Saturday Morning Zwift Ride Report, 2/12/22

By Michael Bello
Published 02/12/2022; Updated 02/12/2022

For a very warm February day, we had seven riders (Dusty, Henry, Kathryn, Melissa, Tim, Zinj, and me) opt to ride inside this morning. It was less muddy and our bikes remained relatively clean.

The majority of us rode the Big Foot Hills in Watopia. This route covers Fuego Flats Sprint, the Titans Grove KOM, the Zwift KOM, the Volcano KOM, the Titans Grove Reverse KOM, and the Zwift Reverse KOM. These was certainly enough challenges to keep us all occupied!

Dusty joined us on Discord. He was doing the Z Badge Hunt – The Mega Pretzel ride with 124 other riders. That said, he got dropped by the lead group and was doing a solo effort for most of the day. He covered the 69 miles with 5,451 feet of climbing in an impressive 3 hours and 57 minutes!

Melissa was also on a badge hunt. She wanted to complete all the routes on Makuri Island. She completed Kappa Quest, Kappa Quest Reverse, Spirit Forest, and Valley to Mountaintop.

Zinj shared his experience traveling across the state in the new electronic car. He stopped at the dealership in Auburn for a 20 minute charge so he could make it home on Thursday. Our car discussion continued with carseats. I’m very jealous of Melissa. She has removed the last booster seat from her vehicle. This led to a conversation about bike racks. Zinj is considering a hitch rack. I have a roof rack, while Tim fits his bike into his sedan by folding the seats down.

Dusty revealed the origins of his Sugarhound and R O’Botron monikers. He did not offer any insight into whether “Dusty” is in fact his true name. We also got a report on his sugar free and dry January.

We had three animals join us briefly. Zinj’s new cat made an appearance, followed by Melissa’s two hamsters. One of the hamsters was named Dusty, which we could only assume was in honor of our fellow rider.

Henry stated that he planned to ride the Alpe du Zwift this evening. He wondered if any of would like to join him. After questioning why on earth he intended to do another big ride twelve hours after the current ride, he said he simply needed to get energy out.

On the topic of television, I mentioned I finished The Witcher. Zinj encouraged us to play the video game. I joked that Henry Cavill’s character should have a show with the Roy Kent character from Ted Lasso since they both speak in a very distinctive grunting voice. Somehow, no one in the group had seen Ted Lasso! I was very disappointed in our riders today.

Zinj revealed that he does not enjoy rewatching movies he has already seen. His only exception to this rule is for Christmas films. I was obligated to ask if Die Hard is a Christmas movie (for the record it is), but Zinj had never seen it! That said, the group was surprised that I have never seen Jaws (not a Christmas movie).

Tim recommended a GCN video that chronicled a presenter’s quest to ride all the roads in Zwift in one ride.

Towards the latter half of the ride, energy was waning. Zinj was going to leave at the 30 mile mark. We convinced him to stay to earn the route achievement since the rest of the ride was flat. About five miles later he realized that we bent the truth a bit with the declaration that the rest of the route was flat. He also remembered that he joined us late as always and may not even be eligible for the route achievement.

Henry and Zinj earned the Big Hills route achievement, which doubled their XP points for the ride. This helped Henry complete level 17 and provided his avatar with the Classy Kit Pack.

In total we rode 43.5 miles with 2,344 feet of climbing. It took us 2 hours and 23 minutes to cross the finish line.

Here is the NCC Zwift schedule: