 21 – MADRID PART 1 ROUTE. 16 MILES / 1020 FT CLIMBING
First of all the results from the 3 extra versions of the main race. If your time is good enough to have been in the top 50 of the main race then you will be checked to make sure you are not a NED. If your time is outside the top 50 placings, then you won’t. Treated just like the main race as promised. Thank you to you all for having a go at these extra times and I hope you feel part of the championship even if you can’t make the “Main” version.
Remember, top 50 places get a bump up if any NEDs before them so who got the top 20 mentions and who got the top 50 bumps??
1st Race and a win for a NED 🙄😫. But hopefully this rider see’s this as a massive gap to the rest and sorts it out. 🤞🤞🤞. So tonight’s real top 3 mentions in the first Muckers championship race for 2024, are “luca_ma” in 1st, “Gil.Mad.io” in 2nd and “karel_sousek” in 3rd. 20 seconds later comes “Stefan_Schmidt” then 12 seconds later comes top Muckers Worldwide team rider “Tuden” in 5th. We have a nice sprint to the finish for 6th between “RocketRoy” just beating “BareRemi” in 7th. 2nd Mucker over the line is “Grochang” in 8th, then “s.p.” gets 9th and “lrollin” gets bumped to 10th, just in front of 3rd Mucker in the top 20 “nielsbrynnum”
“keithaitch” powers over the line in a healthy 12 place, “tranberg” in a not so unlucky 13th, then “boogybill70″ in a strong 14th just in front of 15th placed “A2-569-DIEGO-DONATI” . “Gazinho” is the 4th Mucker over the line in 16th, showing that its not just the Danish Muckers that can finish strongly, then we have “neminemlaedere” just outsprinting “leonelcunha” for 17th and 18th places.
Last 2 special mentions due to the NEDs upfront go to 5th and 6th Muckers Worldwide Team Riders over the line with Belgium pocket rocket “Andy_UP” getting 19th and take it easy “MikeHagan” getting awarded 20th place.
Well done everyone for finishing and I hope you had a great race!
judging from the amount of NEDs in the top 50, I think some riders either didn’t realize our haven’t read our racing regulations for championships that we have been running for a good 4 or 5 months now. its basically if we are not friends on ROUVY ( or following each other on Strava) and we can’t see your stats (which has to include heart rate) then you get classified a NED and no points awarded. Its only for our Muckers Worldwide championship tables on here and you won’t get removed from any official ROUVY tables, Just ours. Please read the blog on the website for more clarification.
Keep scrolling for lots more information, stats and championship standings:
co-founder of muckersworldwide.com and race organizer! Been into cycling since a kid and spent most of the time on BMX and mountain bikes. Took me longer than most to get the road cycling bug but I was bitten around 5 years ago when I finally got a fully fledged road bike that fitted and I let the flat handled road bike go...
So sorry for the delay with the blog!! I got off the bike race yesterday feeling quite happy with my performance, and walked out into a boiler failure and water leak behind the wall on the stairs! spent all night cutting through walls and floorboards to find it and finally sourced it at 1am! got home tonight, helped with fixing it, sat down to do this a 7pm and the dog decided to start being ill and we had to go to the emergency vet!! OMG!!! so its now nearly 11pm on Friday night and I’ve just published it.!!
so, the race now seems sooo long ago, but i really enjoyed the route and I’ve finished around the riders i feel will be my rivals this month. really enjoyed it but what a nightmare since!! cheers everyone!
No worries, Neil. Water in the wrong place is absolutely a drop everything and deal with it thing. Had a particularly nasty incident a few years ago. Dishwasher drain line broke. On Christmas Day. So I sympathize.
cheers Mike, that sounds horrible mate! luckily we found the leak under the floorboards, behind the fitted wardrobes in the bedroom at around 1am and its all fixed now.. but although the sound of trickling water behind the stairs wall added a little “something” to the stairs experience, i did feel i need to knock the blog the head that night and start ripping the house apart instead….
Me too Mucker! just keeping an eye on the dog now who seems fine, and we might have cured the stairs wall “calming water sounds” feature for now.. fingers crossed. 🤞🤞
Now on this route I would have the chance to follow the front pack for a very long time. But on the first long climb I had to let go and seek the group behind me. RocketRoy came to rescue me with two other ghost riders. RocketRoy tried to make some getaway attempts and I really had to push my limited to keep his rear wheel. We lost the two ghost riders and pick up BareRemi who also ghosted me until the last 2.5 kilometres. Just before the last long climb RocketRoy pushed the big watts and I was just hanging on with my bare fingernails, but we were gaining meters to BareRemi.
