Up to now I have avoided the Watopia “Sisters” routes because of the climbing. Today I tackled the easiest of the Sisters routes. This is a “free ride”, not an event. No hovering leader’s beacon. Before the ride I did a spin down in Zwift and after the ride I did 3 spin downs using the Wahoo Utility app on my phone. The resistance during the ride was harder than I think is right. Going downhill the few times I did on the route the pedaling effort was still high. The next ride in Zwift will see if the spin downs make any difference.

The ride began at 1:10 PM and lasted 1:29:01, about a minute less than Zwift suggested it would in the ride description. The ride was 23.69 miles long with 1,424 feet of climbing. I think that is the most climbing I’ve done in a long time in Zwift. Checking SportTracks I climbed 1,471 feet riding Zwift on February 26th, 2022 on the Yorkshire Royal Pump Room 8 route. Searching SportTracks I found the most Zwift climbing was January 15th, 2021 on the Watopia Mountain route at 1,993 feet. That is a lot of climbing for me. The flat terrain around Houston doesn’t have much climbing.

Before deciding on the Three Little Sisters I went to ZwiftInsider.com to see what I was getting into. The description: “Originally published as a Rebel Route by Zwift Insider in February 2020, “Three Little Sisters” was suggested by Zwifter Gene Kruger. He named it in homage to Zwift’s official “Three Sisters” route which takes us over the Hilly, Volcano, and Epic KOMs. Three Little Sisters, in contrast, takes us over the Hilly, Titans Grove, and Volcano KOMs – in that order. Each new climb is longer than the one before, and we take the shortest possible route to get from climb to climb. Zwift’s February 2022 update included this route as an event-only route that awards an achievement badge. The April 2022 update then made this route free ridable.” The route basics showed no lead-in, distance of 23.4 miles, and climbing 1,316 feet. Not sure where my extra 108 feet came from. I would have preferred to have climbed less.

Around the 10 mile mark I chuckled watching a bear climbing a tree, falling, and rolling on the ground. Glad he didn’t chase any Zwifters passing by. There were some Christmas decorations, trees with lights, and a sled in the sky. There may have been others that I missed.

While enduring the uphills and downhills I listened to SiriusXM Seventies on 7 music. The tempo helped me keep my cadence steady.

I rode some of the Strava segments on other rides based on these two results: 2nd fastest time on Volcano Descent (4:26) and 3rd fastest time on Volcano KOM (15:53). Strava shows 6 segments for the route. I wish the weather listed on Strava was the weather where I am. It is not 79 degrees but 59 degrees here.