Zwift Racing League | WTRL – Race 1 Report from Eric W.

Last night Larry Rohrbough and I led Berkeley Bicycle Club, Division C and B teams into our first Zwift Racing League race! This was a Team Time Trial (TTT) that saw our respective teams race as uniform as possible, rotating to keep a paceline going quickly and smoothly. This 15 mile course had points awarded based solely off of time of the 4th rider crossing the finish line. The starting pen posed a challenge because each team is given an offset time, or a time delay for which no riders can cross the start before – otherwise that racer would be disqualified. All of us ran practice drills last Sunday, led by my friend Amir from PenVelo. Practicing our start strategies and rotating paceline on Zwift, which is WAY harder than in real life due to cycling dynamics and input delays. Using audio conference through Discord our respective teams were in constant communication, calling out on, off, gaps, etc.Division B: My team of 5, including Isaiah Stackhouse, Seth Leidy, Alex Magill, and one other left the starting pen at our designated offset. We all took off at the same time, crossing the start just after our offset time and with zero issue. Quickly we fell into a paceline and began to navigate the twisty rollers. Though tough, the team was able to maintain our 30sec, 45sec or 60sec pulls depending on how we were all feeling. At the halfway point, after the aqueduct climb, everyone was doing well and taking slightly longer pulls as we descended into the final set of flats. We had very few bunched-up moments and for the most part were able to rotate well and without much issue. A couple of gaps as riders rotated to the back but the communication worked well to slightly let off to let team mates latch back on. With a few miles to go we picked up the pace and took harder pulls and finished strong. Although our team was 14th out of 15th, we were all thrilled with the outcome of our first race as a team (and first TTT for any of us). Definitely learned a lot and have some ideas for the next TTT in a few weeks. More team mates would definitely help too. Next few races are road bunch starts with totally different strategies.Division C: Larry Rohrbough led this team of 4, some former BBCers, to a 3rd place victory!We all had a cool-down recap afterward and the consensus was clear: Very difficult but LOTS of fun!

Race Report from Eric W