XP (short for “experience points”) are used in Zwift to determine your level, and each time you reach a new level you unlock something fun for your garage (see all the details here).
Because many Zwifters are looking to level up quickly, we’ve published a number of posts with tips explaining how XP is calculated and how to maximize the XP earned for your efforts. Three examples:
- 8 Ways to Earn More XP and Level Up Faster on Zwift
- Level Up Faster On Zwift: GPLama’s XP Farming Alpe Workout
- How Zwift Calculates XP for Cycling Workouts
Soon after the launch of Zwift’s Climb Portal, keen Zwifters noticed that riding portal climbs was earning them large amounts of XP. We noticed the same, and began an investigation into just how much XP riders can grab in the Climb Portal.
Here is what we found.
Climb Portal XP Farming Basics
Portal climbs are automatically broken up into 10 equidistant sections. Each section is tracked individually and displayed in the left-hand panel so you can try to break your PR for each section when you take on a climb more than once.
Here’s the kicker: each section ends in an arch, and riding through that arch awards you with one of three powerups: a feather, a small XP bonus (~10), or a large XP bonus (+250)!
Powerup Frequency
Ever since the Climb Portal launched, some Zwifters have been trying to figure out the advanced algorithm that determines which powerup you receive at each arch. We tried different ideas as well – did powerup probabilities shift based on the difficulty of the segment? Or perhaps they changed based on how hard you went (beat your PR, get an XP bonus)?
But our tests show (and these results are confirmed by Zwift) that powerup probabilities are the same at every Climb Portal arch. They don’t change based on what you do.
So what exactly is the probability of getting the Feather, Small Bonus, and Large Bonus at each arch? We don’t know for sure, but after tracking powerups across 100+ section arches, here are the numbers:
- Feather: 22
- Small Bonus: 62
- Large Bonus: 20
Based on these numbers, we’re going to guess Zwift has assigned the following probabilities to Climb Portal powerups:
- Feather: 20%
- Small Bonus: 60%
- Large Bonus: 20%
Gaming the Portal
In the Climb Portal, just like the rest of the Zwift, the more powerup arches you can ride through, the more XP you can potentially earn. So if we want to “game” the portal to maximize XP, we need to ride through as many section arches as possible using the least amount of work/time.
There are two ways to look at this:
- The shorter, the better. All Portal Climbs are broken into 10 equidistant sections, so a 10km climb will have 10 1km sections, while a 3km climb will have 10 300-meter sections. Clearly, the shorter climb will get you more XP.
- The flatter, the better. So if you have two Portal Climbs of equal length, but one averages 4% while the other averages 6%, the 4% climb will get you more XP for your efforts since you’ll go through each section faster.
Maximizing Climb Portal XP, then, requires riding shorter, flatter climbs. Here are the three shortest:
- Cote de Pike (2.17km, 9%)
- Cote de Domancy (2.97km, 7.9%)
- Cote de Trebiac (4.6km, 4.2%)
At 3 W/kg, Cote de Pike takes around 13 minutes to complete. (Domancy and Trebiac each take around 15 minutes at the 3 W/kg). Based on that estimate, we can calculate the average XP earned per hour if you did Cote de Pike repeats at 3 W/kg:
- Average XP per section: (250*.2) + (10*.6)=56XP
- Average time to complete each section: (13 minutes climbing + 2 minutes descending)/10 sections=1.5 minutes per section, or 40 Cote de Pike sections completed each hour
- Bonus XP per hour: (60 minutes/1.5 minutes)*56XP=2240XP
- Distance-Based XP per hour: (2.17km*2)*(60 minutes/15 minutes)*20XP=347XP
- Total XP per hour: 2587XP
As a comparison, you can expect around 820XP/hour riding with the Coco RoboPacer, or as high as 1400XP per hour if you do something tricky like GPLama’s Alpe XP Farming Workout.
Clearly, the shorter climbs in the Portal offer an unprecedented opportunity to earn XP in Zwift.
XP For Other Climbs
Longer Portal climbs don’t offer the same XP farming capabilities as shorter ones, however. If you’re looking at it from purely an XP-earning standpoint, if it takes you more than ~45 minutes to do the climb once, you’re better off riding with a RoboPacer on a flatter route.
Questions or Comments
Have you been farming XP in the Climb Portal? Got any further insight or tips to share? Post below!
Will you automatically get awarded XP if you pass an arch and already have the feather?
Good question, but I doubt it. Unless they changed the rules entirely within the portals (which is possible), when you have a power up like the Feather on hand, you can’t earn another “spin” on the bonus wheel. You need to either use the power up or trash it to have an “open” spot.
Nope. Just like anywhere else in Zwift, if you’re holding a powerup and go through an arch, you won’t get a new powerup. Gotta trigger the one you’re holding before you ride through the arch, in order to get a new one.
