Week 2 Results: NCC Zwift Winter Road Race Series, 1/12/23

By Jonathan O'Keeffe
Published 01/12/2023; Updated 01/12/2023

Tonight’s race took us back to Yorkshire, a venue that we had just visited on Tuesday night, for Stage 1 of the Tour de Zwift, two laps of the Tewit Well route. This route is the hilly portion of the UCI circuit, run in reverse, featuring four significant climbs per lap.

The first big climb comes less than a minute into the race, and it instantly shattered the field of about 140 starters. Dusty, Tim, Melissa, Zinj, Henry, and I held on to the front group of about three dozen over the top, while Tim and Chris fell back into chase groups. By the end of the first lap, several riders were off the front of our group, and a few others had fallen off the back, leaving us with about 20 heading up the first big climb of the second lap. I barely hung on for that climb, and then got dropped hard on the second climb. After that it was a solo TT effort the rest of the way, watching the main group ride away, and trying to stay in front of Melissa and Tim’s chase group coming up hard from behind.

Zinj and Henry managed to stay with the lead group all the way to the end, with Zinj uncorking an impressive sprint that placed him just off the podium in fourth place. Henry also managed a top-ten finish, coming in eighth. The top tier of our points ranking, however, goes to Melissa, who finished 16th overall and was the top female finisher among the 13 women in our race, racking up an impressive 109.8 points for the day — congratulations! With two strong races under his belt, Tim moves into the overall series lead, just ahead of Dusty and Zinj.

Results for Week Two:

  1. Melissa Warwick (B) – 16 of 117 – 109.8 points
  2. Tim Downey (C) – 23 of 117 – 105.6 points
  3. Zinj Guo (B) – 4 of 117 – 102.3 points
  4. Henry van den Broek (B) – 8 of 117 – 98.7 points
  5. Dusty King (B) – 11 of 117 – 96.0 points
  6. Jonathan O’Keeffe (B) – 12 of 117 – 95.1 points
  7. Chris Stratton (D) – 80 of 117 – 48.7 points

Overall Series Standings After Week Two:

  1. Tim Downey (2 races) – 186.3 points
  2. Dusty King (2 races) – 182.5 points
  3. Zinj Guo (2 races) – 182.1 points
  4. Jonathan O’Keeffe (2 races) – 171.5 points
  5. Henry van den Broek (2 races) – 165.0 points
  6. Melissa Warwick (2 races) – 153.7 points
  7. Chris Stratton (2 races) – 140.6 points
  8. Charlie Bailey (1 race) – 74.4 points