Team CLS took part in a great evening of racing on Tuesday 24th May, organised and hosted by Team Electric Spirit Co.
We wanted to extend our thanks to Douglas Cook, and the team at Team Electric Spirit.
Here are some highlights of the 'fun' (read: pain, suffering) enjoyed by the team.
What is Tour de la Rive Gauche?
Team Electric Spirit wanted to host an event for everyone to "Finish the Zwift season off in style". The Tour de la Rive Gauche had an exciting format: a 4 stage time based GC race over the course of a single evening of racing.
The tour was open to all categories, with pens for mixed A+, A, B, C, D and also a Women's only event. The races were well timed giving 10-20mins rest between each stage... Just enough time to catch your breath, grab a snack, chat to team mates and be ready to go again!
The stages were short, interesting and had a bit of everything. They were also custom length (varied for each Cat).
Who took part from Team CLS?
We had a great representation, with 14 Team CLS riders taking part in the A, B, and C categories.
- A cat: Tommy Evans, David Fisher, Erwin Sprengers, Jon Wakefield, Stijn Goddeeris, Andrew Dodds
- B cat: Rich Brook, Kris Painter, Jan-Willem Huidink, K Hill, James White
- C cat: Steve Culliford, Rod Hockin, Lesley Booth
FB Messenger, Discord Voice and Chat channels were busy all throughout the event... we were pretty quiet during the races though!!
How did we get on?
"My aim was to just enjoy the event - maybe pick up a power pb along the way! - and definitely focus on snacking and recovering in the breaks. I thought a 5min pb was possible on Stage 1 but my mind knew there were three more stages to come so held back a bit (2nd best 5min power). I got a 10min power pb on stage 2 on the Alpe... Happy with that!
Im also glad I had our Irish Powerhouse, Tommy, to chat to during the breaks - a good distraction from the suffering to come!" - Jon W
Rod summed up Stage 1 nicely "God I nearly puked!" - the mini race format was certainly 'spicy'
Final GC positions
It was a large field across all Cat's, with between 100 - 200 riders featuring in the GC for each category.
- Tommy came away with a 5th place in GC in the A cat. Top Effort!
- Rich secured a top 20 in B cat, Nice!
- Rod and Steve enjoyed a personal 'battle' for their own GC, being super close through all 4 stages!
- Lesley enjoyed the challenge of racing in the C cat Women's event. Time constraints meant missing the final stage (lucky!)
Tommy, Erwin and Rich also collected prime points during the evening aswell... nice work guys! 💥
In the team standings our A team finished 4th overall!, our B team was 9th and our C's were 14th.
(Note: Douglas has mentioned a ZP processing error so the team classification is unverified)
Feedback on the event from riders
"Great fun. In a sweaty legs-a-hurting type of way!" - Rich B.
"Oh my god… I wasn’t really ready for that kind of craziness 🥵🥵" - Stijn
"Some would say it was fun, but most are happy that it is over 🥵🤣" - Erwin
"What a fantastic event, that’s the best evenings racing so far I’ve done. Kudos to Steve, made me work every second of every stage, absolutely shattered now, food and sleep needed!" - Rod
"I love the ZRL series but the 4 back to back events was probably the most enjoyable thing I have done on Zwift. I hope they do more of the same." - Steve
Destruction in Tommy's Pain Cave
JW after stage 4... Toast!
Plenty of snacks consumed!
We can certainly see and appreciate the huge effort that went into planning, scheduling, running and reporting the results for this event.
The high attendance across all categories highlights the success of the event. All that is left to say is
A BIG THANK YOU FROM TEAM | CLS.
If you are keen to get involved in some racing action with Team CLS, check out our website and Team CLS Racing FB page!
Club members can also access our Discord Channel - where all upcoming race series and events are listed in one easy to find place!