Fair enough, it was more the principle for the general discussion rather than application to your club specifically. Especially when I was younger, I just hated getting passed on the road, even on days where I was purposefully riding easy. I’ve gotten better with age and discipline.
If anything, I’d say riding Zwift can help you get used to that kind of discipline because you’re always getting passed or passing someone.
Well reading this made me drop my Z race today and just do a 60 min spin. I did a 2 min effort up a hill then a couple of 30 sec efforts but was very disciplined.
Filled a hole in my TR plan and I know I’ll bang out tomorrow’s session.
Thanks, I’d have battered myself if I hadn’t realised how daft my first reply on this thread was 
Hahaha lads I wasn’t expecting so much debate. Thanks for all your inputs. I do realise my OP was a bit of a rant more than anything. I get it has its uses, but for me being so disciplined before I felt they didn’t relate to me as much. Anyway I tried it and it doesn’t work for me. I need to make my time on the trainer truly worthwhile and to be honest I don’t think Zwift does this from my experience
During the quarantine my friends talked me into Zwift. I’m just not a fan. I’d much rather watch Youtube or Netflix videos while training rather than a video game style avatar. Just not my cup of tea. The only upside is that everyone seems to be on it and we can schedule a group meetup and chat using another app while training.
That being said, I haven’t yet tried the group workout feature on TR but I’m looking forward to that.
I have been pretty disciplined, completing SSBLV1 and 2, then SPBLV, using TR on mobile with Zwift running on the iPad, just to add a little bit of visual interest. I have found that if I am completing a challenging series of long intervals, set Zwift to climb the Alpe, for some reason the psychology of climbing seems to help with the suffering of longer intervals. Now the weather is getting better I’m getting out a little more often but am doing a Zwift race once a week just to keep sharp, with some TR sprinkled in as appropriate. I tend to avoid ‘group rides’, either far too fast or too slow, linked TR workouts far more effective.
I’m never good about doing recovery rides. So I run TR and Zwift in parallel and let TR control my trainer in erg mode. It eliminates the need for me to be disciplined and lets me save that mental energy for other occasions and forces me to do an actual recovery ride. It was difficult riding up AdZ today at recovery pace and I probably would have gone too hard had I not put TR in control. As @Redrose49er mentioned, you can pick terrain that motivates you to help with the more challenging TR workouts. I also love climbing and will do harder workouts on AdZ and feel like I’m blasting up a climb.
Just to balance it out I have free rides built into my schedule that I either do outside or on zwift. When zwifting I can go solo, do group rides that fit with my current plan / goals, do fondos or races. All depends on what my goals are and what is available. You can also pick your own stupid goals for each ride. Doing a long, steady z2 ride? Equip that TT bike and see how much distance you can cover, earn that 25 lap volcano loop badge, climb towards that tron bike. Doing longer SST intervals? Do repeats of AdZ or Epic KOM and see how much climbing you can get in.
@mcneese.chad posted about a half-vEveresting ‘event’ this weekend. If the weather isn’t great outside I’ll give that a a go. I’m planning a long z2 ride anyway… That or I might knock out a solo zwift century.
Totally agree. I use TR as smart trainer and Zwift as power meter reader concurrently for my training sessions. I definitely see myself going through workouts easier with the distraction from Zwift.
I don’t care if I finish first or last in a Zwift group ride; but I do find riding with a bunch of REAL people at the same time quite exciting, especially with so many PRO cyclists/ triathletes. I am no longer just watching Chris Froome, Geraint Thomas, Jan Frodeno or Lionel Sanders, but actually riding WITH them on Zwift. Plus, I like collecting “drops” to purchase cool bikes and unlocking new stuffs.
TrainerRoad is no doubt the core part in my training. If I can only pick one app for indoor cycling, I’ll choose TR no-brainer. However, among those options to supplement my TR training such as music, Netflix, real outdoor cycling video footages and so on, Zwift is the most engaging alternative to me.
Sometimes, I am a cheapskate. I’ve had a hard time to justify another subscription to Zwift. Then I realized I just needed to cut dining outside once or twice every month, which is very achievable nowadays. I’m pretty much hooked to Zwift now, just like I was hooked to TR 5 months ago 
I’ve been smashing Zwift for the past 4 weeks, nearly every day, racing and racing. i am totally hooked!
I do however feel like i’m not getting any better. In fact, i’m prob getting a bit worse. I think i’m going to head back to TR short power build, then come back to Zwift in a few weeks
One thing to using TR and Zwift is adding a bit o both mentality. It’s great to mix and match and use the strengths of both.
I would add a 3rd point to Chad’s post…
Long road rides often get overlooked for their benefits as we specialize our training more and more. In the winter months, just freeriding in Zwift can be a great substitute to remind you how to pace properly outside…and in my case, get some long climbing in. Being in Chicago, I don’t have the option for long, sustained climbs.
