RACE 3 USES THE TOUR DOWN UNDER 2024 | STAGE 2 – LOBETHAL | 23 MILES/2312FT ROUTE FROM THE HARD YAKKA CHALLENGE.
lets first see how the 3 different start times did:
2EARLY4ME RACE RESULT:
11 on the start line this for the first race, and we have 3 brits on the podium! Team “Moon Riders” smashing it again with “CerveloKevin” setting a rapid pace to get him team mate and 1st place rider “RocketRoy” in as good a position to maximize his points haul for the championship! “DrCustard” gets the bronxe with a great ride at a strong average mph of 21mph!
well done to “A__J” as it feels like its been ages since you did a Muckers race!! excellent time, as was Muckers Worldwide Team rider “Svard” with a time that would have got you well into the top 50!
Just “Jettro” with a mention here with a very nice effort that gave him a decent amount of points and would have been top 50 in the main race! well done
back to a more “normal” race distance, (compared to the 3 mile sprint we had last week!) if a little bit steeper than I’d like, but, it should work for a race route 🤞🤞🤞. Well, it was a brutal route! hard climb at the beginning, then a nice long downhill to lure you into a false sense of security, then it just beat you up all the way home. Somehow, after all this, we have a 4 way sprint finish!! I’m not sure how close it was, or who came from where but ROUVY have it placed: “Alieno79” in first, “BareRemi” in 2nd, “luca_ma” in 3rd and “Gil.mad.io” in 4th BUT ALL WITHIN 1 SECOND OF EACH OTHER!! with “karel_sousek” just 13 seconds behind in 5th. Hope you all had fun!!
6th place goes to our first NED, then 7th goes to “hinsbergen” with Top Muckers Worldwide Team rider “Tuden” getting a very respectable 8th! 9th is a regular NED ( get a HR strap please!!) then rounding out the top 10 comes ‘old git’ “keithaitch”! 11th comes “lrollin” who finishes just in front of 3 NEDs, so next mention goes to 2nd Mucker over the line “nielsbrynnum” in 15th. A trio of Germans next with “Stefan793” in 16th, “LitzBlitz” in 17th and then another regular NED ( you’ll be in the points with HR data matey) in 18th. Last 2 mentions go to 2 top Danes with “tranberg” in 19th and Mucker “Grochang” in that great mention place of 20th!
Amazing racing everyone! That was such a hard route and 84 of you finished it so i hope you all managed to get involved in a race with at least one other person.
Lots More Mention T Shirts have been made available over the last few day and in our Muckers Blue color option for this year as well. Please help to support the website but grabbing one of these if you get a mention. Any purchase, big or small, will really help to keep this thing we call ‘Muckers Worldwide’ going, as you know we don’t charge membership or subscriptions so the only income we get to keep all this running is from the shop.
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...
Was a bit tired before the race but was asked to join the Danish train from the start. I didn’t even see the train from the start and I didn’t even manage to stay above 3.0 on the first short climb. That route broke me – a lot!! I had to dig very deep to find the energy and motivation just to finish the race. This was the worst race for me in a long time, but despite not having fun on the race – I still love racing with the Muckers 🙂
Now this ride was going to be epic with a Danish dynamite train from start to finish. Tuden had the idea to bring os all together but oh boy did we blew that up early in the race – we were one big exploded atomic🙈 Nielsbrynnum drop his chain 5 times, so I waited for him at the bottom of the first long downhill, but that was a mistake to do. Couldn’t follow Nielsbrynnum on the last long climb and were reel in by Dok_PS, Tranberg , m-forby and two other guys I haven’t see before. Dok got away and I push all in and took his rear wheel, just like Tuesdays race, but this time it was an uphill sprint and I had nothing to give for the last 500 meters, and had to see 2 guys passing me at the finish line – yes Tranberg got me again😭
Shot Summary of today’s race will be that Danish dynamite turned to Danish bacon.
