Category: Yorkshire

The Royal Pump Room 8 course

What a tough course! Its also quite complicated, so I had to give and repeat quite a lot of information at the outset!

There is a 14% wiggle (the Strava segment is the Pot Bank reverse wall (in this direction)) at the stream at the western extent of the course – see it here:-

This is quite apart from the two sprints, the first KOM (the Harlow climb) taken at tempo as a peloton, and a second, reverse KOM taken as part of the 10kms minirace to the finish. Probably a good thing my HRM wasn’t working, I might have frightened myself! All ride data is at https://zwiftpower.com/events.php?zid=262499 for those registered, and on Zwift Companion for everyone.

We had 162 booked to ride, with 146 riders and 64 finishers which says something about the difficulty of the course!

Companion dropped out three times in this ride, but David was able to keep communications going on screen. He, Sean Ekblom and I were on Discord which is a BIG help in coping with any tech issues!

It’s a difficult course to keep a peloton together, as it is so undulating with stiff climbs, as we saw in the “wiggle” picture above. This figure 8 course also has the sprints and KOM too close together to regroup easily in between. Eventually the course flattens for the last 4kms run into the finish, but by then the damage is done! I did have a little group to sprint with to the finish! I beat Bisani, but the “nearly” philosopher Nitschke beat me!

I lost too many to the fence for my liking, some quite near the beginning, as the first sprint is only 2kms from the start, and the fence needs to be tight for the lead-in to that.

Maybe two forward or two reverse laps would be better – to be researched! Congrats to Christiaan Stange for his win (he suggested this course and now we know why!) and to Sean Ekblom for his podium, both regular riders of ours. Sean will get his Tron bike on his next big ride later today, following the 490m(!) of climbing on our 6Points course. Here are all the results:-

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As we can see above, this week I was actually slightly under the advertised pace, averaging 2.3w/kg and 177 watts. To be honest, I was having to peer so closely at my pace notes to make sure where the sprints and KOMs were, I couldn’t press on as hard as I might have done.

Our Zwift ride this weekend, at 11.40am UTC, is over one lap of the Royal Pump Room figure 8 circuit, a very undulating course. As Zwift Insider says at https://zwiftinsider.com/royal-pump-room-8/:

From the start, we ride under the start banner, then north to the Queen’s Highway loop. This is the smaller, northern loop of the Yorkshire course, and we ride it here first in a counter- clockwise direction. This northern loop contains the Yorkshire sprint segments (a different segment in each direction), and this time around we will hit the longer sprint, the Hereford sprint.

Next, we proceed through the start/finish banner and onto the much larger, southern loop portion of the course, in a clockwise direction. Ride up the forward KOM segment, then catch your breath as you descend to the next portion.

Now it’s back to the northern loop, this time in a clockwise direction, with the Yorkshire sprint to the same sprint arch as before but in the reverse direction. This small loop makes up the Duchy Estate route. Finish this loop and head south for one more lap of the big loop, this time in a counter-clockwise direction, beginning with the reverse KOM segment. The route finishes at the start/finish banner.

The following map shows the essentials of the route:

The blue arrows show the direction of travel on the sprints and KOMs for the first half of the ride, and the yellow arrows show the corresponding sections for the return loop of the figure 8. Distances are shown in kilometres in red figures, to a total ride of about 27.2kms (~17 miles) for an elevation of 480m (~1500ft).

The first “Hereford” Sprint starts at about 2kms; the first (forward) KOM climb starts at about 11.5kms, and is 1.2 kms long at about 5.5%. The second “Yorkshire” sprint starts at about 14.6kms, and the second climb, the reverse KOM, starts at about 17kms, and is 1.2kms long, at 3.8%.

We look forward to seeing you and your avatar there for this hilly 27kms, a tough rolling course with sprints and KOMs, with very little flat riding. Prompt regrouping to the yellow beacon (riding at ~2.5w/kg) after each sprint section, please; and the closing mini-race is to start at or behind the beacon, with the fence in use to assure that.

I will likely start that minirace at the bottom of the second KOM ascent, with roughly 10kms to go.