At the beginning of the climb RocketRoy pushed even harder, and shortly after he was more than 50m ahead and I had 30m lead to BareRemi. I should have had 150m lead to hold the Norwegian from overtaking my 8th position🙈 I am considering practicing cross-country skiing it seems to work for the Norwegians😉
Thanks RocketRoy for carrying me all the way to the bottom of the last climb – tremendous effort and well-deserved finish getting the 7th position.
See you all on Tuesdays ride.
PS Some night you got there Neil, glad you got it fixed. The race report can wait😉
I thought the start was spectacular. Barriers and banners, crowds and a police escort, 93 starters clustering together on the slight downhill. It was wild. On this fast, rolling, intense course, it’s imperative not to get dropped, but very difficult to avoid it. Ended up riding most of the way in a group with Svard, macko, perswe, and Welz. My so-called strategy, for better or worse, was to push hard on the ups, and recover in the draft on the downslopes, hoping the others were tiring faster than I was. Did it work? Still can’t say!
The uphill to the finish starts with 4 km to go. It’s only 2% but it’s one last shot to get away and win our little group of five. Got about 30 m up, but couldn’t hold it. Welz and perswe got back on, then Svard and macko made it five again with a km to go. Now the slope goes to 4%, and Welz went, pulling perswe and macko with him. I was resigned to fourth in our group, *if* I could stay ahead of Svard. With 500 m to go I went down on the drops, out of the saddle, and did my best sprint, more to hold to form than with any hope of success. But when I looked up, I’d gotten ahead of perswe and macko, and stayed there to the line. Even better–Svard had come with me. So 20th in the mentions, and I see Andy_UP directly ahead of me. This month is going to be fun!
yep looks like you and Andy are back to where you left off! although Andy was saying last months championship was too long and intense and was taking it easy this month…. wait a minute… you always want to take it easy as well don’t you! I see a trend here..😉😏
I feel I have to respond to this. I donno. It’s a championship race! I can race 1 time a week.
It’s true. Mike is again challenging me. Or do I challenge him? His the stronger one so yes, I challenge him. I have nothing to loose and have already “won” the first race. This IS going to be intresting 😉
The January championship started off on a bad note with the return of issues with the Rouvy app. No connection right from the start, leaving me beyond position 40. When I finally managed to stabilize within the top positions, a small app freeze made me lose 70 meters. I stayed behind the leading group for a while without being able to catch up. I caught up with wyverns, the first to fall back, on a slight incline but unfortunately couldn’t draft with him. Then, a bit later, we caught up to s.p., but it was worse with him as he was completely ghosted. I let the two of them go in the final climb, narrowly avoiding being overtaken by nielsbrynnum, who almost passed me at the finish line. It’s because it was a championship race that I didn’t abandon, but I’m starting off with a big handicap for the rest of the championship.
There’s definitely still some issues with ROUVY at the moment. I’m now back on the ipad rather than the iphone I’d been using for the last 2 months since the update totally threw me out of 2 races in November with 1 being a championship race! So i now have a larger screen and a longer nearby list, but i have really bad ghosting issues at the start where it looks like I’m all alone even though there’s meant to be 20 or 30 riders around me and then the 70ft glitches mid race that just take me out of the draft so I get dropped, and no draft from some others. But then, some others are just having a perfect time with everything working perfectly.
But they know about the issues and are still working on it in the background so all we can do is be patient don’t we..
Weird thing is, i don’t get any of these issues on a “just ride” , even if i load up 50+ virtual partners so it’s almost like its an issue with a live race with lots of riders on it which, I can’t exactly complain about as that’s exactly where we want to be isn’t it..😁
Thank you Neil for your comment, it reassures me that I’m not alone in having issues with the app. These problems are quite random but indeed seem to occur more often during races. And probably on machines with fewer resources (RAM/CPU/GPU). To verify, but I think on newer machines with a good GPU, the issues are less of a hindrance. I’m running the app on an old Powerbook that’s over 10 years old, so I believe the machine is also partly responsible for the freezes. The issue of ghosting remains quite mysterious.
Firstly, Neil thanks for all the hard work both setting up the events and writings the reports. it makes the event do much more than just a ride on the trainer and is really appreciated. I had s wonderful two up with my new friend/rival nielsbrynnum. we worked together really well, keeping the group behind us at bay and almost closing a 300m gap to the 3 up in front of us. unfortunately, for me, this type of rolling course takes relatively more out of me, a light climber, than others and as I’ve found before paradoxically I then don’t have enough left for the final climb as was the case this time with Niels pipping me in our sprint. great event, looking forward to next Thursday when hopefully it will be a brutal climb.
