Dragon Ride Photo Shoot, Stages Power Meter and Zwift
It may not have a been good week so far training wise, but there’s been a few things happened around the bike in the past 24 hours.
Firstly, on Friday I was lucky enough to go around some of the main climbs of the Wiggle Dragon Ride with a professional photographer for a major cycling magazine. I thought it would be over in a few hours, but we set off at 11am and didn’t get back till 5pm. There wasn’t much cycling involved, and it was more going up and down sections in various locations trying to get a great shot. It was one of those strange weather days in Wales. For the first shots on the Bwlch it was glorious sunshine piercing down from a blue sky. By the time we got to the summit of the Rhigos we were surrounded by snow and in a blizzard, and it was not possible to take any photos. We took a gamble and headed over to the Black Mountains, and were rewarded by more spectacular weather and scenery. As the sun was setting, the temperature hovered around 0 degrees celcius and by the time the last photo was taken by hands were numb. I’ve got my fingers crossed the pictures get published some time in March, and you will be able to facially recognise me as opposed to just the back of my helmet in the distance.
Secondly, at some point on Friday my replacement Stages Power Meter turned up. My first unit became faulty, and the battery would drain after every ride. I was really disappointed that it took Evans and Saddleback over a month to replace the faulty unit from when they received it. I fitted the new Stages, and I am now all set to carry on riding with power. Being a stats man, it was inevitable I would succumb to a power meter at some point. There is lots of debate about the Stages as it only records left leg power and then simply doubles. However, as an entry level power meter (and being endorsed by Team Sky), the positives far outweigh any negatives. Since I started riding using it, I couldn’t imagine not being able to view the watts. Annoyingly, my winter bike has a different crank arm length, and so I can only resort to using the Stages on my good bike on the turbo.
Finally, after being invited to take part in the Zwift beta, I couldn’t wait to sign in and give it a go. Zwift is a new application that looks to combine the best parts of online gaming and brings it to the world of indoor turbo training. I installed the Stages power meter, downloaded the Zwift app and was all set to go till … nothing. Turns out you need an Ant+ USB 2.0 device, and my Garmin Ant+ USB stick is only USB 1.0. Ah well, Ant+ USB 2.0 dongle is now ordered and will see what Zwift is like next weekend now