See you all very soon and thanks once again Kyle and Neil for bringing us all closer together👍
TSS:106 IF:1.017 Weight:75.5 AVG POWER:278
GC race on a tricky route with many small hills and some steep climbs. I was not quite sure about the energy level in the legs before the start. From the start the pace was fearless 😧 having in mind, we needed to cover 38 km and 705 m of climbing. Our super strong Dane hj2010 💪💪had signed up as leadout from the begining and for sure he did 🚀🚀🚀….he almost crushed my legs just by being in his wheel 😅However after hj2010 massive lead out, – he finally eased off and I settled in a small group with the 💪 Grochang and 💪Tuden alias HULK. It was clear that Tuden was the strongest in our group and Grochang and I were just enjoying the ride for as long as we could keep up the pace. Unfortunately, I ran into chain problems again (lost the chain 5 times during yesterdays race) which caused some hard pulls to catch up the time lost mounting the chain. Anyway after Tuden left me and Grochang, – super strong riders 💪Stefan_Schmidt and 💪Keithaitch caught up with us. Keithaitch, however flew away ✈️and unfortunately Stefan_Schmidt did not have his normal 🚀 power legs, so after a while, it was only Grochang and me again. Some of the NED riders caught up to us and as they passed us, I thought, – I give it a try to follow their pace. I managed and the legs felt quite OK coming into the 3 steep climbs. At the climb we all got separated so from the top it was a solo ride to the finish line. Thanks for a great race and as always massive thanks to Muckers Neil and Kyle.
Niels, I wondered what happened at the to of the little kick where you guys caught Stefen and me as you were immeadiately dropped. I thought of waiting fo you, like afiend, but then i remembered it was a race and after a hard morning ride in the Bacelona Hills I wasn’t sure how long my legs would last so just stayed with the group until a climb let me get away.from you guys and then worked to catch a coule of guys in front of us but didn’t have the legs to compete with 11.2 w/kg in the uhill srint to the line so settled for 10th. Next Thursday looks hard again but I’ll kee an eye out for you knowing you’ll take your turn if we are together.
Nice tough race, perhaps one of the best in recent months. I say this because together with SwissCris69 we have done great team work. I tried to hold on, in fact I struggled many times standing on the pedals and that was the problem. On a small descent I had to get off the bike to fix the front wheel support and tak, I lost Chris’ wheel and 80m. From there I wasn’t able to recover and I wasted all my strength. In fact, in the end I wasn’t able to attach myself to ChadRitchie and I wasn’t able to force the sprint with him and LRodrigues.
Lately I always arrive a little cooked in the final rush, I have to improve the final attack. Hello everybody.
It is nice to have a noon race! Even though I had already ridden this route and completed a race the day before, I didn’t hesitate and jumped to the opportunity to race again with Muckers… The three Brits were unfortunately untouchable. I tried to catch “Southafro”, but I saw at each split time that he was flying away! A nice race on a nice route. Thanks to all the participants for the motivation & thanks again for managing the races 👍👏
Joined in last moment, as running in snow was slow, but i needed fresh air. Ready to be dropped soon, but the pace after start was not that fierce. Strong group up to ten riders. Challenging, yet acceptable pace. As on Tuesday, few riders got dropped and group reduced. The key was stay mindful and react to any attack, which was today for me challenging too, because real life is out there, not here. It worked almost till finish, but shortly before that four riders were stronger and distanced me. Sum it all, good effort, the race was enjoyable, nice done by everyone!
That was pure agony. I wanted to go hard as far as the halfway point then see if I could limit the damage on the climbing sections in the 2nd half. Formed an early group with ‘Tyrone2526’, ‘raffocus’ and Mucker teammate ‘Mick Michel’. Tyrone definitely seemed the strongest but allowed the two blue jerseys to share the work with him, unfortunately, he was later disqualified which may be a timezone issue for the Australian, riding the Thursday race on Friday 🤔 may confuse Rouvy. After halfway I couldn’t stick with these guys anymore, I signalled to Mick I was ‘done’ so he wouldn’t lose position waiting for me. At this point Tom came past bringing ‘jeff65’ to my wheel with ‘Bodobogi’ and ‘Flying Pastor’ close by. I love being near Jeff on course but he has a ‘kick then ease’ style that makes it difficult was us to combine and work together so our time was brief. I finished the race on a stretchy elastic band getting closer then further away to a couple of riders but I was totally ‘Wasted’ and just trying to get home. Struggling to break Top50 now so I may go easy on Thursdays and focus efforts on the Tuesday races with/against the other Farnham RC guys.
Race stats: Age : 56, Weight : 95kg, IF=0.978
Averages : 153bpm, 275w, 2.89w/kg
Great fun, but I surely was spent by the end of it! New to this game, so my strategy was to find some blue jerseys and try to follow what they were doing–even got out front some to offer some pulling, though I don’t think I was helping you all out so much!