😂😂 ermmmmm you might be a bit disappointed next Thursday mate! Nice report though, and your sentiments right at the start of it are exactly why we do this. These comments on here afterwards really do make you realize there was actually a real person on that other bike you were racing against, struggling just as much as you and also pleading for you to “pleaseeeeee just stop!!” 😂
Anyway, race 3 and 4 might be more up your street, but next weeks is a proper sprint!
hi, Yep just one flat out lap!!! i will always try and mix it up for the championship races as I don’t want all the races just to suit one type of rider. Also its January so was trying to be nice so left out any climbing routes this month…..😉😉 But, it also gives you the chance to stay on and get a challenge route done afterwards that you might need to do to help complete a challenge? The last 2 in the championship are more “normal” though……
My heart rate has only hit 180+bpm 3 times in the last year on Rouvy … 2 of them in the last 2 races. Despite this, I really enjoyed this race and felt very controlled for first 10 miles in Z5 HR. This was mostly due to great work from the Muckers pack who had arranged to ride at 3.0w/kg pace, but we got carried away and went a little faster. ‘tomlerieger’ did a great deal of the work in this group and at approximately the 10 mile point we both created a gap that brought us within range of ‘HalAir’, ‘Baggers69’ and ‘rouvy1bryon’, I seldom get to ride in their company so shared a turn with Tom to bridge to them, Farnham teammate ‘HoppytheRocket’ dug deep to join us and we now had another good group that now pushed me into Z6 HR. With a final upward gradient I knew I was on borrowed time but followed them home at a respectable distance and the 180bpm. Overall was very happy tonight, the steady starts (ie. not bonkers fast) really help my style but it generally requires some Muckers willing to sacrifice their own Top20 ‘mention’ chances, so kudos to Tom & Christophe tonight for playing that role.
Race stats: Age : 56, Weight : 95kg, IF=1.024
Averages : 150bpm, 294w, 3.06w/kg
These routes really do make the better race routes don’t they as you can go as hard as you can at certain points, roll in the draft etc etc and are just “fun” long slog hill climbs are the complete opposite.. but if its a challenge route that we need to get done, then its getting picked.
But strong rider Mucker and it was nice to be there for a while with Tom and Christophe, but for me Christophes’ help got me a few more places higher up in the finishing order compares to Toms “help” which just killed me off 😂
First Jan. Championship race for 2024, just wanted to have fun and see how I felt – hard pace from the get-go 💥. Didnt want to do a all-out effort but keep pacing hard meaning try to maintain god power on the flats/descents and punch on the ascents. I stayed primarily in the middle of the peleton (around 50th place) with a nice Mucker group which we manage to keep intact for some time 🤗. I tried to push at the front.
Overtook a couple of riders and when we had about 2,5km remaining I upped my game and gapped a few from the group. Crossed the finish line as no. 47 and pretty happy with that, it was a tough race with many really strong riders. IF of 92%, felt like 100% but I guess that is due to little/no real recovery for a while.
Hope to make Sunday Hill climb up the Tourmalet on time, may have a small time conflict with a birthday in the household – we´ll see then 🥳
First championship race and first strange problem with the directo xr rollers. Heating failed because it remained hard and didn’t read the data… 12” from the start it connects but for 3 km the whole gearbox doesn’t work properly, I try everything I unplug and plug in the power and finally it starts but my group work flew by. Tough race, I keep a high pace to recover, after a while I catch up with Slyfly and Pwb146, I regain some breath but I want to push because I see Noccon a short distance away, shortly after my partners fall and I go alone… I get to the last uphill and however, with 800 meters to go from the end, without a starting point, I lose 3 positions and luckily there are some Neds. I’m not very happy, I lost positions but I’m sorry I wasn’t able to work with my usual teammates with whom I can duel. Let’s hope for the next challenge 💪
Hi Neil. I was disappointed to be listed as NED in this weeks race when my HR data is all listed on Strava and appeared on screen throughout the race. Any tips on where I might have gone wrong? There does seem to be a very large number of NED’s throughout the races which surely isn’t faulty HRMs only? I’d like to make sure it doesn’t happen next time. Many thanks
Hi “Dr” thank you for reaching out. basically when i sit down to do the race report i run through the whole top 50 names in ROUVYs final standings and check stats. if we are not friends on ROUVY, i can’t see them so unless you’ve specifically told me and requested we follow each other on Strava, i have no way to see the data. So i move on to the next rider. I really don’t have the time to try and go searching for every rider on Strava and hope i find someone called “dr Custard” who was on the race and did it in your specific time. This is why i ask for friendship on ROUVY as it just makes the whole thing nice and “quick” for me once i sit down to do this blog.
