A year (and a bit) of bike upgrading

General Discussion
1

Inspired by Farmer quotient , let’s also share our bike upgrading progress. Which bikes have you upgraded so far and in what order? I’ll go first. :wink:

  1. Specialized S-Works Tarmac SL8 - lvl 5
  2. Specialized S-Works Aethos - lvl 5
  3. CADEX Tri - lvl 5
  4. Specialized S-Works Venge - lvl 5
  5. Zwift Safety - lvl 5
  6. Zwift Buffalo Fahrrad - lvl 5
  7. Zwift Aero - lvl 5
  8. Zwift Concept Z1 (tron) - lvl 5
  9. Cannondale SuperX LAB71 - lvl 2 (25 km to go to lvl 3)

My experience so far is that the time it takes to level up bikes is ok. It’s not quick, but it also doesn’t take overly long. The halo bikes are too expensive in my opinion, upgrading the tron cost more drops than what I earned while riding it (and that’s not taking into account the drop shop cost of the other halo bikes). The normal bikes are alright, I earned the drops I needed for the upgrades while riding and had some extra at the end.

2

Don’t know the exact order anymore but its something like this :

Canyon Aeroad 2024 - 5
Specialized SL8 - 5
Cadex Tri - 5
Zwift Safety - 5
Zwift BMX Bandit - 5
Specialized Aethos - 5
Specialized Crux - 5
Specialized Venge S-Works - 5
Zwift TT - 5
Scott Addict RC - 5
Canyon Fabrio Gold Dust - 5
Cervelo Aspero 5 - 5

Don’t know what to upgrade now, so am basicly not upgrading anything at the moment and am riding my old favorite Scott so I get 5% extra drops.
Don’t have any Halo bikes besides the Tron and that is still on level 0. Not going to bother buying or upgrading the Halo bikes.

3

S-Works Aethos level 5

S-Works tarmac SL8 level 5

S-Works MTB level 5

Project 74 level 4 (400km to level 5)

Canyon Aeroad 2024 level 5

Cannondale R4000 level 1

Cadex triathlon bike level 3

I cannot remember all the three lesser Cannondale bikes I upgraded but they are all slow junk models. The Synapse does do XP/Drops bonuses but it is so slow I don’t like to use it.

I already have the Tron at default level but I don’t use it so I’m not upgrading any Zwift bikes to upgrade the Tron.

Since I’m not doing 500km+ Zwift distance per week the upgrade progress of project 74 has slowed right down. I’m getting about 100km per week of that target. I switch to it after I’ve finishing going up ADZ, then change back to Aethos after downhill is done.

So what’s the fastest time everyone has done for upgrading all halo bikes? Anyone did 4500km weeks to get them fast? :wink:

4

S-Works SL8 LVL5

Zwift Carbon LVL5

Zwift Steel LVL5

Zwift TT LVL5

Tron LVL2 (800KM to LVL3)

At the Tron LVL3 I will stop and work on something else. Not much gain for LVL4 & 5. I have been out for 5 weeks due to family circumstances so falling behind. Have not even looked at the new bikes/wheels.

5

Specialized S-Works Tarmac SL8 - 5
Specialized Aethos S-Works - 5
Specialized Allez - 5
Pinarello Dogma F 2024 - 5
Pinarello F8 - 5
Pinarello Bolide - 5
Specialized Project 74 - 2
Brompton P Line - 3
Cadex Tri - 5
Cannondale CAAD12 - 5
Cannondale Synapse - 5
Cannondale SuperSix Evo LAB71 - 5
Zwift Aero - 5
Trek Emonda SL - 3
Cannondale SuperX LAB72 - 2
Zwift Carbon - 2

Hmm, looking at this I might be spending too much time on Zwift…
Agree that Halo bike upgrades are too many Drops

6

That was probably deliberate to make people run out their drops supply and not be able to just buy whatever they want immediately.

However there are still some folks who only use Tron bike and nothing else, so they effectively skip all the mega-inflation in the Zwift economy.

There are only a few bikes I use at the moment so I’ve been fortunate to build up my drops.

But from ages ago I had a lot of the other bikes already.

7

Dogma F '24 (5- didn’t have enough drops to buy S-Works SL8 last autumn)
S-Works SL8 (5)
Zwift Steel (5)
Cadex TT (4)
Crux (3)
Aethos (3)
Zwift TT (2)
Aspero (1)
Zwift MTB (1)

Probably should have paid more attention to upgrades when first released before my summer break from Zwift last year.

I don’t agree with the upgrade system at all for racing putting new and less frequent users at a competitive disadvantage, it simply adds to the effective ability range in a pen. I don’t like how most bikes can be upgraded by metrics other than time spent, giving stronger and more frequent Zwift users a quicker roadmap to a maxed out bike besides TT bikes.

8

Any organizer can choose to neutralize upgrades while still allowing for different bike choices. They all get ridden as no-upgrade bikes. AFAIK very few do this and many probably don’t know about it.