Just keep going! Make 2024 the year that you are consistent for the full 12 months. You don't need to be a hero on every ride, you just need to keep up with the efforts....no excuses. At the end of the year, you will have amazed yourself with how far you have progressed.
28th/147 is great. Press G and get the graphs on the bottom so we can see how much you're suffering! Looking forward to the step up to cat c series, I can see it happening this year!
With the amount of hours you have, I think you're absolutely right with your mixture, you'll get much more out of high intensity riding and sweetspot as opposed to 80% of your time in z2. Great video dude.
One advantage of the UK Benji is our evening time trial scene during the sunmer. I guarantee you have a club running a weekly 10 mile TT near you. It's a great way to test yourself throughout the year and the road bike category is probably more popular than the TT bike one now, so no equipment issues
Benji you should try one of the weekly BMTR 100 mile group rides. (Every Saturday) Did my first one at the very end of last year and although it was hard, the community that shows up to ride the event is amazing and really helped push me to the finish. Not to mention the coffee stops were also a life saver to take mini breaks off the bike. Could be a fun video as well!
Hey Benji, totally agree with you that with indoor cycling the most important factor is that you’re having fun. I wouldn’t worry too much about 80/20 polarised training but do watch out for signs of overtraining. You’ve got some good short interval power output. If you can sustain higher 2-5 min power, you will do much better at these races towards the finish. Perhaps weekly threshold/VO2 intervals may help where you’re doing 2-5 minute intervals. Anyway continue to have fun! 😊
Absolute legend, you're doing great mate. Very relatable content for the everyday cyclist. Kms are Kms and as long as you're having fun and improving ignore the keyboard warriors and pseudo experts. First and foremost cycling should be fun.
I just got a smart trainer for Christmas and have been loving Zwift. I agree that variety is so important and at our level (I'm also level D) it is about having fun so you do it regularly.
Good to see you racing shorter flat(ish) races. Stick to these types of races and you'll be finishing with the front in no time. I race B grade and have won a few of these Flat is Fast stage races lately. It's been a fun series!!
I've done a couple of the endurance races with you and they're hard. Trying to hang on to essentially Cat C racers (2.9wkg) is pushing yourself to breaking point. I'm a good Cat D racer (was a Cat C) but I can only hold on to the lead group on the flats. I'm much better in proper Cat D races up to 1 hour long. Good luck Benji and please stop quitting races. Finish the race regardless of your position.
no matter where you end up in a race, or get dropped , or explode or whatever... never forget, the LEAST thing you always get is a huge healht benefit! as Sly Stallone uses to say: keep punchin' 👊
I know what you mean, Benji, about cycling outside. I stopped riding outdoors a few years ago. Then I found Zwift and now do 100% of my riding indoors. After I recover from surgery, my intention is rack at least 3000 km by the end of the year.
Love seeing you do this! Drop to am easier gear or two and spin at 90+ rpm. I found that out recently, it helps so much with the muscular fatigue on the legs. 90+ on flats and 80-85+ on hills
Cadens is getting better and you’re getting more comfortable at heart rate treshold. Hopefully that motivates you to ride more frequent this year! We’d love to see your progress!
You should explore group rides, club 10 TTs, or some of the crits on Moto tracks that are popular over there! Lots of ways to explore using the indoor fitness you're getting in a safe environment. Would be keen to watch any IRL cycling adventures you get up to this summer. Also I'd ignore all the z2 chatter, I doubt you do enough volume to make the 80/20 thing make sense. Just have fun riding your bike, and do more endurance rides/less intensity if you feel like you're too fatigued all the time and burning out.
Yes indoor is so hard to do long rides. I live in Michigan in US and we have 18in or snow right now haha. I tried fatbike riding but just don't enjoy it enough. I been doing a number of the climb portal rides, the fitness jumpstart workouts, and zone 2 riding.
The weekly ZRacing is a perfect way to get used to bigger groups and the pace needed. You will improve rapidly and will learn much quicker than an easy victory in a micky mouse race with 4 riders. And the format is great with 15 races a day and a week to complete the route for that week. and ps. the 1710, 1810, 1910 UK Time are usually the fastest ones. Remember that.