I do send Friend requests to everyone who pops up on the registered list, I’m even doing it while warming up for all those ones who are joining last minute, and then after the race, after my shower and just sitting there relaxing for ten minutes, i send requests again to all the top 50.
So the way it works on ROUVY is if its the first time I’ve sent a request to this particular rider, then it tells me “friends request sent” so i know they are new and hopefully they will accept before I start to do the blog, which can be the next day, so plenty of time to accept.
If i send it to someone I’ve already requested friendship in the past though, i don’t get the “friends request sent” message come up. you just get nothing so i don’t know if it even sends it the 2nd time. but I know at least one will have been sent at some point in the past to that rider.
Basically find me “Mucker1974” on rouvy and friend request me and all will be sorted.
Dr.Custard – go to my.rouvy.com and under your profile icon drop-down meny look for “Friends”. Neils Friend-request should show there 👍
Optionally, or additionally, hook up with him on Strava 🤗
Thanks guys for your guidance. Neil’s friend request was sitting exactly where HalAir suggested. So should be visible to you now. Keep up the good work. Tony
yeah…. that sounds a lot easier and simpler than my over explanation of the whole process 😂😂🤣. Thank you HalAir, might have to make you admin to stop me rambling on and on…. like I’m doing now…..
That was one of the best (and hardest) HiiT workouts I’ve done! I started off quite far back but, along with Tranberg, pushed to make up some ground. By the end of 5km I didn’t think I would finish the race. Luckily, we caught saimonss82 and settled in to taking turns drafting. I could see how strong they both were and took the opportunity to recover, especially on the downhill sections. There were a few scary moments when the Police outriders got too close to my riding buddies!
I had nothing left at the end and Tranberg was too strong for me. Instead, I did my best to keep Diego Donati, who had been closing the gap, behind me. Weirdly, my lungs and legs were on fire for most of the race but my average HR seemed low. During the cool down, when I sat upright, my HR climbed to 160, which is almost my max. I was completely exhausted. Either my HR spiked after the ride or the wrist senor on my Fenix 6X is sending lower readings when I’m leaned over. I’m going to try a chest strap for the next ride and see if that produces different results.
This wouldn’t have bothered me on previous Rouvy rides as I go there for fun. But, as HR readings indicate to others how hard you have worked, I need to sort it out for Muckers races. As always, thanks Neil and Kyle for all your hard work. See you on the one. 🙂
the fact you are looking at the heart rate and wondering if maybe something isn’t reading correctly is superb mucker! As you know you were pushing, yet it wasn’t reading what you were feeling. It shows you are more in tune with whats going on. hope you get it sorted.
it was a great route but those leading motorbikes did get a bit too close sometimes and they really looked to be having quite a heated conversation once or twice!! Also seemed weird we had a police escort, yet there were still cars driving on the opposite side of the road at some points as well? maybe that’s common on some events even with police escorts.
Hi Neil Rushby.
It was a very nice route, with a climb at the beginning and at the end of these fuck you hills to challenge the rider again.
The Goldengate Bridge is also not bad at 17%.
Anyone who thought it would be comfortable was disappointed. I drove the same route 3 weeks ago, this time I was about 3 minutes faster. I was looking forward to overtaking with Denny 44, but it took quite a long time. I’m amazed at how long he can pedal at a cadence of 100-105. Stetops did a good job too. My question is, how are the points calculated? Thanks
hi “hardX”. after various points systems over the last year(ish) i finally settled on a system that was almost in blocks of 5 for the top 100 with various degrees of gaps, but all the gaps more than 1 place. I did post it a while back but if i explain the first 2 blocks, you can work out the rest up to 50th place.
1st gets 245, 2nd 242, 3rd, 239, 4th 237, 5th 235. Thats the first block. we then have a five point gap to the next block which them copies the gaps of the first block. So 6th gets 230, 7th 227, 8th 224, 9th 222, 10th 220 . then another 5 point gap to 11th and repeat all the way to 50th which gets 100 points. 51st gets 95 points but then every place after just gets reduced by 1 point.
We found this works really well as everyone in the top 50 knows that the next place in front is possibly a 2, 3 or 5 points jump so they push!! also in these monthly championship events, the top 50 get bumped up places (and therefore points) if we have any NEDs in the top 50.
it sounds complicated but we’ve been using it foe about 4 months now and it’s easy to apply.