Hope the flying schedule lets me join up again soon.
Sounds like an eventfull race, I had to sit this one out though as no time-slot suited my schedule today. So a sorely needed adaptation-day it became (I did do 1/2hr Challengde-workout..for good measure)
May have a small calendar collision for the Sunday Climb challenge, but hope to be in the start pen 👍
My decision before the race was to try to not be the last of the stronger group under 20 posts but to let them be and be first of the next group somewhere around 30rd.
I can say that this decision was the correct one and in general it produces a more fun ride and more stable power. So it is always better to be a hunter than to be hunted. I finished at 24 and I am satisfied with the order and the fun I have obtained by this decision. As always, sending thanks to Neil to organize the events.
This was my first race with Muckers, as i raced the day before my legs were broken, so I decided to make it a zone2 endurance training for the first half of the race. i let everyone go and was hoping to find someone to draft with. but this route is not suited for drafting. For a long time i was the last one in the race, but slowly able to catch some riders without hurting myself and slowly upping the tempo to zone 3. In the end went into zone 4/5 on the last 2 uphill sections and managed to catch about 10 riders. See you next race as you were not that far aheah chief Mucker!!
one all in race a week is enough for my body and this week it was last tuesday (11th). So I took it easy at the start and tried to form a 3W Muckers trian but was passes by a lot of blue jerseys. Found myself an Mucker Jeff65 at around 65th place and we worked well together for the first half. We hold a steady 3.0-3.5 pace and collected a lot of fast starters during the descent. Was very pleased to met some old friends like kin_kwan, Chek and El_tractor on the road, we had many hard battles last year. I lost Jeff during the middle section in the ups and down area. Had a lot energy safed for the last climb, so I passed many other riders and finished 32th, just in front of Chris. Nice and not bodykilling race. Recovering is the secret for fast racing! pedal on, Tom
Wanted to take it easier than other full-on races. Was happy…..until on the steepest climb, my smartrainer broke down….a hell of a noise comes from the flying wheel and evrything was stuck on the toughest gear. Shifting had no effect what so ever. I had to do the climb and the rest with a superlow rpm. I saw a lot of riders passing by. Anyone had that exprience???? I have a Direto X smart trainer. Every time I put it on, there is a hell of a noise and it stays on max resitance. Anyone who can help me?? If not, have to buy a new one. In the latter case, I’ll have to leave you guys for a while…..sad
For me sometimes as soon as I connected it to heating it became extra strong, sometimes it was enough to turn off the power, wait 10” and reconnect. Others on Facebook told me that you just need to pedal hard for a few seconds and it will fix itself. Others said to check the belt tension and you can find instructions on the internet. But mine was just hard and not noisy.
This may be of use. Take the inspection cover off the left side of the trainer. Inside you will find the mechanism for controlling resistance. There is a motor and a screw thread to move the magnets in and out of the flywheel. It may be that the thread has seized and will no longer turn. Clean all the old grease off the thread then apply Vaseline. Using the Elite MyETraining app in level mode change the resistance from level 1 to level 16. If the thread does not move then use your hand to help it. If it starts to move then this was your problem. Continue cleaning and lubricating the thread whilst moving from level 1 to 16 and back to 1 until the screw turns smoothly all the way. Put the inspection cover back on. Hope this helps.
You may also find that the magnets have moved and are hitting the flywheel. They can be adjusted away from the flywheel by undoing the cross headed lock screws counter clockwise then using a larger screwdriver to turn the adjusters in or out to make the magnets clear the flywheel. Remember to lock the adjustment screws after but turning the lock screws clockwise. Not too tight though as they are into plastic threads. This will not affect the power accuracy of your Direto X as it has a real power meter but do perform the spindown calibration procedure afterwards. Hope this also helps.
It is indeed a problem with the motor and screw. All goes well from 1 to 12, from 13 to 16 he barely turns. After a few rounds at the highest resistance (15-16) he completely blocks and doesn’t turn anymore, on any of the resistances (1-16). This explains why it crashed on the steep hill. Now I know the reason, but even helping it by turning by hand doesn’t help. So I know why, but I can’t fix it. Thanks for the detailed help anyways.
