The weather outside is wet but inside Zwift is dry though I did ride in some virtual rain a short time. What better way to leave 2020 than biking in a virtual world where the virus doesn’t exist. Maybe these two routes would shake 2020 from tailing me into 2021.
Last night I watched a video from Everything Is Photogenic on how to ride multiple routes without leaving Zwift. So today I put what I learned into practice. I combines two routes without closing Zwift between rides. It worked great. I scheduled two Meetups, one for each route. The trick is knowing how much time to allow for the first one before scheduling the second. I rode the Two Bridges Loop first as it was a new course but only 4.4 miles long. I wanted to ride more than that. The second meetup followed the Volcano Flat course. You can only schedule 3 meetups per day. Since I am the meetup organizer the yellow beacon stayed with me.
Another bit of information I learned on the same YouTube channel covered the camera shots, Tip #1 Taking The Perfect Selfie. I use the number keys on my computer keyboard to switch cameras during the livestream but I stopped at shot 9. The 0 key features ways to move the camera around using the arrow keys. The sideways arrows moves the camera angle right on left and the up/down arrows moves the camera angle in those directions. I used that camera a lot in today’s video. Some shots.
The Two Bridges Loop climbs 244 feet over the 4.92 miles I rode today, more than the Volcano Flat’s 127 feet. Volcano Flat went 8.34 miles.
In my usual before Zwift ritual I had trouble getting the sensors to connect through the companion app on my phone. For some reason they will connect and then lose the signal. The cadence sensor would not connect to either my phone or desktop computer. The blue flashing LED didn’t blink so I figured the battery was dead. I removed the sensor and tested the battery confirming it was dead. With the new battery it still took several tries to get connected to my desktop computer.
Earlier in the morning I rearranged my Zwift setup. My Blue Norcross AL bike rests on a Wahoo floor mat which gradually moves around on the carpet getting bunched up on furniture. I thought about taking a piece of 3/8″ plywood from the garage, cutting it to 36″ and putting that under the mat but the plywood is dirty from sitting in the garage for many years. Then I realized I have an extra chair mat that is wide enough but about 24″ too short. I put it under the mat with the front wheel over the portion of the Wahoo mat not on the chair mat. Most of the movement takes place at the trainer end of the mat. I will see how this works.
The two courses weren’t difficult and I rode at a good pace. It seemed my rear wheel rode easier on the smart trainer today and my watts stayed between 110 and 150 most of the time. When I made the mat change I unplugged the trainer and I wonder if that changed the trainer. Below are the Strava ride summaries for Two Bridges Loop and Volcano Flat. The “stay in Zwift” hack doesn’t combine the ride data.
The final bike ride of 2020 wrapped up the most miles I ever rode in a year. Combining road and Zwift miles I biked 9,355 miles. My goal was 7800 miles, 7000 road miles and 800 Zwift miles. I didn’t reach my Zwift goal by 42 miles. I surpassed each month’s road mile goal except for August when I spent 4 days in the hospital leaving me 55 miles short. Summaries of December and 2020.
