Today I did the Rhino Crash Chase Race, which usually has a pretty competitive field for the C riders and I was looking for a Zwift Power gain. There were around 6-7 high ranked riders, and if I got top 5, I would get a Zwift Power score decrease. Since it’s a chase race, the categories have different start times. The C group only had 2 minutes on the B’s, who were caught by A. The A group basically had a full on DS(team car) who was coaching them through the course, telling them when to attack and how they can drop the C and B riders who had joined their group. The C’s did an amazing job working together, but it was not enough to hold off the A’s and B’s. The A’s caught us with around 8 miles to go, and from there on, my strategy was to just pay attention to the chat, and anticipate the attacks that the A riders would be doing. A C rider with a 15 second power of over 13 wpk was still in the group, not good for me since my sprint was not the best. The group of C’s that had caught onto the A’s went from around 15 riders, to 3. In the finishing sprint I had an Aero boost, the best power up in the game. I turned the Aero on early in order to catch the draft on the A’s wheels. The other C riders at that point didn’t really have anything left in the tank. Getting caught benefited me because I have a high wpk, and a pretty bad sprint.
In the end, I had a Zwift Power score of 258 for the race. I got a gain of 6.22 points. This was by far one of the best races I’ve had, since the few C races that I have won have been against a small or not very competitive field.