Week 7 Results: NCC Zwift Winter Hill Climb/Time Trial, 2/15/22

By Michael Bello
Published 02/15/2022; Updated 02/15/2022

For the seventh week of the NCC Zwift Winter Hill Climb/Time Trial Series, we visited London.

This week, our challenge was the Leith Hill. This 1.2 mile hill averages a gradient of 7% and includes 440 feet of climbing.

I knew it was going to be a wild hill climb when with three minutes before the group ride start time of 6 PM, Henry Weis said, “Is the Greatest London Flat the correct route?” Somehow when setting the ride up many weeks ago, I went too fast and chose the wrong Greater/Greatest route. There are only five similarly named routes (Greater London 8, Greater London Flat, Greater London Loop, Greatest London Flat, and Greatest London Loop)!

It was too late to change the route with the current event, so I set up a new event for 6:05 PM and then the chaos started. Picture driving a car with 12 backseat drivers. Most of us eventually made it to the new group event. Dusty and Ben were in their own separate meet ups, but we all got riding. I apologize to Dusty since he most likely would have benefited from the draft. Therefore, as the event organizer, I’m awarding him an extra 0.5 points. Ben won tonight’s hill climb by 25 seconds, so riding solo was not a big deal for him.

Not only did Ben dominate the hill climb today, he also set a new NCC KOM for Leith Hill. To save myself a lot of typing, the only three riders who did not have PRs today were Melissa (NCC QOM holder for Leith Hill), Kathryn, and me.

Andrew and Zinj had identical Strava times, so they will share the points for 4th place.

Henry Weis, who held a one point lead in the series standings, made a significant move with a second place finish. He now holds a 7.5 point advantage with four weeks to go.

During our cooldown, we learned about Charlie’s recent go-carting experience, Henry vdB’s fat biking to a waterfall, and that Melissa is the self-proclaimed “Goddess” of parallel parking.

Here are today’s results:

1. Weinberg, Ben; Time: 0:04:55*; 14.8 mph; 18 points
2. Weis, Henry; Time: 0:05:20*; 13.7 mph; 17 points
3. Ryan, Patrick; Time: 0:05:43*; 12.7 mph; 16 points
4. Guo, Zinj; Time: 0:05:51*; 12.4 mph; 14.5 points
4. Pazmany, Andrew; Time: 0:05:51*; 12.4 mph; 14.5 points
6. MacDonald, Andy; Time: 0:05:54*; 12.4 mph; 13 points
7. O’Keeffe, Jonathan; Time: 0:05:55*; 12.3 mph; 12 points
8. King, Dusty; Time: 0:05:58*; 12.2 mph; 11.5 points
9. Downey, Tim; Time: 0:06:04*; 12 mph; 10 points
10. Wheaton, Henry; Time: 0:06:09*; 11.8 mph; 9 points
11. Bailey, Charlie; Time: 0:06:13*; 11.7 mph; 8 points
12. Warwick, Melissa; Time: 0:06:23; 11.4 mph; 7 points
13. van den Broek, Henry; Time: 0:06:24*; 11.4 mph; 6 points
14. Armen, Chris; Time: 0:06:51; 10.6 mph*; 5 points
15. Wilson, Donna; Time: 0:07:36; 9.6 mph*; 4 points
16. Bello, Michael; Time: 0:07:42; 9.5 mph; 3 points
17. Kothe, Kathryn; Time: 0:08:18; 8.8 mph; 2 points
18. Eckman, Mark; Time: 0:08:35*; 8.5 mph; 1 points

*Strava PR

Here are the series standings:

1. Weis, Henry; Event(s) 7; Points: 103
2. King, Dusty; Event(s) 7; Points: 96.5
3. O’Keeffe, Jonathan; Event(s) 7; Points: 95
4. Ryan, Patrick; Event(s) 7; Points: 91
5. Pazmany, Andrew; Event(s) 6; Points: 81.5
6. Guo, Zinj; Event(s) 6; Points: 65
7. Warwick, Melissa; Event(s) 7; Points: 58.5
8. Weinberg, Ben; Event(s) 3; Points: 58
9. Downey, Tim; Event(s) 6; Points: 55
10. MacDonald, Andy; Event(s) 5; Points: 54
11. van den Broek, Henry; Event(s) 7; Points: 46
12. Bailey, Charlie; Event(s) 7; Points: 45
13. Eckman, Mark; Event(s) 6; Points: 35
14. Wheaton, Henry; Event(s) 4; Points: 31
15. Bello, Michael; Event(s) 7; Points: 22
16. Krause, Ross; Event(s) 1; Points: 13
16. Cunniffe, Lauren; Event(s) 3; Points: 13
18. Clarke, Jeb; Event(s) 2; Points: 10
19. Wilson, Donna; Event(s) 3; Points: 8
20. Krause, Ashley; Event(s) 3; Points: 7
21. Page, Zachariah; Event(s) 1; Points: 5
21. Armen, Chris; Event(s) 1; Points: 5
23. Kothe, Kathryn; Event(s) 2; Points: 4
23. Goodwin, David; Event(s) 1; Points: 4
25. Fentin, Gary; Event(s) 2; Points: 3
26. Streeter, Keith; Event(s) 2; Points: 2
27. Tauscher, Julianne ; Event(s) 1; Points: 1

Next week, we will do a time trial on the Richmond UCI Worlds course from 2015.

Participants in the Hill Climb/TT series may ride any time during the day or participate in the group ride version at 6:00 PM. Please visit the NCC Zwift page for the series rules.

Here is the NCC Zwift schedule: