Currently Tour de Zwift is going on. Today was stage 6. Stage 6 included the epic, Alpe du Zwift. An exact replica of the real world Alpe d’huez. The days leading to this tour stage I had done a time trial workout on Zwift and had decided to switch bikes from my Parlée ESX to the Zwift TT bike for the workout.

The TT bike is ideal for flat courses which makes you have a huge aerodynamic advantage. However for climbing it’s a heavier bike than most road bikes in Zwift especially the Parlée.

I made a rookie mistake of not changing bikes before the stage began and was running slightly late so decided to keep the TT bike for the 7000 feet elevation of climbing.

The result watt effort at the end of the stage was 8 watts over my personal best Alpe du Zwift effort of 261watts, 150 bpm, 6.8 mph which resulted in a time of 1 hour 6 minutes.

Today my watts was 269 watts, 154 bpm, 6.7 mph for the climb and my Alpe du Zwift time was 1 hour 11 minutes, 5 minutes slower.

Though it was somewhat of a disappointing time it was a great benchmark and gauge in experimenting the huge differences between the Zwift bikes first hand.

Strava segment data for PR: https://www.strava.com/activities/2002899655/segments/50473603047/sharing

Strava segment data for today’s stage 6: https://www.strava.com/activities/2088553893/segments/52650921137/sharing

Bike comparisons: 

Parlee ESX: 1 hour 6 minutes (261watts, 150 bpm, 6.8 mph)

Zwift TT Bike: 1 hour 11 minutes ( 269 watts, 154 bpm, 6.7 mph)

Youtube – Tour de Zwift – Stage 6 – Alpe du Zwift (Road to the Sky)