Concept2 Forum

L'Etape du Tour Stage 3

I will be rowing this stage this afternoon at 5pm BST (UK Summer Time GMT+1) and have decided to publicly embarrass myself by livestreaming the whole thing Don't worry though, I won't have a camera on me, the last thing anyone needs to see on a Sunday afternoon is a very sweaty man! It will be the Zwift feed with the PM5 superimposed.

Not sure how long its going to take which is a bit of a problem for pacing(!) but looking at average watts v. weights of riders who have done it so far it's looking like a long one... maybe 2.5hrs

It's all uphill... no respite of free wheeling/rowing. Although if/when I get to the top I will be doing a cool down by coming down again. I'll probably reset the PM5 as go across the line to record the time. Not going to waste the basically free Zwift km after all that climbing!

It looks tough - if you want a preview try here. Fast forward to 1h32m40s to see him cross the line and his immediate comments! There are over 2700 people currently signed up for 5pm start! (although I think Zwift only shows the closest 100 to you).

From about 4:50pm will be online waiting at the start for 5pm and if you are bored later on and want to tune in - just go to the following link.
https://www.twitch.tv/DinoRows


Stage 3 Zwift stats

WORLD: France
ROUTE: Ven-Top
LAP DISTANCE: 20.8km (12.9 miles)
ELEVATION GAIN PER LAP: 1539m (5049 feet)
LAPS: 1
TOTAL DISTANCE: 20.8km (12.9 miles)

Good luck Dino, I can't figure out how it works on a rower for a cycling app but at least you know what you're doing

Good luck Dino, I'll have a look!

Amazing, I'll be watching. I cannot wait for zwift to roll out something for rowing.

Thanks everyone!

Quick Zwift primer...
I'll be rowing with the PM5 connected to RowedBiker app on my phone. Zwift runs on a laptop and picks up power and cadence from the app.
I'll be rowing 1:1 i.e. if I am rowing at 170 Watts, then this is what Zwift will also see. Cadence in Zwift is my stroke rate... i.e. I'll be the bike with the slow turning legs

Your speed in Zwift governed by a number of things and this is where things deviate from just rowing. My weight will be a big factor today as all uphill. Being larger too makes a small difference to aero efficiency. Drafting wont be so much of a thing today as will be going very slowly! I have found on a flat road that to lead a group I need to output 25-30Watts more than if buried in the group. The bike doesn't make too much difference compared to the other factors. There are power ups available that get get assigned at random when you go under an arch. These wont make much of a difference today either apart from the 'feather' which reduces your weight for a short period. You still have to row and put in the watts though! Only on the downhills can you slack off rowing and your speed in Zwift will keep going... but there is none of this today apart from after the finish!

My name will be on the right as D.Concept2 (Rower). At the start we'll all be held in a 'pen' until the clock counts down and we are released.
Hopefully the streaming technology will hold together!

Getting quite nervous now...!

OK should be live now! time to warm up.

Watching. Impressive number of riders. Keep drafting, Dino!

O M G.... heading down on the CD now

Saw bits of it, looked intense! Would love a report.

Well done, Dino. I did it on the BikeErg yesterday in a grinding 4 hours, which I couldn't imagine doing on the rower. I was aiming for 3.5 hours which seemed about right based on my Alpe times, but just couldn't keep up the pace 2 hours in. The butt was feeling it about 3 hours in.

Dave

mitchel674 wrote: ↑

July 19th, 2020, 12:25 pm

Watching. Impressive number of riders. Keep drafting, Dino!

Cheers for watching Mitchel. According to the stats as I was rowing along there were 3454 people taking part on the 5pm row! ..and they were pretty much setting off every few hours yesterday and today with similar numbers.

boomingaway wrote: ↑

July 19th, 2020, 3:51 pm

Saw bits of it, looked intense! Would love a report.

It certainly was! report below

Slothful1 wrote: ↑

July 19th, 2020, 3:58 pm

Well done, Dino. I did it on the BikeErg yesterday in a grinding 4 hours, which I couldn't imagine doing on the rower. I was aiming for 3.5 hours which seemed about right based on my Alpe times, but just couldn't keep up the pace 2 hours in. The butt was feeling it about 3 hours in.

Dave

Well done Dave. Well done for persevering!!! It was cruel the first time you saw the tower as you came out of the trees and it was still about 5k away.... a long way when you are only doing 6-7kph

Thanks also to anyone else who tuned in. It gave me a lift when I could see more than 1 viewer (i.e. my son!)

They said each stage got progressively harder and they weren't kidding!
This was a HHHUUUGGE step up from Stages 1 and 2.
There was just no respite on this stage. After a slightly undulating start, it just went up, and up and up! Consequently any rest from being in a bunch which is equally applicable on the rower was just not there. Likewise drafting effect non-existent. This just prolonged the stage. Just over 20k in Zwift doesn't sound much. On the flat this would be roughly equivalent to a 30min / 10k on the rower. But when you are only doing 6/7k....

