{"id":15195,"date":"2020-03-28T18:25:00","date_gmt":"2020-03-28T18:25:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/2020\/03\/28\/zwift-showdown-swiftcarbons-two-uci-continental-teams-to-go-head-to-head-r8100\/"},"modified":"2023-02-08T19:41:21","modified_gmt":"2023-02-08T19:41:21","slug":"zwift-showdown-swiftcarbons-two-uci-continental-teams-to-go-head-to-head-r8100","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/zwift-showdown-swiftcarbons-two-uci-continental-teams-to-go-head-to-head-r8100\/","title":{"rendered":"Zwift showdown: SwiftCarbon\u2019s two UCI Continental teams to go head-to-head"},"content":{"rendered":"

W52 FC Porto and SwiftCarbon Pro Cycling are set for a Portugal vs Great Britain showdown.<\/p>\n

The cancellation of cycling events has done little to dampen the competitive spirit of bike racers across the globe, as is evidenced by the upsurge in eRacing popularity.<\/p>\n

\"ccs-62657-0-57490200-1585419767.jpg\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Typically adaptable and robust, cyclists seem to have taken to social isolation well, with many cheerfully posting videos of some great ways keep busy (some being pretty left-field). When it comes to eRacing, the happy-go-lucky veil drops and the switch flips to race-mode. Two of the teams SwiftCarbon supports compete at UCI Continental level: W52-FC Porto and SwiftCarbon Pro Cycling, based in Portugal and the UK respectively. When the challenge came up, riders from both outfits jumped at it. Sports marketing manager Pedro Dias says, \u201cWhen we came up with the idea, we wondered if the guys would be keen. We sent off a message to the team managers and they answered \u2018yes\u2019 almost straight away!\u201d At 15h15 GMT on Monday 30 March Andy Turner and Alex Braybrooke from SwiftCarbon Pro Cycling battle Francisco Campos and Jorge Magalh\u00e3es from W52-FC Porto.<\/p>\n

Paul Lamb, owner of team SwiftCarbon Pro Cycling, is delighted to keep his riders keen and primed. \u201cI think it\u2019s a great idea to help riders from both teams maintain fitness and motivation as we get through this.\u201d Lamb suggested a series of events, with differing lengths and disciplines. \u201cWe\u2019ve got a good response from the guys, so we are keen to go ahead and plan a whole programme.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n
\n\"ccs-62657-0-94283600-1585420267.jpg\"<\/a>Andy Turner of Swift Pro Cycling<\/span>\n<\/div>\n
\n\"ccs-62657-0-38936900-1585420281.jpg\"<\/a>Francisco Campos of W52-FC Porto.<\/span>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Manager of W52-FC Porto team, Pedro Duque, is a keen cyclist himself and the idea immediately appealed to him. \u201cThe guys who just came off the Volta ao Algarve have form and so do others who were targeting the later races. This is a fun way to use that form!\u201d When pushed to predict a result, \u201cLet\u2019s see, I back our guys but the UK guys have some good experience on Zwift,\u201d he smiled.<\/p>\n

News reports of other pros battling it out on the online platform reveal that neither top form nor elite-level athleticism is a guarantee of virtual glory. Confined to home training, New Zealander George Bennett of Team Jumbo Visma has admitted he\u2019s yet to crack a top 10 on Zwift. Of course it is possible for participants to manipulate one\u2019s \u2018performance\u2019 (considered highly unsportsmanlike), but it\u2019s still a lot of fun (and some decent training effect) in pushing out several hundred Watts for a few hours a day, jostling with amateurs and other pros alike.<\/p>\n

Riders from the British team are already competing in the weekly British Cycling Zwift series, with this week\u2019s race leaving Andy Turner slumped over the bars at the end. \u201cIt was hard! It\u2019s the sprint at the start that\u2019s the worst bit.\u201d A pro bike rider placing 26th out of 500 odd tells us the level is high, and that there are plenty of other riders ready to unleash their spring form on the virtual world of eRacing. We can certainly expect there to be more.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"ccs-62657-0-44222400-1585419851.png\"<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

W52 FC Porto and SwiftCarbon Pro Cycling are set for a Portugal vs Great Britain showdown. The cancellation of cycling events has done little to dampen the competitive spirit of bike racers across the globe, as is evidenced by the upsurge in eRacing popularity. Typically adaptable and robust, cyclists seem to have taken to social […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":60756,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[279],"featured_location":[],"class_list":["post-15195","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-events","tag-swiftcarbon"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15195","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15195"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15195\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/60756"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15195"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15195"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15195"},{"taxonomy":"featured_location","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/featured_location?post=15195"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}