All you need to try to do is get into that top 50 for the good points, and if you get there, really push on as you never know what the bump might get you as well!
Great battle in this short, but intensive race in Madrid with police escort. Strong group formed quickly behind guy on dumb trainer, glad no one cared of him. Not many attacks, but there was always something happening, one had to stay vigilant every second. Once we stayed with Tuden, Stefan, Gilmad and Luca, tempo became more predictable as everyone waited for final sprint.
Except me and Luca, after few more attacks we distanced Tuden and then Stefan, nice. Sprint finish for 4th (or 3rd depending on point of view) place was very tight, but Gilmad was stronger, not speaking about strong finish of Luca. Exciting race, thank you all who joined!
great to hear. We spent months warning people it was coming into force when we decided to do it last year, but it does catch the odd 1 or 2 out who are just finding us, and i suspect it will do the same next year. see you soon!
Southafro
COSENTINO-GAETANO1
Goonie86
KITTLESnBITTS
Edgarmtpereira
Gil.Mad.io
karel_sousek
Stefan_Schmidt
Tuden
RocketRoy
BareRemi
Wyverns
lrollin
Andy_UP
MikeHagen
perswe
Svard
macko
slopjong
tomlerieger
Slyfly
PietroMarzolo
gregorlj
robinagy
RenatoDonha
So sorry for the delay with the blog!! I got off the bike race yesterday feeling quite happy with my performance, and walked out into a boiler failure and water leak behind the wall on the stairs! spent all night cutting through walls and floorboards to find it and finally sourced it at 1am! got home tonight, helped with fixing it, sat down to do this a 7pm and the dog decided to start being ill and we had to go to the emergency vet!! OMG!!! so its now nearly 11pm on Friday night and I’ve just published it.!!
so, the race now seems sooo long ago, but i really enjoyed the route and I’ve finished around the riders i feel will be my rivals this month. really enjoyed it but what a nightmare since!! cheers everyone!
No worries, Neil. Water in the wrong place is absolutely a drop everything and deal with it thing. Had a particularly nasty incident a few years ago. Dishwasher drain line broke. On Christmas Day. So I sympathize.
cheers Mike, that sounds horrible mate! luckily we found the leak under the floorboards, behind the fitted wardrobes in the bedroom at around 1am and its all fixed now.. but although the sound of trickling water behind the stairs wall added a little “something” to the stairs experience, i did feel i need to knock the blog the head that night and start ripping the house apart instead….
Hope 2024 is done providing misfortune Neil🤞 Hope the dog is on the mend and the leak stay shut 🤗
Me too Mucker! just keeping an eye on the dog now who seems fine, and we might have cured the stairs wall “calming water sounds” feature for now.. fingers crossed. 🤞🤞
Now on this route I would have the chance to follow the front pack for a very long time. But on the first long climb I had to let go and seek the group behind me. RocketRoy came to rescue me with two other ghost riders. RocketRoy tried to make some getaway attempts and I really had to push my limited to keep his rear wheel. We lost the two ghost riders and pick up BareRemi who also ghosted me until the last 2.5 kilometres. Just before the last long climb RocketRoy pushed the big watts and I was just hanging on with my bare fingernails, but we were gaining meters to BareRemi.
At the beginning of the climb RocketRoy pushed even harder, and shortly after he was more than 50m ahead and I had 30m lead to BareRemi. I should have had 150m lead to hold the Norwegian from overtaking my 8th position🙈 I am considering practicing cross-country skiing it seems to work for the Norwegians😉
Thanks RocketRoy for carrying me all the way to the bottom of the last climb – tremendous effort and well-deserved finish getting the 7th position.
See you all on Tuesdays ride.
PS Some night you got there Neil, glad you got it fixed. The race report can wait😉
nice report mucker!. glad to see so many riders back on it so soon isn’t it but the Norwegian Muckers have started very strong in particular.
I thought the start was spectacular. Barriers and banners, crowds and a police escort, 93 starters clustering together on the slight downhill. It was wild. On this fast, rolling, intense course, it’s imperative not to get dropped, but very difficult to avoid it. Ended up riding most of the way in a group with Svard, macko, perswe, and Welz. My so-called strategy, for better or worse, was to push hard on the ups, and recover in the draft on the downslopes, hoping the others were tiring faster than I was. Did it work? Still can’t say!
