After getting caught in the rain yesterday and the dreary weather this morning I decided to ride Zwift. Also I didn’t want to wash my bike again after the ride. None of the events matched my desire so I created a meetup using the Watopia Big Foot Hills route but not the whole route, only 25 miles. The whole route was over 43 miles with 5 climbs. The 25 miles climbed three of them and finished on the downhill, something I don’t get to do in Zwift very often it seems. I started at 11:55 AM and it took 1:34:05 to ride 25.13 miles. There were 18,555 Zwifters online when I started and about 12,600 when I finished.

The roads were familiar but in a different order than other routes. The hardest climb was up the volcano taking around 16 minutes. It was slow and challenged my legs. I got out of the saddle towards the end of the climb which I don’t normally do. Total climbing was 1,368 feet. I might become a mountain goat yet. I didn’t notice any Christmas items today. Several large groups passed me going the opposite direction. I listened to SiriusXM 60’s Gold channel pedaling along the route. I am probably the only person in Zwift that listens to SiriusXM while riding.

I checked ZwiftInsider.com before choosing the route. I saw that “One of five routes rolled out with Zwift’s Titans Grove expansion, “Big Foot Hills” takes you on a meandering journey over the lower peaks of Watopia, including Titans Grove in both directions. This longer route is perfect for a ~2-hour free ride and includes 5 different KOM sections of short to medium length. A nice choice if you want to do some VO2 max hill training!” The full route basics: Length: 67.5 km (41.9 miles) Elevation: 707 m (2,320‘) Lead-In: 2.4 km (1.5 miles).