Agreed. 3 can be a great replacement for the “long Sunday option” and I have used that as well. Great addition 
I was riding solo one night at steady tempo/SS and came up on a big group ride. I passed through the group and proceeded to get “yelled at” for about 10 minutes because I was somehow responsible for ripping their group apart. The guys at the front didn’t have the discipline to let me go and it was quite entertaining watching all the chat. I couldn’t respond since I ride zwift on rollers, but my route eventually varied from theirs and I was back on my own.
I’ve seen the same thing happen on outside groups ride where a solo rider catches and passes a big group and some people in the group feel the need to chase the solo rider. If a male is passed by a female, it’s armageddon. Cyclists are really a strange lot.
100%!
I went outside Saturday, flatted six miles in, and immediately wished I had done a Zwift ride instead. Kids, job, family make the time limitation real and flats can ruin the day when you’ve only got a short window to ride.
You can feather it into a training cycle if you use care and it does work well with TR.
For the racing itch: I would recommend joining the “HERD” and doing the Team Time Trial. You’ll get put on a team of 6-8 people that race the Time Trial as a Team. (You will turn yourself inside out better than any FTP test if you are the weak team member) Since it’s Organized all the team have correctly ranked power people; anyone screwing with numbers won’t stick around. because it won’t be fun for them. The results are within the League only. Races are Thursday nights, plan your training around that night and skip on recovery weeks. This is the only type of racing on Zwift that I haven’t seen devolve until they fix the sandbagging and all the other problem, or at least it’s all I can tolerate and I don’t want to mess up my training because other people are ego tripping. You don’t need to know anyone the League will put you on a team with strangers if you don’t know anyone. Within a couple weeks you’ll have 100 new friends. Last week 400 ppl raced.
If you like the visuals; you can get together with your Mates’ do a simultaneous Zwift Meetup with a Trainer Road Group workout. The Zwift rubber band Meetup will keep your group together on the virtual track while you ride even though you are all training at different FTP. You non TR friends can join too and treat it like a hammer fest, and you can try and convince them to get a TR subscription for the better workouts and the video group workout.
This sounds like fun. Have you actually done a TR Group Workout and a Zwift Meetup w rubber banding? Or is it just a theoretical possibility? I’ve run Zwift and TR concurrently, doing a TR workout in ERG with TR controlling the trainer, and I’ve done one TR Group Workout. But my mind starts to reel thinking exactly how to get all that going at the same time and what participants would see. Care to elaborate?
To be honest, the Zwift discussions on this forum are much more enjoyable, the actual Zwift forum is a bit toxic.
I’ll also add that there are a lot people whom just can’t believe there are people in the world whom are faster.
This only became possible when zwift added “keep group together” a couple months back to meetups
–IF you have power meter and smart trainer–
3a. connect TR to HR, and Trainer Via Bluetooth.
3b. connect Zwift to Power meter via bluetooth
–If you don’t have a power meter you will need Ant+
3a. connnect TR to HR and Trainer via ANT+
3b. connect Zwift to Trainer as POWER Source via bluetooth
3c. In both cases don’t connect Zwift to controllable trainer
Ride around for a few minutes to make sure it’s working. Then go to the meetup Pen, and wait for the meetup to start. Looks just like a zwift race.
When the meetup starts wait a few seconds for the group to form up; and then start the TR Group work out.
Notes about pace of group.
If it’s a high intensity workout; have the Meetup leader be the strongest rider that will make the group move along nice and fast. If you are all doing an endurance ride; have a non TR user as the meetup leader so you don’t bored everyone else with you recovery aerobic pace; the group will drag you along at a higher speed via the rubber band.
Before the rubber band faster riders would have to turn around and keep coming back for the slower riders; while that’s fine; if I’m at 110% ftp I really don’t want to have to look for the turn around button.
Give it a try it’s fun and it’s a great way to show the doubters how fun structured training can be. After all we goto Zwift 1 day a week to show off the fitness we built the other 6 in TrainerRoad. 
There are many more combinations of connecting the gear, I am happy to answer questions on combos if people get stuck. Sadly our pain cave has 18 data sources on both Ant+ and BT and 10 screens/control devices. If i can be broken I think I have done it or asked support about it. Nothing like yelling to the wife; “hey turn off BT on your tablet, phone, bike computer and restart your laptop you are blocking my BT Power meter and my race is starting in 3 minutes.!!!”
Agreed and That really goes to moderation and vendor intent. If the vendor is hosting the forum they have to be unthreatened by the off-topic, off-brand stuff. And the forum moderator has to have the right sense of “Fair”. Zwifters have money if they aren’t trainer road users then that’s an opportunity to convince them that money spent here will make them faster than those $100 tires
This place has become a premiere resource is record time. Leave the keyboard racing for the other forums. Meanwhile we have civilized Zwift, MAF, polarized training, etc etc etc thread running for months on end here.
Thanks, @ratz, for the quick and detailed reply. It’s one of the things I love about this forum – one of the healthier places on the internet in all senses. I love it that TR and Zwift are in some ways competitors (and that I’m a TR partisan and loyalist with some guilty Zwifting on the side), and yet here we are in the TR forum, total strangers, figuring out hacks to make two different platforms help get us through this plague! The better side of human nature. I appreciate the generous and good natured reminder.