Not Pedaling, Pittsburgh

[ornoth_cycling]

This time last year, after riding Pittsburgh’s big populist city bike ride for the fourth time, I wrote: “With iffy support, poor route design, and a registration fee north of $75 that funds a cause I don’t agree with, I probably won’t do this ride again.”

My determination not to have anything to do with this ride was doubled when the organization behind it publicly declared their opposition to enforcing traffic laws that protect cyclists and pedestrians, which I ranted about in my preceding blogpo: “My Advocate: My Enemy”.

But none of my apprehension about the event would apply if I simply mimicked the route’s distance and climbing on my indoor trainer. So on Wednesday I saddled up to simulate another major event indoors.

Consulting my Zenturizer to find a course on Zwift that was comparable to Pittsburgh’s lumpy topography, I decided to ride ten laps of the 2015 Richmond UCI World Championship course. It would be a nice change of pace from my recent long rides in Watopia, and a chance to ride the renovated Richmond route in the reverse direction, which was introduced in a recent program update.

One benefit of events being cancelled is that I can ride on whatever day suits me, rather than being tethered to a specific date and time. I think it's more considerate to do my centuries on a weekday rather than a weekend, when other folks want to sleep in late. So rather than riding the event on the official weekend, I set out Wednesday morning at 10am.

Not many people ride the Richmond course in reverse, because it’s an event-only route unless you manually turn around, as I did. So I didn’t have anyone to draft off or compete with. Even though Richmond was one of Zwift's available options that day, by the end of my first 10-mile lap I was in possession of the combo jersey for logging the fastest sprint, the fastest hill climb, and the fastest overall lap!

For the next two laps, I jousted with a handful of other riders to try and keep all three jerseys, expending more energy than I should have in the first third of a century. But with two timed hillclimbs and two sprints in every lap, it did help pass the time.

But near the end of my third lap, Inna came in and interrupted me for about half an hour, which I took as an unplanned lunch break.

Climbing back on, I’d already lost two of my jerseys. The awards only last an hour before you have to re-capture them, which reminded me how stupid I was being by trying to retain them. For the rest of the day I didn’t attack the hills or sprint, only temporarily picking up a jersey when other riders’ times expired.

By the final third of the ride, I couldn’t contest for them anyway, as my reserves were depleted. It was all I could do to tack on a little extra climbing at the end to reach my simulation ride’s target.

I finished with 104.8 miles and 4,975 feet of climbing in 6h10m moving time—or 6h52m clock time including rest stops. Thus completeth my 11th Zentury of 2020.