For this year's winter Zwift season on Thursday nights, we are participating in the WTRL Team Time Trial. This is one of the largest racing series on Zwift, with hundreds of teams competing every week, on a variety of courses.

Teams consist of between three and eight riders, and can be mixed-gender, with mixed ability levels. We can enter multiple teams if we have more than eight riders interested in participating in a given week. All riders on the team ride together, alternating pulls, with a goal of achieving the fastest possible time. Races are on Thursday nights, and usually last between 30 and 45 minutes.

This week's race will be on Thursday December 4 at 6:28 PM Eastern. The race is 3 laps of the Innsbruckring course in Innsbruck, for about 17 miles total. The sign-up link is here. (https://www.wtrl.racing/RacePass/Z0VmSWgweC9ReWFwOHZ0QmN1ZGJhaktuM1FUYkNOeTVhc1d6ZTZNNitlUT0=)

To participate, you need to take the one-time step of creating a free account at WTRL (https://www.wtrl.racing/ttt-home/). Once your account is set up, follow the link above to register for this week's event. Then you just show up in Zwift and enter the event as usual, and you will be placed on the starting line with other riders on the team. We use Discord for voice communication during the race, which is super-important in a TTT to coordinate pulls and race strategy. You can access our Discord channel here (https://is.gd/nccdiscord).

If you have any questions about participating, feel free to post here or email me at jonathan.okeeffe@gmail.com.

Quick update on tonight's Zwift team time trial effort. Shawn, Melissa and I travelled to New York to take on the new Green to Screen route from Brooklyn to Times Square and back, through subway tunnels and back and forth across the Manhattan and Brooklyn bridges. The subways were a particular challenge, with the escalators at the exits shooting Melissa up rapidly while Shawn and I struggled to keep up. But we made it work, and despite having only three riders, turned in a solid time of 42:15, good for a 55th place finish in our division out of a total of 193 teams, and finished with the fastest time of any of the three-person teams.

Next week is Thanksgiving, so we'll take that Thursday night off from racing, and resume on December 4. Please come and join us if you're looking for some Thursday night racing action!

For this year's winter Zwift season on Thursday nights, we are participating in the WTRL Team Time Trial. This is one of the largest racing series on Zwift, with hundreds of teams competing every week, on a variety of courses.

Teams consist of between three and eight riders, and can be mixed-gender, with mixed ability levels. We can enter multiple teams if we have more than eight riders interested in participating in a given week. All riders on the team ride together, alternating pulls, with a goal of achieving the fastest possible time. Races are on Thursday nights, and usually last between 30 and 45 minutes.

This week's race will be on Thursday November 20 at 6:15PM Eastern, with one lap of the "Green to Screen" course in New York. This is an 18-mile loop that hits most of the newly-released roads in New York, starting in Prospect Park in Brooklyn, and including some small climbs over the Manhattan and Brooklyn bridges. The sign-up link is here. (https://www.wtrl.racing/RacePass/UCsrMU5MWlFvWE8rSTZtNnd1YVRad0VYTlp6RGtxeXd3V3diUnF0Sm5hVT0=)

To participate, you need to take the one-time step of creating a free account at WTRL (https://www.wtrl.racing/ttt-home/). Once your account is set up, follow the link above to register for this week's event. Then you just show up in Zwift and enter the event as usual, and you will be placed on the starting line with other riders on the team. We use Discord for voice communication during the race, which is super-important in a TTT to coordinate pulls and race strategy. You can access our Discord channel here (https://is.gd/nccdiscord).

If you have any questions about participating, feel free to post here or email me at jonathan.okeeffe@gmail.com.

Tonight's team time trial took us to Watopia for four laps of the Two Bridges Loop, about 18 miles total, with a short sharp climb on each lap. We were hoping to field four riders, but Michael has been plagued by internet outages for the last couple of days and couldn't make it, so it was just Melissa, Shawn, and me at the starting line.

Our plan was to target 3.7 w/kg for our pulls, and we started out very close to that pace, turning in our fastest lap of the day on our first lap at 10:44. It turned out this wasn't quite sustainable, though, so we backed off at the end of the first lap, looking for something more like 3.5 w/kg. We settled into that pace quite nicely, turning out very consistent times of 11:00, 11:06, and 11:02 on our subsequent laps.

With only three riders on our team, we had to bring everyone to the finish line together, and we worked well at the end with a strong push over the last kilometer, finishing in a group within 0.1 sec of each other, with a final time of 44:25. We were all pretty spent at the end, so I think that counts as a good effort. The final results confirmed that, with a finishing place of 58th out of 175 teams in our division, putting us in the top third, and behind only two other three-person teams.

We'll be racing again next Thursday, and we're always looking for new team members, so come out and join us!