Cheers,
In this case I would remove both halves of the outer plastic cover so you can view the other side of the magnet tray. This may show why it is not moving to level 16 and will also allow you to clean and grease the rest of the threaded screw. Be certain that neither of the round magnets in the tray have been damaged by touching the flywheel. They could have a groove in them which is stopping the tray moving fully. Keep trying to work clean grease into the threads . Best of luck.
We are all going to die!!! hahaha, last month mine (tacx) broke, I was lucky and got a new one for free last week. I hope you solve the problem and we can see you again soon.
What a speed from the very first km. Will a Muckers race ever start in a way below Zone 5? The route was challenging. A lot of energy had to be saved for the second part. Again the climbs have not been very long but this time more decisive than Tuesday. We formed a great group rolling downhill around position 18 to 24, so I saved some energy and could recover after the first part. The relative small climb in the middle made the difference. I closed the gap to m_forbry and Tim U. The three of us took the downhill and Tim U attacked. This was too early for me. The longer climb began and I moved to position 16 closing up to Grochang. Nice to meet you again. We already had a tough head to head ride on Tuesday. Position 15 and 14 were in reach but would have required a very hard solo effort. So I tried to work together with Grochang who closed the gap to me downhill without having Tranberg and Litzblitz on his back wheel and to finish both together. But then Trandberg and Litzblitz came back on the uphill final km and even though I had still a few little reserves, I’m not a sprinter and I had Litzblitz to pass by. This was again a great Muckers racing. Thank you so much — and sorry for being a NED. I’m so used to ride on Watt Zones only and on body feeling, I fear that using a HR monitoring could change my routines that I like a lot… but may data are real and all is public on Strava 🙂 … see you soon again
Fast start with the lead group, putting in a lot of effort in the first 15 kilometers for little gain, then exploding on the steep slopes of the hill in the last 10 kilometers (last 5 kilometers at less than 200w). On Tuesday, I tried a moderate start with a gradual acceleration, and last night the opposite, starting in zone 5 and finishing completely drained. In both cases, I still manage to stay within the top 10 positions. But championship races are quite exhausting due to the intense competition. My main goal in these races is to stay in the top 10 without pushing myself too hard and keeping my heart rate within reasonable zones.
@neil Sorry, I posted this comment on the previous article. Can you delete it from the Tuesday’s post?
I already knew I don’t do as well on courses that start uphill. But this time was going to be different! Except the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. Ended up in the low-30s after the first climbing, trying to recover on the downhill, but in with a group of riders that were just hammering. SillySilNL, in particular, refused to stay dropped! Kept coming up beside me again. Finally got away, riding with Chorus and Baggers69 mostly, we were working to track down Andy_UP, and others, still ahead. Caught and passed MattiasHeil, something I always look forward to, but it was so hard this time. Survived the Fox Creek climb somehow, then saw that Andy_UP seemed to have run out of gas. But so had I. Couldn’t stick with Chorus, but did overhaul Badeskum and rode with him to the end. That was a brutal course! Kudos to all that finished it.
I knew I had to stay with you because I was one place below you in de championship. I hung on until I couldn’t anymore. Great effort, especially catching Matthias! We’re only 20 points apart now, so let’s finish this battle next Thursday 🙂
I just had one question during this race that I decided to put up to alla of you:
What shifters are you using? I have a 10 speed casette and it seems to me it is not really enough, on such a route like it was. Because, if I can’t keep a 100 RPM, I cannot keep up with my confortable pace-watts… Maybe this is all just another good excuse why am I so weak nowdays 🙂 I just checked, I really lost 20-30Watts (with the same weight) in the last 12 months. But this is it 🙂
Hi, I use an old 9v bike. On certain routes or on certain climbs, the most suitable gears are certainly missing because I quickly lose meters. In reality I use a 12v and it’s a completely different story. I take it as a plus workout 🤷♂️
But I guess this mtb has 3 pates in the front, that adds a lot. Once I also tried a hilli route with my 3×9 trekking bike, it was much better, an suitable. Okay, then Rouvy didn’t know about the 10kgs difference between the two bikes 😀
Yeah, there should be the point. Ve are doing it vlirtually, so why we cant program the csaette size virtually? So on kikr bike you ca… Elite Suito i far from it.
Crazy stuff is this championship. I was so tired I would normaly have not join, but being in the championship, I had to go. I felt that this will be the day I will make a lot of people happy passing me, but somehow I managed the initial start sprint and find myself in the bigger front group.
