Week 4 Results: NCC Zwift Winter Road Race Series, 1/27/22

By Jonathan O'Keeffe
Published 01/27/2022; Updated 01/27/2022

There was some grumbling about the five climbs in last week’s race, so this week we scheduled a visit to Richmond with six climbs over two laps of the UCI Worlds course. The floggings will continue until morale improves.

We had all the NCC racers up front for the flat first half of the first lap, before things exploded the first time up Libby Hill. A bunch of people escaped off the front and I have no idea how their races played out (Jay eventually ended up fifth). Back in my chase group, we had Patrick, Dusty, and Zinj, and we settled into a reasonable pace for the beginning of the second lap, until things once again went nuclear up Libby. Zinj and I clung to the remnants of our chase group up and over 23rd St before Zinj forcefully dropped me on the final Governer’s climb to take 13th overall and 2nd in the NCC field. He attributes this to his luck in getting like seven feather powerups in a row in a six-climb race; I’m inclined to think he somehow has his finger on the RNG scale and is just getting feathers every single time.

My oxygen-starved brain had trouble following what was playing out further back in the field, but there were a lot of red faces and muffled curses as the rest of the riders approached the finish line. Melissa (first overall woman finisher) and Tim were, as usual, battling for position within their group, while Henry may or may not have been fighting to keep down a chicken-wing and milkshake dinner consumed right before he approached the starting line.

Tonight’s results:

  1. Jay Gump (A) – 5 of 163 – 97.5 points
  2. Zinj Guo (B) – 13 of 163 – 97.3 points
  3. Jonathan O’Keeffe (B) – 14 of 163 – 96.6 points
  4. Melissa Warwick (B) – 40 of 163 – 95.9 points
  5. Henry Weis (B) – 22 of 163 – 91.5 points
  6. Patrick Ryan (B) – 24 of 163 – 90.2 points
  7. Dusty King (B) – 25 of 163 – 89.5 points
  8. Tim Downey (B) – 34 of 163 – 83.7 points
  9. Michael Bello (C) – 79 of 163 – 67.8 points

Overall series standings:

  1. Jonathan O’Keeffe (4 races) – 375.1 points
  2. Tim Downey (4 races) – 367.1 points
  3. Dusty King (4 races) – 350.2 points
  4. Melissa Warwick (4 races) – 313.5 points
  5. Zinj Guo (3 races) – 278.4 points
  6. Michael Bello (3 races) – 198.7 points
  7. Jay Gump (2 races) – 197.0 points
  8. Henry Weis (2 races) – 173.4 points
  9. Henry van den Broek (2 races) – 127.2 points
  10. Patrick Ryan (2 races) – 98.9 points
  11. Charlie Bailey (2 races) – 97.4 points

Here is the NCC Zwift schedule:

  • Tuesday 6:00 PM – Time Trial / Hill Climb (invite required)
  • Wednesday 8:00 PM – Social Ride (invite required)
  • Thursday Evenings – Road Race (times will vary between 5 PM and 7 PM EST)
  • Sat 9:00 AM – Social Ride (invite required)

Join the NCC Club on Zwift or select the link in the discussion board/calendar for invite-only rides.

Check the NCC calendar for full details on all events. To learn more about the NCC and Zwift rides, please visit our Zwift page.