I knew this stage would be challenging with the distance set at 6.7 miles. The first 2 miles were relatively flat but from that point all the way to the finish the road went up. Sometimes a false flat eased the incline to 1% but several 10% to 12% sections loomed. During the Tour de Zwift one of the stages used the same roads and even longer.

For today’s stage 1308 Zwifters signed up for Group B, the lowest group open to me. Overall 3060 Zwifters registered for 4 different groups. I finished at 881st, 31 seconds behind the person in front and 1 minute 10 seconds ahead of B. Schechter in 882nd. during the ride my position was around 893 to 895 and when riders passed I stayed in the same position. Not sure how that works. Maybe they were Group A Zwifters? The first place finisher in Group B took 19:48. I think he had jet assist.

Today I adjusted the smart trainer settings in Zwift after enabling the Ergo mode on the trainer. At the beginning the trainer was at max which wasn’t too hard on the flat start but once the incline began I changed it to zero which was too easy. I settled on about 1/4 setting. At times I pedaled at 70 rpm and my avatar stood still with watts showing too. I think I will move the setting to 1/2 way for tomorrow’s ride. The weather forecast says it will not reach 60 degrees.

For added interest in the ride before the start I decided to power off my Pixel 3XL phone that runs the Zwift companion app to see if that would fix the heart rate monitor not connecting. The phone froze when it tried to restart with a black screen. So no companion app during the ride. After the ride I found the solution: hold the power button for 30 seconds. The phone started up. Hopefully it works tomorrow.

Link to my Strava activity page.