I was just happy to sit in the group, no usual thoughts on “doing it hard”. After that long downhill, I was just hidding myself and try to do as little as possible effort to stay in the group in those little hills.
After I survived the climb, we were still 5-6. I was hoping I could still sprint for a win, but also very fatigued. It was a sprint of 4 as karel_sousek was not sprinting as usually and as I am not a sprinter I was fine with the 3rd out of 4. Not bad as I was not feeling super sharp today.
Stats: 65 kg (weighted), 268W average (calibrated) and new HR max on rouvy (186). Sprinting on 706 W => poor 🙁
I presume all you seasoned Muckers know but as a newby I was thrilled to be directed to the great video of last Thursday’s race, link below for anybody else who didn’t know it existed. It makes the experience so much more and you don’t suffer at all watching yourself grind up a stupidly steep hill! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X1F05datfR0&t=4s please like and Subscribe to help Colin’s efforts and give him some pay back for doing this for us.
RocketRoy
Southafro
EddyDomino
Fastphil94
Sat_YQM
Florian1975m
A__J
Tonsei
Svard
Clavicula
Alieno79
BareRemi
Gil.Mad.io
karel_sousek
Tuden
Wyverns
Stefan793
kristoffer
tomlerieger
Bodobogi
raffocus
Crisuman
robinagy
tyrone2526
Was a bit tired before the race but was asked to join the Danish train from the start. I didn’t even see the train from the start and I didn’t even manage to stay above 3.0 on the first short climb. That route broke me – a lot!! I had to dig very deep to find the energy and motivation just to finish the race. This was the worst race for me in a long time, but despite not having fun on the race – I still love racing with the Muckers 🙂
Now this ride was going to be epic with a Danish dynamite train from start to finish. Tuden had the idea to bring os all together but oh boy did we blew that up early in the race – we were one big exploded atomic🙈 Nielsbrynnum drop his chain 5 times, so I waited for him at the bottom of the first long downhill, but that was a mistake to do. Couldn’t follow Nielsbrynnum on the last long climb and were reel in by Dok_PS, Tranberg , m-forby and two other guys I haven’t see before. Dok got away and I push all in and took his rear wheel, just like Tuesdays race, but this time it was an uphill sprint and I had nothing to give for the last 500 meters, and had to see 2 guys passing me at the finish line – yes Tranberg got me again😭
Shot Summary of today’s race will be that Danish dynamite turned to Danish bacon.
See you all very soon and thanks once again Kyle and Neil for bringing us all closer together👍
TSS:106 IF:1.017 Weight:75.5 AVG POWER:278
GC race on a tricky route with many small hills and some steep climbs. I was not quite sure about the energy level in the legs before the start. From the start the pace was fearless 😧 having in mind, we needed to cover 38 km and 705 m of climbing. Our super strong Dane hj2010 💪💪had signed up as leadout from the begining and for sure he did 🚀🚀🚀….he almost crushed my legs just by being in his wheel 😅However after hj2010 massive lead out, – he finally eased off and I settled in a small group with the 💪 Grochang and 💪Tuden alias HULK. It was clear that Tuden was the strongest in our group and Grochang and I were just enjoying the ride for as long as we could keep up the pace. Unfortunately, I ran into chain problems again (lost the chain 5 times during yesterdays race) which caused some hard pulls to catch up the time lost mounting the chain. Anyway after Tuden left me and Grochang, – super strong riders 💪Stefan_Schmidt and 💪Keithaitch caught up with us. Keithaitch, however flew away ✈️and unfortunately Stefan_Schmidt did not have his normal 🚀 power legs, so after a while, it was only Grochang and me again. Some of the NED riders caught up to us and as they passed us, I thought, – I give it a try to follow their pace. I managed and the legs felt quite OK coming into the 3 steep climbs. At the climb we all got separated so from the top it was a solo ride to the finish line. Thanks for a great race and as always massive thanks to Muckers Neil and Kyle.
TSS: 122 IF: 1.098 Weight 74,4 kg Avg power 295 W
Niels, I wondered what happened at the to of the little kick where you guys caught Stefen and me as you were immeadiately dropped. I thought of waiting fo you, like afiend, but then i remembered it was a race and after a hard morning ride in the Bacelona Hills I wasn’t sure how long my legs would last so just stayed with the group until a climb let me get away.from you guys and then worked to catch a coule of guys in front of us but didn’t have the legs to compete with 11.2 w/kg in the uhill srint to the line so settled for 10th. Next Thursday looks hard again but I’ll kee an eye out for you knowing you’ll take your turn if we are together.