The uphill to the finish starts with 4 km to go. It’s only 2% but it’s one last shot to get away and win our little group of five. Got about 30 m up, but couldn’t hold it. Welz and perswe got back on, then Svard and macko made it five again with a km to go. Now the slope goes to 4%, and Welz went, pulling perswe and macko with him. I was resigned to fourth in our group, *if* I could stay ahead of Svard. With 500 m to go I went down on the drops, out of the saddle, and did my best sprint, more to hold to form than with any hope of success. But when I looked up, I’d gotten ahead of perswe and macko, and stayed there to the line. Even better–Svard had come with me. So 20th in the mentions, and I see Andy_UP directly ahead of me. This month is going to be fun!
yep looks like you and Andy are back to where you left off! although Andy was saying last months championship was too long and intense and was taking it easy this month…. wait a minute… you always want to take it easy as well don’t you! I see a trend here..😉😏
I feel I have to respond to this. I donno. It’s a championship race! I can race 1 time a week.
It’s true. Mike is again challenging me. Or do I challenge him? His the stronger one so yes, I challenge him. I have nothing to loose and have already “won” the first race. This IS going to be intresting 😉
The January championship started off on a bad note with the return of issues with the Rouvy app. No connection right from the start, leaving me beyond position 40. When I finally managed to stabilize within the top positions, a small app freeze made me lose 70 meters. I stayed behind the leading group for a while without being able to catch up. I caught up with wyverns, the first to fall back, on a slight incline but unfortunately couldn’t draft with him. Then, a bit later, we caught up to s.p., but it was worse with him as he was completely ghosted. I let the two of them go in the final climb, narrowly avoiding being overtaken by nielsbrynnum, who almost passed me at the finish line. It’s because it was a championship race that I didn’t abandon, but I’m starting off with a big handicap for the rest of the championship.
There’s definitely still some issues with ROUVY at the moment. I’m now back on the ipad rather than the iphone I’d been using for the last 2 months since the update totally threw me out of 2 races in November with 1 being a championship race! So i now have a larger screen and a longer nearby list, but i have really bad ghosting issues at the start where it looks like I’m all alone even though there’s meant to be 20 or 30 riders around me and then the 70ft glitches mid race that just take me out of the draft so I get dropped, and no draft from some others. But then, some others are just having a perfect time with everything working perfectly.
But they know about the issues and are still working on it in the background so all we can do is be patient don’t we..
Weird thing is, i don’t get any of these issues on a “just ride” , even if i load up 50+ virtual partners so it’s almost like its an issue with a live race with lots of riders on it which, I can’t exactly complain about as that’s exactly where we want to be isn’t it..😁
Thank you Neil for your comment, it reassures me that I’m not alone in having issues with the app. These problems are quite random but indeed seem to occur more often during races. And probably on machines with fewer resources (RAM/CPU/GPU). To verify, but I think on newer machines with a good GPU, the issues are less of a hindrance. I’m running the app on an old Powerbook that’s over 10 years old, so I believe the machine is also partly responsible for the freezes. The issue of ghosting remains quite mysterious.
Firstly, Neil thanks for all the hard work both setting up the events and writings the reports. it makes the event do much more than just a ride on the trainer and is really appreciated. I had s wonderful two up with my new friend/rival nielsbrynnum. we worked together really well, keeping the group behind us at bay and almost closing a 300m gap to the 3 up in front of us. unfortunately, for me, this type of rolling course takes relatively more out of me, a light climber, than others and as I’ve found before paradoxically I then don’t have enough left for the final climb as was the case this time with Niels pipping me in our sprint. great event, looking forward to next Thursday when hopefully it will be a brutal climb.
😂😂 ermmmmm you might be a bit disappointed next Thursday mate! Nice report though, and your sentiments right at the start of it are exactly why we do this. These comments on here afterwards really do make you realize there was actually a real person on that other bike you were racing against, struggling just as much as you and also pleading for you to “pleaseeeeee just stop!!” 😂
Anyway, race 3 and 4 might be more up your street, but next weeks is a proper sprint!
Is it just one lap on Thursday? Hardly worth getting on the bike!!!
hi, Yep just one flat out lap!!! i will always try and mix it up for the championship races as I don’t want all the races just to suit one type of rider. Also its January so was trying to be nice so left out any climbing routes this month…..😉😉 But, it also gives you the chance to stay on and get a challenge route done afterwards that you might need to do to help complete a challenge? The last 2 in the championship are more “normal” though……
My heart rate has only hit 180+bpm 3 times in the last year on Rouvy … 2 of them in the last 2 races. Despite this, I really enjoyed this race and felt very controlled for first 10 miles in Z5 HR. This was mostly due to great work from the Muckers pack who had arranged to ride at 3.0w/kg pace, but we got carried away and went a little faster. ‘tomlerieger’ did a great deal of the work in this group and at approximately the 10 mile point we both created a gap that brought us within range of ‘HalAir’, ‘Baggers69’ and ‘rouvy1bryon’, I seldom get to ride in their company so shared a turn with Tom to bridge to them, Farnham teammate ‘HoppytheRocket’ dug deep to join us and we now had another good group that now pushed me into Z6 HR. With a final upward gradient I knew I was on borrowed time but followed them home at a respectable distance and the 180bpm. Overall was very happy tonight, the steady starts (ie. not bonkers fast) really help my style but it generally requires some Muckers willing to sacrifice their own Top20 ‘mention’ chances, so kudos to Tom & Christophe tonight for playing that role.