Love the content Benji. Keep at it and I am sure you will see massive improvements this year. I don't think the goal of winning a competitive race with 100+ riders is very realistic however. D, C and B category races are all dominated by a few riders who (deliberately) manage to stay within the category enforcement but ride top end results every single race (you can easily check on zwiftpower). Because you are probably not worried about the category enforcement rules you will be promoted to the next category long before you have a realistic shot of winning competitive D category races I am afraid. Don't let that stop you though!
Goe bezig Benji! 😅 I like Zwift races as well, it gives me a good way to do Zone 4/5 intervals in a fun way. But I think doing one every day is too much, your legs havent recovered from the day before. Rest is required to make you stronger. I will try and participate in a race with you one of these weeks.
Another banger of a video Benji!! 2024 is the year that you'll win a competitive zwift race, everyone can see you improving💹. If you keep the dedication up this year, you'll maybe even make it to cat C🚀!!
Hi Benji, thanks for your videos! Could you tell us which programs/workouts you have been following since the beginning and the way you handle your Zwift goals? To clarify, I would love to know what you do when you ride your home trainer: do you have an already established plan, with chosen workouts and an end goal or is it less planned? As a beginner on Zwift I find it super helpful to have goals and a precise schedule leading to them. Thanks!
I’ve gone from a w/kg of 1.46 to 1.76 thanks to working with a sports dietitian to dial in my nutrition for performance and recovery and doing 4 week training blocks of 2 days of intensity and 1 long endurance ride, filling in shorter endurance rides in between at around 7 hours a week. I am shocked by how much the endurance work has made huge impacts to my fitness. I plan to work up to 9 hours a week by bumping up the long ride to 3 hours and bumping up the duration of the shorter endurance rides as well.
Its great to see you back on the Bike again Benji. I got all my money on you dropping a certain someone in the belgian crosswinds later this year. :D For the Z2 Rides. I think you could get creative there and kill two birds with one stone. If you would stream your trainingride, answer questions and talk to your audience, then you would get content and base training in one go. Or you play pcm and ride an extra hour for every thirsty rider on your team :D
I don’t know what bike you have in Zwift but with 2.8M drops you probably haven’t bought many things. At your level the felt AR and zipp 808 wheels are your best combo for flats and the Scott addict rn is the best all around frame in the game if you have a mixed route.
indoor trainers especially in erg mode or following a workout is so much more efficient for endurance therefore a 90 minute indoor ride is roughly equal to 2-2hr 15min. my coaches notes are always 80 percent for indoor endurance rides vs outdoor endurance rides. there is just way less downtime on the trainer you are always pedaling.
Benji - your race coverage is great. Think of races as a vo2 max workouts to combine with your zone 2 workouts for overall fitness. Hope to see you in a category D race soon - and I suggest you not follow my wheel for the final sprint.
Hi Benji! I’ve signed up, what cat you in ? I’m racing in the e cat. Good luck and have fun. You ride how you want to and whatever makes you feel better 💪🏻👍🏻
Just ride as much as you can, don't give a shit about zone two, lactate threshold, etc. just do what you enjoy and gradually you can start adding in structure once you feel you are ready for it
You back to backing these races Benji? I wonder if you're just carrying too much fatigue into each race if that's the case? Consider trying a polarised training plan where you're doing a shit load more zone 2 type work, and then maybe 2 harder rides in your week MAXIMUM. Plenty of stuff out there on this training style, for me personally it's paid dividends.
You could do content with z2 rides 90 Minutes and talk about something or tell a story or sth. You could use the Time for content aswell :) just a suggestion :)
aslong you improve, there is no point to stop what you do right now. There are stilll a lot of newbie gains you can make . if you dont progesss, than do more GA1/strukture
Awesome! Keep going, as you know, you will only get better and better the more you ride! Keep it up - if nothing else, it is good to see the suffering!
You're making progress and still have plenty of headroom! It's possible to work as a team in Zwift, but with enough race practice you'll also be able to better predict and use others' behaviours. For example letting someone else try to hold a gap, then closing it explosively as soon as he takes the foot off the gas means he probably won't be able to follow and you've got one less competitor.
Give yourself time to recover between races no good racing every day and there are a lot of riders in the race that are above the limit of 2.4 wkg I am sure having watched their power output
I don´t know if you already do it, but eating a caffeine + sugar gel before or during the race may help you a lot with the performance and the effort you are able to sustain. These are short efforts but nutrition is still makes a huge difference.
Benji great jobs! I am not on Zwift and I have just had rotator cuff surgery so am off the bike for the foreseeable future. 🥲 at least I can watch you!