🙂 👍 See you next Thursday Keith, hopefully without any chain issues
Nice tough race, perhaps one of the best in recent months. I say this because together with SwissCris69 we have done great team work. I tried to hold on, in fact I struggled many times standing on the pedals and that was the problem. On a small descent I had to get off the bike to fix the front wheel support and tak, I lost Chris’ wheel and 80m. From there I wasn’t able to recover and I wasted all my strength. In fact, in the end I wasn’t able to attach myself to ChadRitchie and I wasn’t able to force the sprint with him and LRodrigues.
Lately I always arrive a little cooked in the final rush, I have to improve the final attack. Hello everybody.
It is nice to have a noon race! Even though I had already ridden this route and completed a race the day before, I didn’t hesitate and jumped to the opportunity to race again with Muckers… The three Brits were unfortunately untouchable. I tried to catch “Southafro”, but I saw at each split time that he was flying away! A nice race on a nice route. Thanks to all the participants for the motivation & thanks again for managing the races 👍👏
Joined in last moment, as running in snow was slow, but i needed fresh air. Ready to be dropped soon, but the pace after start was not that fierce. Strong group up to ten riders. Challenging, yet acceptable pace. As on Tuesday, few riders got dropped and group reduced. The key was stay mindful and react to any attack, which was today for me challenging too, because real life is out there, not here. It worked almost till finish, but shortly before that four riders were stronger and distanced me. Sum it all, good effort, the race was enjoyable, nice done by everyone!
That was pure agony. I wanted to go hard as far as the halfway point then see if I could limit the damage on the climbing sections in the 2nd half. Formed an early group with ‘Tyrone2526’, ‘raffocus’ and Mucker teammate ‘Mick Michel’. Tyrone definitely seemed the strongest but allowed the two blue jerseys to share the work with him, unfortunately, he was later disqualified which may be a timezone issue for the Australian, riding the Thursday race on Friday 🤔 may confuse Rouvy. After halfway I couldn’t stick with these guys anymore, I signalled to Mick I was ‘done’ so he wouldn’t lose position waiting for me. At this point Tom came past bringing ‘jeff65’ to my wheel with ‘Bodobogi’ and ‘Flying Pastor’ close by. I love being near Jeff on course but he has a ‘kick then ease’ style that makes it difficult was us to combine and work together so our time was brief. I finished the race on a stretchy elastic band getting closer then further away to a couple of riders but I was totally ‘Wasted’ and just trying to get home. Struggling to break Top50 now so I may go easy on Thursdays and focus efforts on the Tuesday races with/against the other Farnham RC guys.
Race stats: Age : 56, Weight : 95kg, IF=0.978
Averages : 153bpm, 275w, 2.89w/kg
Great fun, but I surely was spent by the end of it! New to this game, so my strategy was to find some blue jerseys and try to follow what they were doing–even got out front some to offer some pulling, though I don’t think I was helping you all out so much!
Hope the flying schedule lets me join up again soon.
Sounds like an eventfull race, I had to sit this one out though as no time-slot suited my schedule today. So a sorely needed adaptation-day it became (I did do 1/2hr Challengde-workout..for good measure)
May have a small calendar collision for the Sunday Climb challenge, but hope to be in the start pen 👍
My decision before the race was to try to not be the last of the stronger group under 20 posts but to let them be and be first of the next group somewhere around 30rd.
I can say that this decision was the correct one and in general it produces a more fun ride and more stable power. So it is always better to be a hunter than to be hunted. I finished at 24 and I am satisfied with the order and the fun I have obtained by this decision. As always, sending thanks to Neil to organize the events.
