For this New Year’s day bike ride I choose to replicate the IRONMAN Nice bike course. Nice is one of the most challenging in terms of the elevation of the IRONMAN bike circuits. The current 2021 course seems to be around 8000 feet of elevation as opposed to past years I’ve seen 10,000 from Strava files. Since I could not find the full course on the Rouvy platform I opted to combine some Zwift routes, namely “The Uber Pretzel” 7828 feet, 80.13 miles, and “Bigger Loop” 2270 feet and 33.32 miles.

Both added up to 113.45 miles and 10,098 feet of climbing. I completed the ride in 8 hours and 13 minutes.

Takeaways from this ride:

• A 34-teeth cassette would have been ideal as opposed to my 32 cassette setup. I did use a 34 cassette at vEveresting last year.
• vEveresting felt easier last year especially the fact that I had opportunities to coast or rest going down Alpe Du Zwift ~ 10 minutes downhill. This years ride was pretty much relentless with few coasting opportunities.
• Nutrition was on point as pictured below.
• Surely IRONMAN Nice should be less of an elevation that today’s ride and the finish time should be reflected accordingly. But still this ride’s numbers reflect the challenge Nice will pose on race day. My gearing setup, race weight and wheel choice will all be critical for an optimal performance on the day.
• IRONMAN Lake Placid elevation is 6139 feet, finish time 6 hours during race day.
• The elevation of my longest Bear Mountain ride to date is 7085 feet, moving time was 6 hours, 56 minutes.
• IRONMAN Bike PR was done in Kalmar, Sweden which is relatively flat (1725 feet) in 5 hours, 40 minutes.
• Current IRONMAN Nice elevation is 8116 feet.
• The Uber Pretzel, 80 miles – 7828 feet benchmark time from this ride is 5 hours, 50 minutes. This will be an ideal trainer ride to use in IRONMAN Nice training.
• IRL long training ride will be Bear Mountain.