Ooh What a Grey Day!

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iPhone 14 Pro Max, 24 mm, ISO 80, 3.0s@f1.78

App: Spectre

Last weekend we were headed to the South Coast to attend a Christmas party being thrown by wife’s most favourite band in the world, Archive. I wasn’t feeling particularly good so was sat in the passenger seat whilst the wife acted as chauffeur. As I was sat there feeling a bit meh and watching the world go by as we were travelling along the M4 it struck me how incredibly grey and dull everything outside seemed. I’ve used the Spectre app for quite a while and in the right scenarios I think it produces some great results. I pressed the phone’s lens up against the window and selected a three second exposure in the app. I then cropped from portrait to square and that’s it. A vague greenness is visible at the bottom but otherwise this looks like a monochrome image. Sadly it’s not – the world really was that grey. well just outside Reading on the M4 it was, anyway…

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Zwift Tour of Watopia Fall 2024 | Stage 4

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Zwift’s 2024 Tour of Watopia continued with Stage 4. The Standard Ride was Mayan 8 which was a new one for me. The elevation was only 241 metres but it turned out it was condensed into a fairly short section of 6 – 7 km which meant it was quite hard gong at times. Then the descent was a long incredibly straight drop when I hit a max speed on 82.6 kph. At some point I must repeat that route as I reckon with a good effort I could maybe break the 100 kph barrier.

RouteMayan 8 in Watopia
Distance26,1 km
Time49:11
Elevation255 m
Average Power243 W
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Zwift Tour of Watopia Fall 2024 | Stage 3

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The Standard Ride for Stage 3 of Zwift’s 2024 Tour of Watopia is Sand and Sequoias. This is one of my favourite routes as the section on either side of the hill is great fun when using Wahoo’s KICKR Climb. Oh and it has dinosaurs. Having ridden this route a few times previously I was pretty confident I would hold pace. I did, until about the last few km when I really started to struggle. Still I levelled up to Level 37 and armed the Tour of Watopia ’24 Bikepacker Cap (sponsored by Cactus Cafe and Hank’s Oil and Gas apparently). Woo!

RouteSand and Sequoias in Watopia
Distance22.5 km
Time40:08
Elevation181 m
Average Power237 W
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Zwift Tour of Watopia Fall 2024 | Stage 2

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Based on last week’s levels of exertion I decided to stick with the Standard Ride for Stage 2 of Zwift’s 2024 Tour of Watopia. This meant the route was Serpentine 8 which was actually ridden on a mountain bike. This was the first time I’d ridden one of these on Zwift and on the gravel surface it actually made a difference. It’s not a route I enjoy but I stuck with it and even got to use the steamroller power up in anger.

One thing I noticed from last week’s ride is the improvement in graphics in the current version of the app. I run Zwift on an Apple TV 4K, but it’s hooked up to a 1080p screen so I don’t get the full effect. Even so the graphics were very impressive. This week’s ride had massive amounts of dust coming from the rider in front during the gravel sections.

RouteSerpentine 8 in Watopia
Distance26.7 km
Time52:48
Elevation241 m
Average Power234 W
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Zwift Tour of Watopia Fall 2024 | Stage 1

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So for the first time in two months I got on the bike in order to take part on Zwift’s 2024 Tour of Watopia event. Normally I would have signed up for the Long Ride but given how I was feeling and the long pause between regular rides I knew my fitness level wasn’t up to it. In addition to that I had only returned from holiday the previous day and had endured 16-hour overnight flight without sleep. So, Standard Ride for me on Stage 1 of the Tour meant the Figure 8 route.

The lengths of the Long and Standard rides were the same but the elevation was 682 m versus 234 m. It turned out it was the right decision – I was dying well before the end of the 30 km and especially on the reverse climb over the hill around the 21 km mark. Still it got done and it felt great to have achieved it. As a bonus I unlocked the Tour of Watopia ’24 Cycling Shoes. Woo!

RouteFigure 8 in Watopia
Distance29.8 km
Time1:15:20
Elevation254 m
Average Power123 W