Join the Select Group of Strongmen and Women and Take to Makuri's Twilight Harbor on January 14, 2023, For a Try at Zwift History
Seems simple! Show up here, throw down short pulls of 5.5wkg+ at the front, and recover at 4wkg+ in the draft. They’ve chosen a rig for you—Cadex TT frame with a DT Arc disc wheel. The TT draft is on, and the leaders are ready to go. All you have to do is maintain a team speed of 50 to 51km/h for slightly less than 3 hours. No worries!
Check out the Cool Video! It will make you want to ride through a wall!
The Innovation Cycling squad is confident. They’ve been successful before, and they have the formula. On December 10, 2022, the group put around 50 riders over the 100km mark in under 2 hours.
The Successful Sub-2 hour 100km
After learning from a few prior successful and unsuccessful attempts by other eager teams, they made a few changes. They chose Makuri’s Twilight Harbor with its slight undulations to take full advantage of pack dynamics for recovery. The key was a solid organization, with two to three riders hammering at the prescribed wattage while the others stayed primed and ready to pull through.
Team INC organizer Romaric Eloud explains, “Our route choice (Twilight Harbor) was risky with slightly more elevation than the flattest Zwift roads like Tempus Fugit or Neokyo crit. We swallowed slopes thanks to the team dynamic helping to keep a great momentum on the crests. Another good thing about the short route is the ability for dropped riders to regroup and catch back the group after a rest lap. It was a game changer, mainly in the last 30min. 50ish relentless riders finally came to the end under the two hours, not a huge quantity, but great quality riders.”
A Bit About Your Brave Leaders
Romaric is a 45-year-old family man living in the French Alps who started Zwifting in 2016 after a bad bike crash left him with a shattered femur. Since then, he’s logged over 155,000km and many at a high rate of speed.
Romaric holds the Zwift 24-hour record set in 2021 when his group covered 1028km at a grueling average pace of 42.8km/h. The record remains, and you can check Strava if you want.
Joining Romaric to lead the sub-3 hour attempt are Team INC wattage cottages Markus Meir, Glenn Utteridge, David Cresswell, and Andreas Dietrich.
A Brief History of Team INC—Innovation Cycling
Kyle Augustin formed Team INC (Innovation Cycling) in February 2017. Chris Loake and Gavin Richardson were on the first rides and remain ride leaders today alongside a large core group of fantastic and brilliant ride leaders and racers from various cycling backgrounds. Together they aimed to be Relentless by removing the friendly back-patting and adding some discomfort to Zwift group riding. In a Type II fun and supportive way, of course!
They do this by leading rides using FTP percentage or color zones rather than wkg and organizing training adapted to an individual rider’s ability. The iconic Alien head on the INC in-game kit comes from the early days they rode together in the Dell Alienware threads.
Team INC has grown to embrace the mantra, “If you didn’t vomit, you didn’t try hard enough.” Despite where you fall on the “healthy relationship with exercise” spectrum, suffice it to say that they’re a hard-working bunch.
Make History, and then Do IT Again!
“The tactics are simple,” says Romaric, “encourage the group to hang on while recovering and pull hard when one of the three at the front.” He and his leadership team monitor the pace and take it to the pointy end when the speed dips below 54km/h.
Sound like fun? Join Romaric and the Team INC crew on Saturday and find out. If it’s all you hoped and dreamed, punch your ticket for the sub-4 hour 200km in a month or so!
Semi-retired as owner and director of his private Orthopedic Physical Therapy practice after over 20 years, Chris is blessed with the freedom to pursue his passion for virtual cycling and writing. On a continual quest to give back to his bike for all the rewarding experiences and relationships it has provided him, he created a non-profit. Chris is committed to helping others with his bike through its work and the pages of his site.
In the summer of 2022, he rode 3,900 miles from San Francisco to New York to support the charity he founded, TheDIRTDadFund. His “Gain Cave” resides on the North Fork of Long Island, where he lives with his beautiful wife and is proud of his two independent children.
You will read him promoting his passion on the pages of Cycling Weekly, Cycling News, road.cc, Zwift Insider, Endurance.biz, and Bicycling. Chris is co-host of The Virtual Velo Podcast, too!