For this year's winter Zwift season on Thursday nights, we are participating in the WTRL Team Time Trial. This is one of the largest racing series on Zwift, with hundreds of teams competing every week, on a variety of courses.

Teams consist of between three and eight riders, and can be mixed-gender, with mixed ability levels. We can enter multiple teams if we have more than eight riders interested in participating in a given week. All riders on the team ride together, alternating pulls, with a goal of achieving the fastest possible time. Races are on Thursday nights, and usually last between 30 and 45 minutes.

This week's race will be on Thursday November 13 at 7:00PM Eastern, with four laps on the Two Bridges Loop course in Watopia. This is a short loop with a pretty legit little climb in each lap. The four laps will total about 18 miles. The sign-up link is here. (https://www.wtrl.racing/RacePass/L3pZcVorTjA2akRtR05CUWpvclgvRm10aklSaGhXU0VSUThma1BGeWsvVT0=)

To participate, you need to take the one-time step of creating a free account at WTRL (https://www.wtrl.racing/ttt-home/). Once your account is set up, follow the link above to register for this week's event. Then you just show up in Zwift and enter the event as usual, and you will be placed on the starting line with other riders on the team. We use Discord for voice communication during the race, which is super-important in a TTT to coordinate pulls and race strategy. You can access our Discord channel here (https://is.gd/nccdiscord).

If you have any questions about participating, feel free to post here or email me at jonathan.okeeffe@gmail.com.

The third week of our winter Zwift Team Time Trial series had us taking on two laps of the Flatland Loop in the Makuri Islands. Despite the name, this loop is not exactly flat, featuring a long draggy climb each lap followed by a steepish, high-speed descent.

The NCC brought four riders to the start line -- Carson, Melissa, Shawn, and me. We were very evenly-matched -- the pre-ride w/kg chart showed all of us within a couple of percentage points of each other. But it's really hard to build a race plan that factors in the raw watts from the big guys like me on the flats, along with the climbing ability of the skinny folks like Melissa and Carson. And to keep track of all of this on the fly. We could really use some more pre-ride analysis (talking to you Shawn) and definitely a DS (Dusty? Zinj? Any of our bunch of Henries?)

We all rode hard on course. It felt like everyone had a moment or two of "Am I the one who is holding the team back?"  Which is really the essence of what makes the the TTT experience so great. The teamwork element makes everyone push harder.

As of this writing, we are sitting at 33rd in our category out of a total of 182 teams, which is by far our best result of the year, so huge props to everyone who participated. We'll be doing this event throughout the winter, so please keep an eye on our calendar; the more riders we can get, the better!

For this year's winter Zwift season on Thursday nights, we are participating in the WTRL Team Time Trial. This is one of the largest racing series on Zwift, with hundreds of teams competing every week, on a variety of courses.

Teams consist of between three and eight riders, and can be mixed-gender, with mixed ability levels. We can enter multiple teams if we have more than eight riders interested in participating in a given week. All riders on the team ride together, alternating pulls, with a goal of achieving the fastest possible time. Races are on Thursday nights, and usually last between 30 and 45 minutes.

This week's race will be on Thursday November 6 at 6:00PM Eastern, with two laps on the Flatland Loop course in Yumezi. This is a mostly-flat course with a long gentle climb each lap. The two laps will total about 16 miles. The sign-up link is here. (https://www.wtrl.racing/RacePass/aUdYdjRsSHdQcjJSQ09TVmFrNVFJbEltVm1uUEV6WFkzck5uVk1jcHJOaz0=)

To participate, you need to take the one-time step of creating a free account at WTRL (https://www.wtrl.racing/ttt-home/). Once your account is set up, follow the link above to register for this week's event. Then you just show up in Zwift and enter the event as usual, and you will be placed on the starting line with other riders on the team. We use Discord for voice communication during the race, which is super-important in a TTT to coordinate pulls and race strategy. You can access our Discord channel here (https://is.gd/nccdiscord).

If you have any questions about participating, feel free to post here or email me at jonathan.okeeffe@gmail.com.

We had five riders for tonight's NCC Team Time Trial -- Melissa, Carson, Shawn, Bill and I tackled the Watopia's Waistband route, a flat 16-mile loop around the outer perimeter of Watopia.

Bill had some technological challenges at the start -- he got on our team Discord chat, but his mic didn't work, so he could hear us but we couldn't hear him. We managed to work through that though, and our pulls went smoothly in the early going despite the communications challenges. The tech gremlins struck again though about six miles in, when Bill's power suddenly went to zero. Not sure whether this was a network outage or a trainer issue (since we couldn't hear him), but we decided to forge ahead without him.

