Rapha Women's Ride Loop - Melbourne

Each week I try and attend a group ride outdoors that finishes up with coffee or breakfast and get some social bike time in. Often I have to squeeze in a ride before work and head straight into the office or do the remainder of my weekly sessions solo these days.


The one ride close to my home that I enjoy doing is the Rapha Women's Ride from Collingwood in Melbourne. It leaves Thursday morning at 6am from the corner of Wellington and Peel Streets.



Taking approx. 1hr 10mins it finishes up at a cafe nearby and we chat over coffee about what our cycling comrades are up to and our next adventures. I took a few ladies out this weekend to test out the course and catch up over coffee afterwards. Thanks Shel, Fats and Reese for the mornings ride!! Based on my Instagram forensics, I've been doing this ride for years, it's nice to share it out to a wider group.



We had a Zwift Academy "virtual hills" group training ride which was fun on Thursday and Shane live streamed it on Facebook over 2x 30min sessions. Shel said they saw it live and really enjoyed it. When they were out shopping for bidons, they came home with 2x Kickrs instead! I love that enthusiasm and showed them a few quick tips using the Zwift and Wahoo iPhone apps with our coffee.

The other cool thing about the Academy is that riding outdoors validates the results indoors, so it all clocks up towards your entry to the next round. Stream links below for those interested in what happens in a group workout and listening to Shane talk Zwift and indoor cycling with me popping in/out of the stream.

Zwift Academy Group Ride

Tonight was the first group ride for the Zwift Academy. The format was to ride together for 6 laps with the ride leader on the 5.1km flat Richmond course.

Lap 1 - easy pace warmup
Laps 2-5 - sprint from the 200m to go sign to the green sprint banner
Lap 6 - easy pace cool down

Logging in earlier, the game puts you in a holding pattern and when you pedal a virtual stationary trainer pops around your back wheel and you can spin to warm up. It has a BIG countdown clock and chat area to comment to others warming up and waiting for the start.



When you roll out, you pop out under the start banner on the Richmond course and then continue straight onto the circuit. In the picture below you can see the lap/distance counter in the centre of the image. The mini terrain map shows the green dot where the next sprint is.



I initially rolled out with the front bunch until the ride leader called us to wait, then dropped into the second bunch. There was not much chatter except for the ride leader calling out task cues.



The last lap cool down was great! Chatter on screen picked up and it was great to see ladies from everywhere online and participating.



My performance: It has been a long time between sprint sessions for me. I was 200w down from where I have seen my peak power before. I and found it hard to wind up and sustain. Where I kicked the sprint off from (the roundabout or closer to the intersection) didn't make much of a difference. Each sprint I did was faster than the previous so it was a great session from that perspective. It was different technique to outdoors where you would use the torque of the bike more.

What I did enjoy was the punchy and playfulness of the sprints which I have missed from my long km rides lately. So this was a good reminder to add some more into my every day rides.


Deadline to enroll - July 31st 2016. Join the Zwift Academy.

Meeting Canyon SRAM Racing and the kit!

The moment I saw the Canyon SRAM kit, I was in LOVE with it. I had no idea at that time that they were linked with Zwift, I was just looking for my husband to buy it for me!

I was in Adelaide during the Tour Down Under in January 2016 watching the Santos Women's Tour. On the rest days we went riding with the Rapha Women and Tiffany Cromwell joined us. It was great to see the kit close up and the quality. She was raving about the knicks at the time about how comfortable they were.

Tiff front and Center. Photo: Beardy
A tree down on course. Tiff shows us how to CX over it.

After another stage of the UCI tour there was a session at the Rapha Pop-up store:
CANYON//SRAM: Pro racer Tiffany Cromwell and team manager Beth Duryea will discuss the team’s goals for the year. A range of Canyon bikes will also be on display to book a test ride.

I had a nice night and some Italian food there listening to the session about what their year entails. Sounded gruelling and fun all at the same time.


I had an invite to the live session that Tiffany held in Adelaide with Zwift and they announced the Academy there. Such exciting news!! I was a little star struck being up close with Tiff and Beth, I didn't know what to say, so I just asked for a photo and let them do their thing.

Beth and Tiff being interviewed by Sophie

I got to Meet Tiff!!


Long vid of the full session and interview

Finally managed to get organised and purchase my own set of kit when it was available on the Rapha site in May...

Zwift Academy - The Initiation



There is no secret that I am a fan of women's cycling and have been racing for years. If you read back over the last few blog posts, I've been looking for something to catch my attention and would fit in around my busy work lifestyle. When I heard about the Zwift Academy, it caught my attention for sure.



It was with some trepidation that I clicked on the Enroll button for the Zwift Academy. Would I be accepted? Had I done enough riding to be fit enough to start this? What would it involve?

- Did I have the equipment setup? Yes. Kickr, fan and TV setup in the spare room.
- Do you have your accounts setup? Yes. I have connected my Strava to Zwift so it auto saves each workout and I have connected my Training Peaks account (adding in TrainSharp) to get all the detailed data.
- Did I have enough flexibility to add structured training sessions to my week? Yes. No current coach or cycling team responsibilities.
- Could I do group rides on Zwift? Yes. Assuming they fit in around the work day.


Follow my journey

To keep me accountable, I am going to put my workouts in my "Ride Calendar" above. I am tracking everything in Strava and Training Peaks, so that my rides will be available to Zwift and TrainSharp to assess. You can ride online with me for the sessions if you are in the same timezone and if you see me, give a #RideOn

I will do a weekly wrap-up of my rides for the week, how my points are tracking, and how I am coping on this blog. As always you can see my other daily updates on Instagram/Facebook/Twitter.

Zwift Academy


I'm joining the Academy. Not the Police Academy! The Zwift Academy. In the hope that some structured training will get me through these winter months and start motivating me for more fun adventures on the bike.


The concept is to stick my bike on the indoor trainer and do workouts (9 for this month, 27 in total) as prescribed by Jon Sharples from TrainSharp using Zwift workout mode. This should be familiar as I've been doing indoor workouts over winter for the last 5 years.

Riding at the Bike Gallery Zwift Launch in 2015. Photo: Martyn Taylor

I will also need to schedule in the group rides once a week (to complete 9 in total) to get a feel for the competition and to get used to riding later in the evening (they start at 8:30pm!?! on the east coast of Australia). I have been riding on Zwift for over a year, doing some racing online with Pro4mance, some of the C grade races and the initial Zwift Academy rides so it is familiar. This is going to be fun!




The concept is pretty cool, but the journey will end for most in September when only 10 women from around the world will make it to the semi finals. Those that make it that far will receive a mentor, invited to on-site workouts and receive a complimentary Wahoo KICKR SNAP smart trainer to complete the remainder of the process!



Once they whittle down the numbers, 3 lucky finalists will be invited to the CANYON//SRAM Racing Zwift Academy Training Camp. I'm not sure where in the world this will be held, but I'm sure it will be worth saving up to fly around the world for this. The final winner will get a paid contract for the 2017 racing season with CANYON//SRAM.

Now I know that I am not going to make it to the semi-finals as I know my power numbers are not amazing and my time commitment with work is hard. So the aim is to see how far I can get through the process and enjoy the free workouts!


The exciting thing is that this opens up the whole new world for women looking to join the professional ranks. The traditional pathway in Australia is to race your way into gaining notice and applying through an Institute of Sport. You might be lucky enough to be selected to race internationally for the national team if you get picked up by a state or national institute. I am really looking forward to following everyone's journey and I'm going to share mine along the way too.

First step for me will be all the setup and planning for the first month! Wish me luck!
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