Race stats: Age : 56, Weight : 95kg, IF=1.024
Averages : 150bpm, 294w, 3.06w/kg
These routes really do make the better race routes don’t they as you can go as hard as you can at certain points, roll in the draft etc etc and are just “fun” long slog hill climbs are the complete opposite.. but if its a challenge route that we need to get done, then its getting picked.
But strong rider Mucker and it was nice to be there for a while with Tom and Christophe, but for me Christophes’ help got me a few more places higher up in the finishing order compares to Toms “help” which just killed me off 😂
First Jan. Championship race for 2024, just wanted to have fun and see how I felt – hard pace from the get-go 💥. Didnt want to do a all-out effort but keep pacing hard meaning try to maintain god power on the flats/descents and punch on the ascents. I stayed primarily in the middle of the peleton (around 50th place) with a nice Mucker group which we manage to keep intact for some time 🤗. I tried to push at the front.
Overtook a couple of riders and when we had about 2,5km remaining I upped my game and gapped a few from the group. Crossed the finish line as no. 47 and pretty happy with that, it was a tough race with many really strong riders. IF of 92%, felt like 100% but I guess that is due to little/no real recovery for a while.
Hope to make Sunday Hill climb up the Tourmalet on time, may have a small time conflict with a birthday in the household – we´ll see then 🥳
nice report mucker. see you Sunday ( well at the start line or when you pass me after your late start…😉)
First championship race and first strange problem with the directo xr rollers. Heating failed because it remained hard and didn’t read the data… 12” from the start it connects but for 3 km the whole gearbox doesn’t work properly, I try everything I unplug and plug in the power and finally it starts but my group work flew by. Tough race, I keep a high pace to recover, after a while I catch up with Slyfly and Pwb146, I regain some breath but I want to push because I see Noccon a short distance away, shortly after my partners fall and I go alone… I get to the last uphill and however, with 800 meters to go from the end, without a starting point, I lose 3 positions and luckily there are some Neds. I’m not very happy, I lost positions but I’m sorry I wasn’t able to work with my usual teammates with whom I can duel. Let’s hope for the next challenge 💪
Well done considering the issues!! see you next time!
Hi Neil. I was disappointed to be listed as NED in this weeks race when my HR data is all listed on Strava and appeared on screen throughout the race. Any tips on where I might have gone wrong? There does seem to be a very large number of NED’s throughout the races which surely isn’t faulty HRMs only? I’d like to make sure it doesn’t happen next time. Many thanks
Hi “Dr” thank you for reaching out. basically when i sit down to do the race report i run through the whole top 50 names in ROUVYs final standings and check stats. if we are not friends on ROUVY, i can’t see them so unless you’ve specifically told me and requested we follow each other on Strava, i have no way to see the data. So i move on to the next rider. I really don’t have the time to try and go searching for every rider on Strava and hope i find someone called “dr Custard” who was on the race and did it in your specific time. This is why i ask for friendship on ROUVY as it just makes the whole thing nice and “quick” for me once i sit down to do this blog.
I do send Friend requests to everyone who pops up on the registered list, I’m even doing it while warming up for all those ones who are joining last minute, and then after the race, after my shower and just sitting there relaxing for ten minutes, i send requests again to all the top 50.
So the way it works on ROUVY is if its the first time I’ve sent a request to this particular rider, then it tells me “friends request sent” so i know they are new and hopefully they will accept before I start to do the blog, which can be the next day, so plenty of time to accept.
If i send it to someone I’ve already requested friendship in the past though, i don’t get the “friends request sent” message come up. you just get nothing so i don’t know if it even sends it the 2nd time. but I know at least one will have been sent at some point in the past to that rider.
Basically find me “Mucker1974” on rouvy and friend request me and all will be sorted.
