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A lot of what you try to do as an athlete is storytelling. What you’re doing, where you’ve been, when you’ve won and how you did it. This year for a lot of people, it’s been difficult to celebrate success in an athletic perspective. A lot more people have diversified and have been seen tapping into the invaluable resource that is social media to share stories and creativeness as well as showing their daily lives. Throughout this pandemic, negativity has been rife across social media, people have confronted each other and argued about others actions and behaviours about what we should and what we should not be doing during this lockdown. I think it took a lot of time for the message to sink into a lot of people about the severity of what is going on. We’ve completed 5 weeks now; I can’t say how much longer this will last. I’m no expert but I’m guessing it won’t be over soon. But in this dire time for many, what can we extract from it all that is positive? I can’t speak for everyone, people are all in different situations, but after discussing some things with others here are a few positives I can think of.
Sitting in my garden, on a hot summer-like day you come to realise how quiet it is. Apart from the odd hedge trimmer or F-35s on exercise, all you can really hear is the wildlife or the distinct bellow of “who’s cooking tea tonight” from inside the house. Every man and his dog seem to have taken up some sort of daily exercise, whether it be running, cycling, walking, hiit or yoga as examples. If it’s burning calories, people are doing it. This maybe because it gets them out the house, or because finally for once people have time to do it. It’s a good chance to have a break from hectic lives for many. This could be a good period for changing people’s behaviours for the better. For example, shopping fewer times a week, getting everything in one big shop. People are diversifying and shopping away from supermarkets sometimes. We, for example, get eggs, flour and stuff like that from the local farm shop or a butcher which is always stocked up with fresh local produce. When there’s not much food left in, we’re less inclined to just nip to the shop, we use up all what we have and make things last longer. With takeaways shut a greater proportion of people have been cooking from home instead of getting something delivered – it’s amazing how you can make a good meal from so little. The weathers been great, many peoples training quality has been enhanced by doing fewer hours and by getting stuck in with some e-racing/riding.
But what is so good about e-racing? I’ve seen so many contradicting posts about e-racing on a number of different platforms. For me personally it’s been key to for motivation and having those little wins and growths of confidence. It’s so easy to jump into a race, spend an hour at sweetspot and empty the tank without realising you’ve been going for an hour. So many people have been able to do things they may not have had the time, money or support to do such as these everesting challenges or 24 hour challenges for charity. It’s given guys the opportunity to be creative with live streams and really interacting with other cyclists in many different ways. I’ve ridden on Zwift and video called a few different riders I’d not normally see that often but have also had to opportunity to line up and race against professionals from my home.
On the contrary e-riding/racing has some flaws with a lot of cyclists. Weight dopers and Z-power riders ruin it for everyone but they also make racing 10x harder and can push you deeper than you might normally. There’s no real luck or skill involved just a few tactics which in themselves take a while to master. You don’t get the unpredictable nature of real racing such as punctures, crashes, potholes and even farm traffic disrupting the races. The in-game equipment is virtually the same, therefore the field is more levelled out and power to weight becomes a much bigger factor. For some this makes it much easier to race but for others not so. Watching the racing isn’t always the most breath-taking, it’s better than nothing however. It would work better if breakaways could actually get away which would make the racing much more aggressive and unpredictable. I’ve now just got to find myself a Zwift team to get into some of these live-streamed races! Anyway, I hope later in the year at university (if we even start on time) that I am this motivated to write something! There’s a lot of things I haven’t mentioned, and a lot of people who may not relate to this as much but for me and the people I’ve spoken to these are some of the points we’ve come up with. I can’t see any racing going ahead this year now for me, but I’m staying optimistic. I’m still motivated to train and improve and any racing that is done will be a bonus. Once again a big thanks to the Adam Gibbons Sports Foundation and Duncan&Toplis for the support. Also big thanks to the Saint Piran team and sponsors.
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