GGCC Zwift Racing & Training Rides
The Glasgow Green Cycle Club (GGCC) racing and training ride series are intended to provide a choice of Monday evening races and Thursday evening training rides (European time) for A, B, C and D riders, and open to all time-zones.
GGCC is a Glasgow based cycling club whose “in real life” (irl) club runs and training rides are always organized into pace groups, which match the Zwift categories (see below) quite well. GGCC also has a good race pedigree and presence in Scotland, and so we have organized both our Zwift race and training ride series to suit what we believe is relevant to bike riders’ interests in performance and improvement in our Club, in other Glasgow clubs, in Scotland and the UK. Racers will, no doubt, aspire to category A.
As we expect our club’s steady riders to be able to ride 50 miles at or around a 15mph average on our Sunday rides, such steady riding members will be comfortable with Zwift Category D, and we cater for all abilities, up through the Zwift A, B and C levels too.
Results in both series can be seen at the end of the ride on screen, and we will, in common with many other ride series, publish your results on zwiftpower.com too, based on each category.
All bikes are allowed, and no restrictions on power-ups for the time being. Please add GGCC (X) to your Zwift name to allow your ride presence to be recognized, where X is your desired ride category. Categories are as below, related to your Functional Threshold Power (FTP) wattage:
Categories: Use your FTP and then divide by your weight in kg, then pick the correct group.
A: 4.0 W/kg FTP or higher (what GGCC calls “ride”)
B: 3.2 W/kg to 3.99 W/kg FTP (what GGCC calls “cheeky challenge”)
C: 2.5 W/kg to 3.19 W/kg FTP (what GGCC calls “challenge”)
D: Under 2.49 W/kg FTP (what GGCC calls “steady”)
PLEASE NOTE: Strava data for our races/rides must be open (not private or hidden). Please use a heart monitor so that we can monitor correlated power and heart rate to help assure fair riding.
You can use our Discord channel to talk to each other at https://discord.gg/UDhdEQA
Please see the GGCC Zwift page link at http://www.glasgowgreencycleclub.co.uk/ for more.
GGCC Zwift Races
The Glasgow Green Cycle Club (GGCC) race series is intended to provide a Monday evening race (European time) for A, B, C and D racers, but open to all time-zones. All categories start together. You are encouraged to race with the fastest participants you can keep up with.
Please look out for our race on the same day of the week, Monday, every week at 20.10 BST (8.10pm) in the UK, 15.10 EDT (3.10pm EDT) in the US, and at 21.10 European time.
In our Zwift races, be prepared for fast starts (a Zwift characteristic!) and hard racing. Generally things settle down after 10 minutes or so as racers find their preferred groups of riders. Make as much use of drafting as you can, seeking to move up or drop down a group on the road until you find one at your level of performance.
GGCC Zwift Training Rides
The Glasgow Green Cycle Club (GGCC) training ride series is intended to provide a Thursday evening training ride (European time) for A, B, C and D riders, and open to all time-zones. All categories start together. You should ride as a group, following the instructions of the beacon ride leader for sprints, intervals and spicy segments, regrouping after each.
Please look out for our training ride on the same day of the week, Thursday, every week at 21.00 BST (9,00pm) in the UK, 4.00pm EDT in the US, and at 22.00 European time.
In our Zwift training rides, we will start with a steady rollout to allow riders to warm up. The beacon ride leader will communicate via Zwift message and/or Discord to vary the pace to allow for sprints, intervals and optionally a mini-race towards the end of the ride, with regrouping after each segment. Make as much use of drafting as you can, enabling more effective sprinting and intervals. PLEASE regroup as rapidly as you can, allowing the main peloton to catch up after spicy segments!
GGCC Zwift Watopia Hilly Reverse Ride
This week’s ride is over 4 laps of the Watopia Hilly course, in reverse. It starts at the Watopia Pier (staging) and heads in the “reverse” direction on the map:
4 laps Distance: 36.4km (22.8 miles)
Elevation Gain: 400m (1316') Strava segment
The pdf of the ZwiftBlog map of Watopia Hilly is appended to these notes.
Although the map shows the junction order for the forward course, just reverse the letters to follow the reverse route (A, J, G, C, B, A). This means we go over the Zwift KOM climb from the longer (less steep) side, with a fast descent down the shorter side back to Ocean Boulevard.
MAP