I had done some rough sums based upon results of others who had done this stage yesterday, and come up with the 2.5 hours. Consequently set off roughly 2:06 pace and things ticked along for the first hour, averaging 2:06.8. It then started to get difficult. I don't deal well with the heat and I was already thinking of opening my own lido after an hour and I was definitely rowing at the deep end by the end!

According to the Zwift display there were 3454 people grinding their way up the mountain. Soon after the start I was already in around 2900th place. To be expected though... I was thinking maybe 25% would be a decent effort based on the last two stages. After an hour though I was feeling fairly crap with some stomach cramps. Tried to take on more water but didnt want to slow down as going slow enough (in Zwift) already.

On a more normal stage where there are ups, downs and flats, then coasting for a bit to take a drink when heading downhill or in the protection of the bunch is quite easy without losing time in Zwift. Not so when grinding uphill! Sums in my head were along the lines of SHIT! there is still 10km to go and I am only going 7kph... thats another hour and 20ish to go I started just putting my head down and not watching the screen too much and aiming to kit 28k on the erg at 2 hours. Fuelling wise I should have planned more. I just had 2 bananas, 1 bottle of Lucozade Sport and a bottle of water. When I did my Sub 3 FM I was much better prepared, physically and strategy for fuel. At 2 hour mark decided to drop the handle, stand up, towel off, have a banana a proper drink. Felt so much better afterwards.

The gradient actually lessened towards the top, and every time it dropped to 6 or 7% I upped the pace to 2:03 or better and watched the speed and consequently time to go come down and tried to draft a bit. People seemed to be drafting on me then shoot past without taking their turn which got a bit annoying. However I was now picking people off and got into the top 2500

Was now in a groove and could feel the end approaching albeit slowly. My aim was now to get into top 2400 so just concentrated on this. 2k to go became 1k to go and there it was - the finish!

After crossing the line stopped for a good 5 mins, then pedalled off round the loop to head back down and reap the rewards! Didnt intend to, but ended up slow rowing all the way back to the start whilst sometime hitting 75kph or more. A few times put the power down just to see if could hit a new max speed.

All in all, it was very hard!!!! For anyone watching it probably wasn't that interesting as it was just an uphill slog without much variation or tactics. I thought the game designers had done a good job though and apparently it was a very good representation of the real climb. It makes a good challenge for sure whether on bike or rower. When I saw more than person watching I did try to change the view. I had a USB keypad plugged into my laptop so was able to quickly press a key at the catch every now and then to switch the view.

Hopefully the tech worked ok during the stream. My laptop is about 8 years old so struggled a bit to run Zwift, encode the stream including the web cam pointing at the monitor. Twitch seemed the easiest to setup with OBS.

Erg stats as follows:
Time Meters Pace Watts Cal/Hr S/M AHR
2:33:44.3* 35,993m 02:08.1 166 872 20 143

Plus another 4.5k of WU/CD.
*can add another 2 mins to this though as was on 'just row' and it stopped at 2 hours whilst I was on my fuel break admiring the scenery I'll have to check later for the actual time as recorded in Zwift. Thanks again for comments and for anyone who tuned in. Now I must go and mop up the garage floor!!!

Great writeup, Dino. I could feel the fatigue coming through there!

The artwork has been well done, and there were some nice parts where you go through the trees, with streams running near you, etc. so some distraction from the grind. I did miss the turn stats from the Alpe, so maybe in future they could do something with the kilometre markers, so you can see how things are progressing / regressing.

I did a Google Streetview "trip" the night before, just to see the real world equivalent, and look for milestones along the way. They've done well with key elements along the way, but I expected denser forest for some of the earlier parts (but maybe they had to manage system demands).

I had dialled in a 100km session on the BikeErg thinking I would need to use part of my cooldown to finish it off, but I finished about 10 minutes from the top, so had to quickly fire up a Just Ride. At least ticked off a 15 minute improvement in my 100k PB.

Dave

Very nice Dino, almost a FM! Well done and cool idea to do a live stream

Dino wrote: ↑

July 19th, 2020, 7:58 pm

....
Erg stats as follows:
Time Meters Pace Watts Cal/Hr S/M AHR
2:33:44.3* 35,993m 02:08.1 166 872 20 143

Plus another 4.5k of WU/CD.
*can add another 2 mins to this though as was on 'just row' and it stopped at 2 hours whilst I was on my fuel break admiring the scenery I'll have to check later for the actual time as recorded in Zwift. Thanks again for comments and for anyone who tuned in. Now I must go and mop up the garage floor!!!

....blimey that sounds horrible so well done for sticking with it and getting it done

Dino wrote: ↑

July 19th, 2020, 7:58 pm

Erg stats as follows:
Time Meters Pace Watts Cal/Hr S/M AHR
2:33:44.3* 35,993m 02:08.1 166 872 20 143

Plus another 4.5k of WU/CD.
*can add another 2 mins to this though as was on 'just row' and it stopped at 2 hours whilst I was on my fuel break admiring the scenery I'll have to check later for the actual time as recorded in Zwift. Thanks again for comments and for anyone who tuned in. Now I must go and mop up the garage floor!!!

Blimey, virtually an FM with the WU/CD. Well done Dino