This was my first race with Muckers, as i raced the day before my legs were broken, so I decided to make it a zone2 endurance training for the first half of the race. i let everyone go and was hoping to find someone to draft with. but this route is not suited for drafting. For a long time i was the last one in the race, but slowly able to catch some riders without hurting myself and slowly upping the tempo to zone 3. In the end went into zone 4/5 on the last 2 uphill sections and managed to catch about 10 riders. See you next race as you were not that far aheah chief Mucker!!
one all in race a week is enough for my body and this week it was last tuesday (11th). So I took it easy at the start and tried to form a 3W Muckers trian but was passes by a lot of blue jerseys. Found myself an Mucker Jeff65 at around 65th place and we worked well together for the first half. We hold a steady 3.0-3.5 pace and collected a lot of fast starters during the descent. Was very pleased to met some old friends like kin_kwan, Chek and El_tractor on the road, we had many hard battles last year. I lost Jeff during the middle section in the ups and down area. Had a lot energy safed for the last climb, so I passed many other riders and finished 32th, just in front of Chris. Nice and not bodykilling race. Recovering is the secret for fast racing! pedal on, Tom
Wanted to take it easier than other full-on races. Was happy…..until on the steepest climb, my smartrainer broke down….a hell of a noise comes from the flying wheel and evrything was stuck on the toughest gear. Shifting had no effect what so ever. I had to do the climb and the rest with a superlow rpm. I saw a lot of riders passing by. Anyone had that exprience???? I have a Direto X smart trainer. Every time I put it on, there is a hell of a noise and it stays on max resitance. Anyone who can help me?? If not, have to buy a new one. In the latter case, I’ll have to leave you guys for a while…..sad
For me sometimes as soon as I connected it to heating it became extra strong, sometimes it was enough to turn off the power, wait 10” and reconnect. Others on Facebook told me that you just need to pedal hard for a few seconds and it will fix itself. Others said to check the belt tension and you can find instructions on the internet. But mine was just hard and not noisy.
No idea sorry
This may be of use. Take the inspection cover off the left side of the trainer. Inside you will find the mechanism for controlling resistance. There is a motor and a screw thread to move the magnets in and out of the flywheel. It may be that the thread has seized and will no longer turn. Clean all the old grease off the thread then apply Vaseline. Using the Elite MyETraining app in level mode change the resistance from level 1 to level 16. If the thread does not move then use your hand to help it. If it starts to move then this was your problem. Continue cleaning and lubricating the thread whilst moving from level 1 to 16 and back to 1 until the screw turns smoothly all the way. Put the inspection cover back on. Hope this helps.
You may also find that the magnets have moved and are hitting the flywheel. They can be adjusted away from the flywheel by undoing the cross headed lock screws counter clockwise then using a larger screwdriver to turn the adjusters in or out to make the magnets clear the flywheel. Remember to lock the adjustment screws after but turning the lock screws clockwise. Not too tight though as they are into plastic threads. This will not affect the power accuracy of your Direto X as it has a real power meter but do perform the spindown calibration procedure afterwards. Hope this also helps.
Hi Roy,
It is indeed a problem with the motor and screw. All goes well from 1 to 12, from 13 to 16 he barely turns. After a few rounds at the highest resistance (15-16) he completely blocks and doesn’t turn anymore, on any of the resistances (1-16). This explains why it crashed on the steep hill. Now I know the reason, but even helping it by turning by hand doesn’t help. So I know why, but I can’t fix it. Thanks for the detailed help anyways.
Cheers,
In this case I would remove both halves of the outer plastic cover so you can view the other side of the magnet tray. This may show why it is not moving to level 16 and will also allow you to clean and grease the rest of the threaded screw. Be certain that neither of the round magnets in the tray have been damaged by touching the flywheel. They could have a groove in them which is stopping the tray moving fully. Keep trying to work clean grease into the threads . Best of luck.
We are all going to die!!! hahaha, last month mine (tacx) broke, I was lucky and got a new one for free last week. I hope you solve the problem and we can see you again soon.
What a speed from the very first km. Will a Muckers race ever start in a way below Zone 5? The route was challenging. A lot of energy had to be saved for the second part. Again the climbs have not been very long but this time more decisive than Tuesday. We formed a great group rolling downhill around position 18 to 24, so I saved some energy and could recover after the first part. The relative small climb in the middle made the difference. I closed the gap to m_forbry and Tim U. The three of us took the downhill and Tim U attacked. This was too early for me. The longer climb began and I moved to position 16 closing up to Grochang. Nice to meet you again. We already had a tough head to head ride on Tuesday. Position 15 and 14 were in reach but would have required a very hard solo effort. So I tried to work together with Grochang who closed the gap to me downhill without having Tranberg and Litzblitz on his back wheel and to finish both together. But then Trandberg and Litzblitz came back on the uphill final km and even though I had still a few little reserves, I’m not a sprinter and I had Litzblitz to pass by. This was again a great Muckers racing. Thank you so much — and sorry for being a NED. I’m so used to ride on Watt Zones only and on body feeling, I fear that using a HR monitoring could change my routines that I like a lot… but may data are real and all is public on Strava 🙂 … see you soon again
Fast start with the lead group, putting in a lot of effort in the first 15 kilometers for little gain, then exploding on the steep slopes of the hill in the last 10 kilometers (last 5 kilometers at less than 200w). On Tuesday, I tried a moderate start with a gradual acceleration, and last night the opposite, starting in zone 5 and finishing completely drained. In both cases, I still manage to stay within the top 10 positions. But championship races are quite exhausting due to the intense competition. My main goal in these races is to stay in the top 10 without pushing myself too hard and keeping my heart rate within reasonable zones.