Dr.Custard – go to my.rouvy.com and under your profile icon drop-down meny look for “Friends”. Neils Friend-request should show there 👍
Optionally, or additionally, hook up with him on Strava 🤗
Thanks guys for your guidance. Neil’s friend request was sitting exactly where HalAir suggested. So should be visible to you now. Keep up the good work. Tony
yeah…. that sounds a lot easier and simpler than my over explanation of the whole process 😂😂🤣. Thank you HalAir, might have to make you admin to stop me rambling on and on…. like I’m doing now…..
That was one of the best (and hardest) HiiT workouts I’ve done! I started off quite far back but, along with Tranberg, pushed to make up some ground. By the end of 5km I didn’t think I would finish the race. Luckily, we caught saimonss82 and settled in to taking turns drafting. I could see how strong they both were and took the opportunity to recover, especially on the downhill sections. There were a few scary moments when the Police outriders got too close to my riding buddies!
I had nothing left at the end and Tranberg was too strong for me. Instead, I did my best to keep Diego Donati, who had been closing the gap, behind me. Weirdly, my lungs and legs were on fire for most of the race but my average HR seemed low. During the cool down, when I sat upright, my HR climbed to 160, which is almost my max. I was completely exhausted. Either my HR spiked after the ride or the wrist senor on my Fenix 6X is sending lower readings when I’m leaned over. I’m going to try a chest strap for the next ride and see if that produces different results.
This wouldn’t have bothered me on previous Rouvy rides as I go there for fun. But, as HR readings indicate to others how hard you have worked, I need to sort it out for Muckers races. As always, thanks Neil and Kyle for all your hard work. See you on the one. 🙂
the fact you are looking at the heart rate and wondering if maybe something isn’t reading correctly is superb mucker! As you know you were pushing, yet it wasn’t reading what you were feeling. It shows you are more in tune with whats going on. hope you get it sorted.
it was a great route but those leading motorbikes did get a bit too close sometimes and they really looked to be having quite a heated conversation once or twice!! Also seemed weird we had a police escort, yet there were still cars driving on the opposite side of the road at some points as well? maybe that’s common on some events even with police escorts.
See you at the next one Mucker!
Hi Neil Rushby.
It was a very nice route, with a climb at the beginning and at the end of these fuck you hills to challenge the rider again.
The Goldengate Bridge is also not bad at 17%.
Anyone who thought it would be comfortable was disappointed. I drove the same route 3 weeks ago, this time I was about 3 minutes faster. I was looking forward to overtaking with Denny 44, but it took quite a long time. I’m amazed at how long he can pedal at a cadence of 100-105. Stetops did a good job too. My question is, how are the points calculated? Thanks
hi “hardX”. after various points systems over the last year(ish) i finally settled on a system that was almost in blocks of 5 for the top 100 with various degrees of gaps, but all the gaps more than 1 place. I did post it a while back but if i explain the first 2 blocks, you can work out the rest up to 50th place.
1st gets 245, 2nd 242, 3rd, 239, 4th 237, 5th 235. Thats the first block. we then have a five point gap to the next block which them copies the gaps of the first block. So 6th gets 230, 7th 227, 8th 224, 9th 222, 10th 220 . then another 5 point gap to 11th and repeat all the way to 50th which gets 100 points. 51st gets 95 points but then every place after just gets reduced by 1 point.
We found this works really well as everyone in the top 50 knows that the next place in front is possibly a 2, 3 or 5 points jump so they push!! also in these monthly championship events, the top 50 get bumped up places (and therefore points) if we have any NEDs in the top 50.
it sounds complicated but we’ve been using it foe about 4 months now and it’s easy to apply.
All you need to try to do is get into that top 50 for the good points, and if you get there, really push on as you never know what the bump might get you as well!
Great battle in this short, but intensive race in Madrid with police escort. Strong group formed quickly behind guy on dumb trainer, glad no one cared of him. Not many attacks, but there was always something happening, one had to stay vigilant every second. Once we stayed with Tuden, Stefan, Gilmad and Luca, tempo became more predictable as everyone waited for final sprint.
Except me and Luca, after few more attacks we distanced Tuden and then Stefan, nice. Sprint finish for 4th (or 3rd depending on point of view) place was very tight, but Gilmad was stronger, not speaking about strong finish of Luca. Exciting race, thank you all who joined!
Dr. Custard’s message and the subsequent replies to it have answered my NED query too as I was wondering what I needed to do to qualify.
Great group of folks and races, hopefully I’ll be joining you for some more battles soon!
great to hear. We spent months warning people it was coming into force when we decided to do it last year, but it does catch the odd 1 or 2 out who are just finding us, and i suspect it will do the same next year. see you soon!