This week was a shorter race in Watopia for Sotonia’s Zwift teams. For Bees (men’s B category team), Jerome Bakker was rider of the night, stepping in at late notice to ride strongly and earn his cat up (he’d been riding as a C in a cat B team but is now officially a Bee!).

A strong overall performance in GC suffered a little bit for lack of prime points (although James Cooper made good use of a newly renovated turbo power pack to avoid any signal dropouts and earn our only prime points). Bees finished 5th on the night but slipped to 3rd in the table. It’ll be a tough one next week to finish in the coveted 2nd spot overall.

Buzz (mixed B category) again performed strongly as a mixed team riding in a dominantly male competition. Dan Lickman led the team in on a tough night, but the rider of the night award was earned by Annie Dixey, who stepped in at late notice after earlier riding 30 miles outdoors. They now sit 12th in their league but have the realistic possibility of climbing at least two places higher with a strong final race.

Cranks (women’s C cat) missed Hannah Budden who ended her streak of successive top 10 places, but handed on the mantle of team leader to Donna Bennett, who came in 7th and earned a few prime points along the way.

Next week is the final race of the round, and in a new arrangement will have different races for different categories. B cat will race on Watopia’s Eastern Eight while C cat take on Downtown Titans.

There’s honour to be fought for to earn the “Sotonia team of the round” plaudits: Bees sit on 86 league points, while Cranks are just one point behind on 85.

Then we have a few weeks off before the new season starts on November 8th. We are likely to rebalance the teams, so if you’re interested in starting racing with us, do let us know. As last week, we’re particularly interested in male A category riders, male or female B category riders and female D category riders. Come join us.