@neil Sorry, I posted this comment on the previous article. Can you delete it from the Tuesday’s post?
I already knew I don’t do as well on courses that start uphill. But this time was going to be different! Except the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. Ended up in the low-30s after the first climbing, trying to recover on the downhill, but in with a group of riders that were just hammering. SillySilNL, in particular, refused to stay dropped! Kept coming up beside me again. Finally got away, riding with Chorus and Baggers69 mostly, we were working to track down Andy_UP, and others, still ahead. Caught and passed MattiasHeil, something I always look forward to, but it was so hard this time. Survived the Fox Creek climb somehow, then saw that Andy_UP seemed to have run out of gas. But so had I. Couldn’t stick with Chorus, but did overhaul Badeskum and rode with him to the end. That was a brutal course! Kudos to all that finished it.
Nice to ride again with Muckers 😉
I knew I had to stay with you because I was one place below you in de championship. I hung on until I couldn’t anymore. Great effort, especially catching Matthias! We’re only 20 points apart now, so let’s finish this battle next Thursday 🙂
I just had one question during this race that I decided to put up to alla of you:
What shifters are you using? I have a 10 speed casette and it seems to me it is not really enough, on such a route like it was. Because, if I can’t keep a 100 RPM, I cannot keep up with my confortable pace-watts… Maybe this is all just another good excuse why am I so weak nowdays 🙂 I just checked, I really lost 20-30Watts (with the same weight) in the last 12 months. But this is it 🙂
Hi, I use an old 9v bike. On certain routes or on certain climbs, the most suitable gears are certainly missing because I quickly lose meters. In reality I use a 12v and it’s a completely different story. I take it as a plus workout 🤷♂️
But I guess this mtb has 3 pates in the front, that adds a lot. Once I also tried a hilli route with my 3×9 trekking bike, it was much better, an suitable. Okay, then Rouvy didn’t know about the 10kgs difference between the two bikes 😀
Hi robi_nagy, I use 11v casettes, 11-28, 12-25, 11-32 and 11-40. I change it before the race according to the route.
Too professional 👏👍
I had the same problen so i switched from Kickr V5 to the Kicker bike. I can programm every casettes i want. And in front the big one with 58 or 60.
Yeah, there should be the point. Ve are doing it vlirtually, so why we cant program the csaette size virtually? So on kikr bike you ca… Elite Suito i far from it.
Crazy stuff is this championship. I was so tired I would normaly have not join, but being in the championship, I had to go. I felt that this will be the day I will make a lot of people happy passing me, but somehow I managed the initial start sprint and find myself in the bigger front group.
I was just happy to sit in the group, no usual thoughts on “doing it hard”. After that long downhill, I was just hidding myself and try to do as little as possible effort to stay in the group in those little hills.
After I survived the climb, we were still 5-6. I was hoping I could still sprint for a win, but also very fatigued. It was a sprint of 4 as karel_sousek was not sprinting as usually and as I am not a sprinter I was fine with the 3rd out of 4. Not bad as I was not feeling super sharp today.
Stats: 65 kg (weighted), 268W average (calibrated) and new HR max on rouvy (186). Sprinting on 706 W => poor 🙁
I presume all you seasoned Muckers know but as a newby I was thrilled to be directed to the great video of last Thursday’s race, link below for anybody else who didn’t know it existed. It makes the experience so much more and you don’t suffer at all watching yourself grind up a stupidly steep hill! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X1F05datfR0&t=4s please like and Subscribe to help Colin’s efforts and give him some pay back for doing this for us.
Thanks for the link👍