Hello Zwifters! As the title implies I feel like I’ve finally hit the wall when it comes towards Tron Bike progress. To stay motivated through the winter I mixed my routine up this year. On monday nights I do sprints with the ODZDivaz 2.2 group, then tuesday and thursday I do some type of hilly loop. Friday I’ve turned into what I call the “Friday Night Mountain Climb Challenge” In which I rotate between Epic KOM, Reverse EPIC KOM and Alpe De Zwift. The fitness gains have been great since I"ve been climbing on Zwift near daily.
It seems like this bar is moving 1% a week at this point (mentally at least).
For those working on this or have it, what are some things you did to keep the progress towards it fresh? I am stuck in no mans land where I have gotten so far but I do not see the light at the end yet.
That’s all I did last Winter. It’s a long lonely road to the Tron Bike.
But your life is so much better afterwards.
Your job will pay you more and your spouse will be so proud of you!
I climbed up to the Radio Tower Hill and did 4 Hill repeats. I think the climb up and the hill repeats gave me 4000 feet of climbing each day I did it. It was the most efficient use of time I discovered. I would spawn at the Jungle circuit or the (I think_ Climb to the sun (?) and not have to waste time riding thru the flats of Watopia. The up and down Fox / Box Hills in London was the second most efficient.
That was before the Alpe.
Make sure you have the lightest bike frame and wheel set.
Just do work outs so that you will also accumulate experience points.
I just earned mine after almost 2 years of climbing. I spent most of my time doing 40 minute rides up the Alpe, but then realized that if you take a left and go up the old mountain instead, you will get much more altitude in that same amount of time because you start climbing immediately instead of having to go through the jungle first.
Thanks for your stories guys! I’m glad this wall is not something I’m suffering through alone. Thanks to all the climbing I actually took 4mins 50 seconds off my Alpe de zwift Pr last Friday.
Took me over 3 years since I mainly do the flat routes with very little climbing. I have had the Tron bike for a few months now and have yet to use it.
Efficient time management is the secret.
The Challenge is about 150,000 feet. If I was able to 4,000 feet per session, it would take me 37.5 sessions.
Since I rode 3 days a week last year, it took 12.5 weeks or about 3 months.
This is a rough estimate , I think it actually took just under 4 months.
Each day I would complete 2.6 % of the trip.
Each week was 7.5%.
Every day day, day in and day out.
I have not been back up to the radio tower or the Watopia KOM since.
But that’s because I am completing the Tour of Italy this year.
100 miles per week, 25 miles each day and I ride 4 days per week and I will finish in 2 weeks or so.
Just set the goal, figure how much you need daily and hit that goal every day.
My little victories came from improving times in the work out sections but it can be mind numbing if you think about it too much.
Here are my top out of the box tips for crunching altitude and distance on Zwift.
Drugs. Here in Canada I can smoke the good stuff before I ride and that pays dividends with a good mental state to crunch the kms. Getting bored? Light up another. The kms melt away. Cannibus has been banned from sport not due to its physical enhancement properties, but because it offers a mental advantage. Keep your HR low and you can go for hours an hours.
Goals. Set a goal before EVERY ride. Going slower than you have ever gone before is one of my favorites. You’ve got power, HR, cadence, distance, and time to play with.
Equipment. I’m biased here, I Zwift on 3 different machines (trike, rower, skier), but it makes a huge difference when you get on a different machine every day, both in the mind and in the body.
Events. Do every type of event every week. The mix up is where its at. Because I’m close to the Tron I’ve been cheating the routine and hitting the Aple more than usual, got the Meilensteins today after 7 or 8 tries, another 2 weeks and back to the mixup.
Zoom out. One year, ten years is nothing in the scope of things. Live like a tortoise.
I recently got my Tron bike. From about 50% on I broke the task into smaller chunks. So I would focus on 65%, then 70% and so on. Knocking out 5% is easy enough. This is a trick used in randonneuring where you only focus on getting to the next control. Then that 400k becomes something manegable.
hmm, i guess i’m not allowed to talk about what keeps me motivated to pump out the kms to unlock the tron bike (which was op’s original question and the topic of this thread) because it was “taking the thread off topic” apparently. that wasn’t my intention, but oh well. i guess my advice is to find something to keep your mind busy and the kms will melt away
I appreciate all the cool info coming through. I’ll just put in there if we can keep recommendations more towards the “legal in North East USA” it would be appreciated.
Now that spring is arriving in Pennsylvania it looks like Tron will happen winter 2020! #tronin2020
Tron bike is a long term goal. Focusing on it on a daily basis is a recipe for being discouraged. What worked for me, was working towards the Tron bike but having other things I focused on for the short term. For example, focus on a month long training goal (improve FTP, improve endurance, improve sprint power, etc.) and just check in on the Tron progress periodically to see you are making progress.
Nearly completed 3 tron challenges now at 142000 metres. Wouldn’t mind a multi-coloured tron bike for my efforts. Once the tron bike is had there’s no awards for further climbing (except for the legs and lungs of course).
