"Tour of Flanders" 2020 lockdown edition

[ppanther92]

Is there any advantage in drafting in this simulation?

Yes, there is. At least in Zwift, which is the only software I tried. But I guess they are on a similar level.

All in all the race was good fun and ridden really hard too (https://cyclingtips.com/2020/04/pow...l-tour-of-flanders-was-seriously-hard-racing/). The full result:

 

[spalco]

This was stupid as *** imo. Good fun in a way, admittedly, but still, felt like rubbing in the salt on what we're actually missing out. Like a cocain addict licking up the dust on the carpet in hopes of getting some specks of coke he dropped. I don't think the format has much of a future.

 

[Chris Gadsden]

This was stupid as *** imo. Good fun in a way, admittedly, but still, felt like rubbing in the salt on what we're actually missing out. Like a cocain addict licking up the dust on the carpet in hopes of getting some specks of coke he dropped. I don't think the format has much of a future.

This☝️

 

[Brullnux]

This was stupid as *** imo. Good fun in a way, admittedly, but still, felt like rubbing in the salt on what we're actually missing out. Like a cocain addict licking up the dust on the carpet in hopes of getting some specks of coke he dropped. I don't think the format has much of a future.

There isn't any intention for this to be the future, for obvious reason. It was just a bit of fun to lift the boredom. Stop being so negative about it

 

[Keram]

Yes. They try to make it as real as possible. On steep descents you will speed up to around 70/80 km/h without pedaling.
Zwift races are between a TT and a road race, but it suits more the time trial riders with a good sprint. You have to push more in the bunch then in real life.

Here is the Flanders race from Alpecin-Fenix. The pros couldn't match up the zwift specialists. It was a exciting race by the way. Worth a watch I think

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RAWoaJQmwcs

There are some specialists? I can imagine that formula one trainer specialist can beat real pro but in bike race? How is this even possible?

 

[Logic-is-your-friend]

There are some specialists? I can imagine that formula one trainer specialist can beat real pro but in bike race? How is this even possible?

Those pros might not really have trained a lot on Zwift, or at all. And apparently the race dynamics are completely different from a road race. Having raced dozens or maybe hundreds of virtual races, can give a huge advantage. De Gendt told Van Avermaet that attacking on the flat was kind of pointless given the slipstream advantage. For instance, i'm sure Evenepoel and Bettiol would have managed their race differently had they been informed of that fact. And i'm sure there are a lot of specifics that give experienced Zwift racers a huge advantage over a pro road cyclist. Maybe some of those Zwift riders can pump out the watts, but maybe they have terrible bike posture, positioning and handling skills and could never be a road racer.

A day prior to the RVV race, Evenepoel still thought slipstreaming was not an advantage, while it actually made resistance drop by 40%. Also, how in form are these pros?

EDIT: lol, i mean, there are "invisibility power ups"?? OK.

 

[the delgados]

Highlight of the race was when Matthews abandoned because a baby was wailing on the other side of the room.

 

[Big Doopie]

Maybe some of those Zwift riders can pump out the watts, but maybe they have terrible bike posture, positioning and handling skills and could never be a road racer.

This. I was thinking specifically of Remco -- who could get no advantage of his amazing aero tuck...

It was fun though imo. The again I Zwift regularly and love the platform.

 

[Axel Hangleck]

There are some specialists? I can imagine that formula one trainer specialist can beat real pro but in bike race? How is this even possible?

It's the same as in sim racing; there are dedicated sim racers - and recently there have been many motorsports e-Sports events were full time racers taking on the sim racers - who more often than not beat them.

The bigger picture is these events are getting coverage, and providing a little exposure for sponsors, who of course fund a lot of these sports.

 

[Keram]

It's the same as in sim racing; there are dedicated sim racers - and recently there have been many motorsports e-Sports events were full time racers taking on the sim racers - who more often than not beat them.

The bigger picture is these events are getting coverage, and providing a little exposure for sponsors, who of course fund a lot of these sports.

I understand when somebody is fully trained in motorsport e-sport they can beat real motorsport pros. But this zwifters must pull very high wattage as Logic-is-your-friend suggest in his answer to my post. Still very remarkable to match pro cyclist in this regard. Almost ubelievable to me.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

With the motorsport types, they even had the Nissan GT Academy thing, and some people have gone from sim racing to become pretty reasonable pro racing drivers - Lucas Ordóñez and Jann Mardenborough are two notable examples.

