BATHURST Cycling Club are used to punching above their weight across the nation's roads, and now they're doing the same on the virtual circuit.
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The club currently sit in fifth place in the team standings at the midway point of the AusCycling National Esport Cycling Series.
Bathurst riders have been out in force, accumulating 320 points so far, and are still in the podium mix as they pursue Waratah Masters Zwifters (721), Randwick (631), Port Adelaide (352) and Jindabyne (342).
Leading the charge for Bathurst is Luke Tuckwell.
The Orange native currently sits second in the A grade standings, only bested by current Australian national age road champion Chris Ling, of Randwick.
The Sydney lockdown forced Tuckwell and other top Australian domestic riders to seek other competitive avenues while events were being forced to cancel.
Tuckwell said it's great to have a great standard of competition to go up against online while lockdowns are in effect.
"Zwift racing really exploded in the first half of last year worldwide due to lockdowns," he said.
"Over the during of that lockdown people weren't really seeing the light at the end of the tunnel so they turned to Zwift racing as a great substitute.
"Now with everything happening in Sydney - and now the Central West - AusCycling has jumped at the opportunity to host something.
"It's been great to have something like this because I had my dates and calendar set out but that's all been thrown up into the air over the next couple of months."
Zwift racing presents a big challenge to anyone looking to give it a go: There's nowhere to hide.
Unlike a real world event, where people can rotate turns and conserve energy without falling off the back of the bunch, there's very few chances to take a breather on the virtual roads.
But that consistent high tempo style of racing is something that plays into Tuckwell's strengths, especially with his track racing background.
"The racing's great and 95 per cent of the time it's harder than what you find on the road," he said.
"The lack of recovery is tough and you're just accumulating all this humidity inside so you're just sweating everywhere.
"You get the couple of people that weight-dope a bit, so that makes you push that bit harder to try and keep up with them.
"It's a lot shorter than what you get on the road but it's much harder. It provides an element of training and racing that you don't normally get."
In other strong results for the Jenn Arnold currently leads the women's B grade standings while Gary Hamer is second in the men's D grade battle.
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