With five starters, the fourth person over the line is the time that counts, so once we lost Bill, we couldn't spare anyone else. Melissa started to creep into the red zone about two-thirds of the way through, so she sat in the rest of the way while Carson, Shawn and I traded pulls. Everyone put in big efforts on their final pulls, and Melissa managed to hang on, and we finished together with a time of 40:25. Results are still trickling in from the west coast as I write this, but currently we are placed 68th of 180 in our category, which I think is pretty respectable given that we did most of the race with only four riders.

We'll be racing again next Thursday night, I'll post the sign-up link once it becomes available during the day on Friday.

This time of year I get burnt out doing the same(ish) routes to the hill towns or up and down the river valley.  As I did last year about this time, I posted a meetup in Belchertown to ride around the Quabbin.  This would be my 14th traverse of the Quabbin.

I also thought it is cool to traverse reservoirs back to back weekends!

Seven riders (including me) met at Stop and Shop around 10 AM. In my opinion it was "cool" but not "cold". (50F) Other riders may beg to differ.  A summer bib, summer jersey, full leg and arm warmers, plus a vest nailed it for me all day.  I was comfortable at all times.

There is not much avoiding climbing or traffic on this route. Once we got out to Rte 202, I may have set a brisk pace to warm up! We had a pair of three of very strong riders in the group (OK, they deserve recognition)- Frank, Madeline, and Brent-- whom quickly surged ahead.

We regrouped at the Salem Store for some hydration and a quick break.

After a bit more busy traffic on Rte 202, the turn onto Rte 122 was welcome.  It was a bit quieter, but does have more climbing. I had to take a moment to reel in the strong riders so we could continue as a group.

The turn to Rte 32A has some pretty views going down for a while, but climbing into Hardwick lives up to the town's name.

We stopped at Mimi's at the town common for another refreshment.

Greenwich Rd is mostly a pleasure. Curvy descents with a view and little traffic.  Mostly, as there was a PITA climb in there too, reminding us we are not done.

The "home stretch" in Ware, on Rte 9 reminded me that this ride is hard.  The climb up out of Ware is always a kick.

We turned into Quabbin park, but took a detour over the  Goodnough Dike, thanks to Michael B's suggestion. I had never been over this. It is a nice quiet loop that adds only 1.5 miles and 142' of climbing. I really enjoyed the views here and it will be added to my future Quabbbin routes!

Group photo at Goodnough Dike, PC: Michael Bello

Beautiful perspective, PC: Michael Bello

Our detour put us back out to the "main" road, leading to the "roundabout" and then the punishing climb to the tower.  The views were epic, as usual!

We made our way back to Belchertown via the Windsor Dam (pretty cool to ride over both dams/dikes that hold back the Quabbin, in one ride??).

Our strong riders took the brunt (thanks!) of the head winds that decided to pick up, on Rte 9 back to Stop and Shop.

I had 64.34 miles, 4980' climbing , 15.8 MPH average, and 4:04 moving time when we entered the parking lot just shy of 3 PM.  Great ride, great crew.  Everyone worked hard on this ride but a shout-out to Brent for his first traverse of the Quabbin, and to Michael B, this being his second traverse of the Quabbin in a matter of three weeks.

For this year's winter Zwift season on Thursday nights, we are trying a new format, and participating in the WTRL Team Time Trial. This is one of the largest racing series on Zwift, with hundreds of teams competing every week, on a variety of courses.

Teams consist of between three and eight riders, and can be mixed-gender, with mixed ability levels. We can enter multiple teams if we have more than eight riders interested in participating in a given week. All riders on the team ride together, alternating pulls, with a goal of achieving the fastest possible time. Races are on Thursday nights, and usually last between 30 and 45 minutes.

To participate, you need to take the one-time step of creating a free account at WTRL. Once your account is set up, there will be a sign-up link posted each week, which you will click in order to register for that week's event. Then you just show up in Zwift and enter the event as usual, and you will be placed on the starting line with other riders on the team. We use Discord for voice communication during the race, which is super-important in a TTT to coordinate pulls and race strategy. You can access our Discord channel here (https://ishttps://www.wtrl.racing/RacePass/Y3JKL2FWSGtmZmJTb0lOYzdtaHN0aXZoZVczSTJZU1lDbEFsc3ZkMFBrdz0=.gd/nccdiscord).

This week's race will be on Thursday October 30 at 6:10PM Eastern, on the Watopia's Waistband course in Watopia. This is a mostly-flat 17-mile course around the outer rim of Watopia. The sign-up link is here. (https://www.wtrl.racing/RacePass/Y3JKL2FWSGtmZmJTb0lOYzdtaHN0aXZoZVczSTJZU1lDbEFsc3ZkMFBrdz0=)

If you have any questions about participating, feel free to post here or email me at jonathan.okeeffe@gmail.com.