At first I was going to ride a meetup that I created in Zwift using the Makuri Islands Wandering Flats course but when I opened Zwift I remembered the Tour of Makuri Islands was still on. I canceled my meetup and chose the Castle to Castle stage. The only other time I rode this route was February 1st this year. So I wasn’t familiar with it. Usually I look up the route on ZwiftInsider.com before I sign up for an event but because this was a stage in the tour I didn’t do that. All I knew was the 13.9 mile distance. Also I didn’t think about changing my bike. I think I was still riding the Zwift gravel bike and this route was almost all road surface. Today’s average speed was much slower than the February 1st ride.

ZwiftInsider.com describes the route: We begin in Neokyo, just before the Clifftop Shrine circle. Passing the shrine we go through the tunnel to Yumezi, blinking as we enter the daylight! A flat run in through the rice paddies brings us to the route’s big climb, up to the castle area then through the market before descending the Castle KOM segment. Take a breather – the climbing is finished. Now it’s just a flat country road back to the tunnel into Neokyo, where we’ll hit the Alley Sprint Reverse, Castle Sprint Reverse, and Tower Sprint before heading back to the virtual start/finish banner where we began. Route basics: Length: 22.4 km (13.9 miles), Elevation: 139 m (456‘), Lead-In: 0.8 km (0.5 miles)

As I rolled away on my Blue Norcross AL bike mounted on the Wahoo Kickr Core smart trainer the resistance already seemed high and I was in the second largest rear cog and small front chainring. I didn’t change gears once during the ride. Maybe I need to do a spin down to refresh the settings in Zwift.

The reason I rode Zwift today instead of outside was the weather. Saturday a cold front arrived and this morning when I got up it was 34 degrees out side and when I got home from church at 12:30 it was 57. My threshold for riding outside is 60 so Zwift was the only option.

There are only 3 Strava segments on the Castle to Castle course. I got a silver medal on this one: 2nd fastest time on Castle to Castle (53:18).