Actually it's probably possible for your 'zwift pros', if they are trained to a pretty good level, to have the ability to put out elite wattage, at least over the shortish period of time that these events are running for (they aren't doing this after five hours already in the saddle as they ordinarily would at de Ronde!). The main thing that separates the motorsports pros from the e-sporters is the same thing that separates the cycling pros from the Zwift types, and that's the mortal fear factor. I know the sim racers out there buy the big VR setups and get the steering wheel displays and everything so they're totally immersed in the world they're in, but you always, always know that you're in no real danger. You could bin it at Eau Rouge, or the Kink at Road America, or the old version of the Peraltada, and in a VR world that might seem scary... but there's no actual impact on the end of it. You can race more aggressively and keep your foot in it longer because while reckless ploughing into another sim racer in an important event might carry social implications, you aren't actually at risk of injury.

And so it is with cycling. One of the most important things about road cycling is that it is a pack sport. You have to learn to ride in groups, going at fast pace along narrow roads with another 100 riders in proximity. That downhill section that, on Zwift, represents a nice breather, might be in real life a stressful, tense experience with the risk of grave injury at every corner if taken badly, and many pro riders will have seen or experienced a friend or colleague dying in such circumstances. Tactics are a major factor, of course, which it is impossible to replicate in a virtual environment. Yes, they do a great job of changing difficulty settings based on wind, gradient, slipstream and so on, but you can't take a turn through your group and actively see something in the expression of your breakmate that tells you something. Even if they're on cam. Mother nature is another difficult to replicate factor. We all know of certain riders favouring certain conditions: Froome excels in cloying, hot conditions. Ian Stannard deals with real cold and heavy wind and rain better than most. Tim Wellens is rejuvenated by bad weather. Quick Step as a team being the kings of the echelons (another thing it's difficult to replicate - team moves can only be done up to a point in a virtual environment).

For another pointer, you could also look at Leah Thorvilson, who won the first Canyon Zwift Academy program, as the best performer of over 1200 participants. She had pretty good sporting pedigree to do so - she's a former marathon runner who qualified for the US Olympic trials in 2012, so she's got the background that would explain her strong power levels sustained over a long time. But in two years as a professional on Canyon-SRAM, a strong women's team, she scored a grand total of 7 CQ points - those for finishing 97th in the Ladies Tour of Norway, which is a WWT race, and 36th in the 2.1 Tour of Belgium. She DNFed over a third of the stage races she entered, and was outside the time limit on the La Course edition that finished on Izoard. After returning to the US to enter domestic cycling last year, shorn of the elite professional support team of Canyon, she struggled to finish races. This isn't to dogpile on Leah, who was clearly an athlete at a high level before she did the Zwift Academy, and was likely put into an environment that she would easily be overawed by - she would invariably have been used as a domestique in a team with the likes of Lisa Brennauer, Kasia Niewiadoma, the Barnes sisters and Pauline Ferrand-Prévot - but it shows the difference between having the power and the ability to transfer it into a professional racing environment with all of the additional factors that are at play.

Or, in another sense: Dave Brailsford's band of merry men took nearly 2 years to get the hang of this road cycling lark, adapting what they already knew and had mastered from the track to the greater number of variables and the vagaries of road cycling. They did it, and have parlayed it into a decade of domination, sure - but the first year was a catalogue of examples of bluster and PR self-aggrandisement going wrong when confronted with situations that were not as easy to control as expected. And that is from an entire set-up of people who were already professionals, excelling to the point of domination in a different area of cycling. It's only reasonable to expect any such Zwift pro to require a lot of adaptation time if they did manage to reach such a level as to turn pro.

 

[BlueRoads]

I don't zwift or rouvy or anything. I can't imagine doing it. But I'm without my lovely muddy bike right now and if my mother's old road race bike is not in good shape maybe I will ask her for her e-bike.
These are extraordinary times. It's not the future. But it's the present.

So, everyone ready for the 2020 Tour de Suisse (Digital Swiss 5)?

 

[Libertine Seguros]

No. We must not allow those sick opportunists Velon to take advantage of a global tragedy like this.

 

[BlueRoads]

No. We must not allow those sick opportunists Velon to take advantage of a global tragedy like this.

I must admit I have long given up high moral thoughts concerning pro sports. Still watching it.

 

[Nirvana]

I don't want to complain because there is no need so bad that is, but I have to say that I find really funny reading people discussing about drafting, descents and various real things referring to what is basically a videogame where some sort of nerds with power ups can smash real pros, I've watched the Alpecin one and was just a delirium with people even becoming invisible to sneak away unnoticed. Something like that should be compared to Super Mario Kart instead of real driving simulators that even if you are seated on the couch at least they follow a dynamic adherent to reality.