Have you completed the Zwift Academy Baseline Ride? Are you interested in learning what your phenotype is?

A phenotype on Zwift is based on your power output for three types of effort: a short all-out sprint, a medium anaerobic effort, and a longer effort at that point between your aerobic and anaerobic systems (comparable to your FTP). Based on these efforts, Zwift will tell you if you are more of a sprinter, pursuiter, or a time trialist.

On the Legends and Lava course, the three segments in the order you will complete them are:

- MEDIUM: Titan’s Grove KOM

- SHORT: Watopia Sprint Forward

- LONG: Volcano KOM

In between these segments, your goal is to recover and pedal easy. Although, it is tempting to get caught up in your overall rank/placing on the ride and/or stay with groups. Don’t fall for any of that for this ride, instead recover and make sure you are up to full power before you cross the start banner on each of these segments. During the segment, you will be switched to a time trial bike to eliminate the benefits of drafting.

These Zwift phenotypes can be as overly reductive and misleading as those personality tests that tell you what type of person you are regardless of context or relationship. For example, these Zwift phenotypes do not take into consideration the repeatability of these efforts. These Zwift phenotypes also do not take into consideration the extent that you have been training (or not training) these different systems. You could be completely detrained (like me currently) or you could be tuned up for time trials at the expense of the effort it takes to sprint.

Nonetheless, the Zwift Academy Baseline Ride can give you some useful information that you can use in comparison with your Finish Line ride in terms of how your body responds to the Zwift Academy workouts (and any additional training you are doing). The key here is change over time and how you respond to the workouts. The resulting phenotype still may be oversimplistic but you will be able to tell in which system you made the most gains.

I completed the ZA Baseline Ride today. I am pretty detrained at the moment (a.k.a. out of shape), and I was curious what numbers I would get in comparison with numbers from when I have been in fairly decent racing form. You will see that my results were:

MEDIUM: Titan’s Grove Reverse KOM 1:42 at 488 watts

SHORT: Sprint Forward 0:23 at 821 watts

LONG: Volcano KOM 8:48 at 307 watts

The automated e-mail from Zwift with the phenotype results is not currently working. However, I am guessing from these numbers that Zwift will say my medium effort was my best in comparison classifying me as a pursuiter.

This appears to hold true for what my Zwiftpower profile currently lists based on the four Zwift events I’ve done in the last 90 days.

I can accept that phenotype because I am definitely not a pure sprinter. As you will see, from my all-time (since 2013) 5 sec numbers on Training Peaks, I can barely get into the 1300s in a workout let alone at the end of a race.

I like to think of myself as a puncheur, which I interpret as a racer who can hit hard efforts of medium length over and over again. This is why criteriums, cyclocross, and track racing appeal to me. As you will see from my Training Peaks numbers those 1-min efforts are in the 500-600 watt range, which I train specifically for repeatability.

Lastly, I was never a time trialist. Whether it is my phenotype of lack of mental discipline, I never found success in a time trial, which I only ever did if it was part of a stage race. My all-time 10-minute numbers on Training Peaks are a bit higher than my trained FTP, but not by much.

In sum, I think the Zwift Academy Baseline ride is worth doing. I wouldn’t put too much stock in the Zwift phenotypes, though it appears to have been consistent for my history (I don’t have power data before 2013) and the systems I typically train (even when I’m in poor shape). The real payoff will be the comparison with the Finish Line ride and seeing how your body will respond to the workouts. You may surprise yourself!

[UPDATE: I received the Zwift Academy Baseline e-mail approximately two days after I did the ride. The results say that I am a sprinter based on percentile, but not by much. There's not a huge margin between 88th percentile on the short segment and 86th percentile on the medium segment. I think I will be able to easily reverse this during the Finish Line ride.]

Here’s what we at Slowtwitch have planned for the rest of the week.

Guest World Schedule

Here’s this week’s guest worlds, so you can plan to earn some of the route badges you are missing:

Monday: Innsbruck & Richmond
Tuesday: Makuri Islands & New York
Wednesday: Makuri Islands & New York
Thursday: Makuri Islands & New York
Friday: Richmond & London
Saturday: Richmond & London
Sunday: London & Yorkshire

Slowtwich Indoors Event Preview (All Times Eastern)

Go to Zwift Events to sign up for these rides and runs.

Monday 100/100 Group Run, 7:00 AM & 7:00 PM
Join us for a group run on the virtual track of May Field that will kick start your week. Don’t forget that each of the five ride workouts and five run workouts have a short and long option. Rather than canceling a workout when you are crunched for time, you can complete the short version and still reap the benefits of the program.

Tuesday Ride of the Valkryies Workout (Women Only), 6:00 AM
This event is by and for women. It’s an almost no-drop, rubber-banded Structured Training workout, featuring a warm-up, set of intervals, and a cool-down.

Tuesday Structured Training, 7:00 PM
Our Tuesday ride features triathlon-focused cycling workouts written by coaches and pro athletes affiliated with Slowtwitch. The workouts last 60 minutes and will help add variety and interest to your weekly training schedule.

Wednesday Group Run, 7:00 AM & 7:00 PM
A more scenic group run on the Quatch Quest course.

Thursday Rise & Grind, 5:35 AM
This workout is an early morning bracer for the East Coast crowd. Get your work done before heading off to work.

Thursday SWIFT Ride, 6:55 PM
The newest ride to the Slowtwitch Indoors family, Slowtwitch SWIFT (Strong Women, It's Fun Together!) is here to bring another women's only ride to a slightly friendlier time slot. This ride will focus slightly more on strength-based work so bring those climbing legs. But even if you're feeling more like Mark Cavendish in the mountains of the Tour de France, so long as you keep the pedals moving, you'll stay with our group.

Friday Festina Lente, 9:00 AM
This structured training workout is designed to get you geared up for the weekend. Roughly translated as “make haste, slowly,” Festina Lente features a workout that will get your engine running but still leave some in the tank for the big rides and races you have planned for the weekend. This ride is led by members of the Kanberra Cycling Team as lead beacon.