If I were to “do” the PRL Full again, I’d just get a battery pack for my iPhone, pair my power meter, and go on a long ride outside instead. It was that boring.
4 Likes
I personally think the Uber-Pretzel is WAY harder than PRL Full…if you can knock out the Uber, you can finish off PRL easy.
Uber was around 50 minutes shorter than the PRL full at roughly the same power for me and has the benefit of more variety. The long climb at the end isn’t fun, but unless you have your trainer difficulty at 100%, it’s not that bad IMO
2 Likes
Just from the route, I can‘t even imagine it being that much harder than the Mega Pretzel. It is „only“ 20ks longer, has more flat sections, a little less of the slow dirt roads and then „just“ has the big boy climb at the end. If it weren’t for the Alpe, it would be actually quite a bit easier/ quicker than the Mega Pretzel…
That hour of suffering at the end isn’t easy, but hey! That‘s part of achievement.
Obviously riding outdoors is a much better experience when the weather is good and you can enjoy yourself.
But rn, the weather is extremely awful were I live, and I „getting the badge“ is a good way of staying motivated to keep pedaling after 4 hours of staring at your screen. Definitely helped me today.
2 Likes
I think they’re about equal. I actually did the PRL Full first because of the badge glitch on the uber.
Admittedly, I cheat by picking a long TR workout and use that to manage my power, and then bump it up a little on hills and back down on the flats. I used Bandeira for both these rides. What this does end up doing is normalize most of the rides to a steady-ish endurance pace, and then it just comes down to how long it takes. For me it took me about 5:41 to complete the PRL full at an intensity of about .73, Uber took about 4:49 at an intensity of .80.
Where PRL sucks is that it’s just monotonous, repeating the same the loop over and over again. Where it’s nice is that you can pace yourself out and get into a bit of routine. For instance, at the base of box hill i’d take in my calories for the lap which gave me a bit of burst for the hill. Then at the peak of the hill, I’d let my guy coast, un-clip, and stretch my legs and back, and give my feet a break. As soon as my avatar hit the flat, I’d hop back on and do it all again. All-in-all, it went faster than I thought it would, and I wasn’t nearly as wrecked as I was expecting.
Uber is a bit nicer because of the variety of scenery, and you feel a little bit more like you’re on a ride. The less predictable route has it’s negatives because you’re back to pacing based off time, metrics, or landmarks, more like a real ride. Because of that, i ended up taking the ride at a higher intensity than i intended because the “lulls” I was waiting for never really happened. I think the reason that people feel like the Uber sucks, is because of two aspects of the alpe. 1) It’s the last thing you do after 3.5-4.5 hours of riding, and it’s almost half the elevation of the ride. 2) You end at the top. So you don’t get to count that descent into the distance. For me I think of uber as a 140 km ride, and include that 12 km descent at the end. The other aspect of the uber is that damn jungle loop which slows you down for that section, even on a mountain bike.
In both cases, take an easy pace, eat a lot, drink a lot, take breaks, and consider a couple kit changes (this helps with comfort and also your morale, a fresh kit feels great after a couple hours)
2 Likes
Well yeah…but therein lies the rub! 
You get to the base in a relatively short period of time and think “easy…”, but then you realize you have ~an hour left (at least) and it is all uphill.
The second time around trying for the PRL Full badge I just left Zwift running for a week as I did my normal TR SSBHV workouts. This time it decided to count it, though by day 3 it started dropping frames and data, and on day 5 what should should have been a 29 minute lap was taking almost 43 as it would freeze for 15 seconds every minute or so. Just Zwift being Zwift.
This weekend I knocked out Four Horsemen, Mega Pretzel and Dust in the Wind. Just have the 3 shortest NYC ones, and Volcano Flat to go so should be done by Tuesday and can queue up my cancellation again. I’m pretty done with Zwift right now.
2 Likes
Yeah…4 Horsemen is another kick to the brat and potatoes.
When you get the double xp for every km/mi completed on a new route, do you only get it until completion of the first route or, does it continue for the remainder of the ride?
You don’t get double XP directly.
For the pretzel for example (72k) you get 72 times 20XP, one k after another, like you do with any riding in Zwift. Upon initial completion you get the route badge, which gives you the lengths times 20XP again in one Batch, so you get 1440XP as one. Therefore, it is a one time thing, and does not effect the XP/km rate before or after completion of that ride.
2 Likes
Ah I see now. Thanks for clearing this up 
That’s a similar time to me then.
Nah, that would be cheating. As long as I’m in the right head space I’ll be able to do it.
How is this cheating? 
Watts are watts.
2 Likes
A 5 hour ride on the turbo has it’s own challenges compared to riding outside.
1 Like
As someone who regularly rides 4-5 hours inside, I’d say it’s different, but IME riding inside for that distance is easier 
(plenty of food, water, super fast bio breaks, music, movies, etc)
Having ridden it fully inside, I just personally think the PRL Full route is stupid and a pretty lazy decision on Zwift’s side.
3 Likes
Anyone know for the 2 Paris route badges, can you select one and ride it to get the badge, then flip a u-turn and do it in reverse to get the other or do you need to exit and choose the other and ride it again?
No, unfortunately it doesn’t work like that. You will need to exit Zwift and then start from the beginning and select the other course.
2 Likes
Figured–classic Zwift… 
2 Likes
I managed to complete the PRL route today and I was certainly glad to see the back of box hill!
I was pretty bored by the end and I wasn’t happy about returning to the box hill area again for a little loop, by that point I just wanted to finish.
I can’t have been the only person on here to have completed it today as I saw loads of people attempting the route, 48 according to Strava.
7 Likes