That’s right. You can trigger it immediately before the arch and the new one will be added afterwards .If it’s xp, you won’t know how much until the feather has finished
Can you circle – u-turn an arch and still get the bonuses? Note: I would not think so…some type of timer built in or similar…but thought I would ask.
yes you can
Yes on the descent you can, but you don’t get the top one.
Yes, you can. I’m not sure how Zwift’s logic works exactly, but you definitely can’t just ride through the same arch twice in a row and get powerups on the second time. So that means you can’t u-turn and ride through the top arch (the “You did it!”) and get a powerup. But you can flip u-turns and get powerups on the other ones… I think. It was a bit weird when I tested it.
Have you noticed if you still get the 10 XP by “trashing” the feather? I used to see a +10 appear when I trashed an unwanted powerup in free rides and pacer rides. I haven’t noticed it since the last update or two. I’m wondering if it still gets credited, but without the notification, or if that little XP compensation went away.
There’s a time factor built in. It seems to be around 90 seconds before the power up is available again on the same arch
Yes you can circle as much as you like. You get both up and down. On the down, you cu turn at the stars. If you are going too fast you may get there too quickly but not much unless you’re Mark Cavendish. Just loop again and it will be awarded
What I was thinking was go through (going up), immediately U-turn, go back through, u-turn…basically a 50-yard loop.
Thanks for all the replies…I probably should just try see what happens.
Unfortunately, Zwift has ‘fixed’ this issue. The arches don’t reset until you exit the climb portal.
Source: I used to use this trick all the time to farm exp, but noticed that after the last update it no longer works. 🙁
I tried today and the arches did not reset.
i mentioned this a long time ago, and some thought it apt to thumbs down it. im not sure your % are right. i consistently get many 250XPs and on 1 occasion i got 8 of the 10.
I got six yesterday. 3 on the way up and 3 on the way down.
I don’t know what to say… all I can do is test it and give the numbers I got. I’d be curious, if you track your numbers over a larger sample size (say, 5 climbs) what they look like.
Is it possible that it could be effort related? It may be silly, but it seems I get more of them when I’m working harder. Is it possible that the percentages aren’t fixed, but somehow effort related?
I have been enjoying the portal climbs and I can only note that I did Cote de Domancy 16 times and saw somewhere around 20% large XP bonuses with a sample size of 160 banners passed. I earned 11000 XP on that climb, and 8000 of those were from large bonuses while the rest were from the actual kms travelled and the +10 XP bonuses I received.
Discovered climb portal XP farming myself accidentally and it’s fantastic for levelling up faster esp. post-Level 20, where level progress is excruciatingly slow. Across 4 climb portal rides (including Cote de Trebiac twice) I only got 2 feathers in total with the remaining powerups split roughly 60:40 between 10 & 250 XP
Why does it matter what level you are at? I think I’m at level 57, but so what. I’ve got more points than I’d ever want – nothing really worth using them to buy, and each time I move from one level to the next I’m rewarded with something useless, like retro socks. I’m struggling to see why anyone cares about these points.
I have now done three climbs in the portal and haven’t had a single 250XP powerup.
I am wondering if riding these portals while in a workout would up the odds for the larger bonus? IIRC, when you are in workout mode, you are prohibited from getting power ups, and only get the bonuses (small or large) while in that mode. If true, this might up the chances you’d get the larger bonus when doing these rides.
I don’t think you get any PUs or bonus XP when in a workout. However, I think that if you ride a TT bike you only get XP at each arch so that might remove the feather from the equation on portals. I am sure someone will correct me if this is wrong.
Yeah, might be the TT bike as the difference maker here. I could be totally off my rocker, but thought there might be an additional way to leverage the bonus chances.
When in workout mode, you don’t get any powerups at arches. So that’s a no-go.
Riding it with a TT bike appears to just give you the small bonus (+10XP) at every arch, so that’s less than ideal as well.
I was on my Tron, on my first two portal climbs, and on one of those I rec’d 250xp at almost every arch.
July 1 & July 2
I got several draft vans today on Cote de Domancy so something must have changed
You probably did the portal when already being on the French map and taking a turn towards the portal. The game still thinks you are on the French map and gives you the power ups you have on that route.
It only worls if you select the portal and start from there.
Something I noticed when doing Cote de Trebiac last weekend when trying to farm XP as you explained above – occasionally, and I’m not sure what triggers this, the arches will reward you with an Aero or a Draft powerup, completely worthless for ascending these portals. I also noticed much less +250XP occurrences on that climb that morning. I don’t know if anyone else has experienced this, but I wonder if those other powerups were introduced to keep the potentially overpowered XP farming at bay…
You probably did the portal when already being on the French map and taking a turn towards the portal. The game still thinks you are on the French map and gives you the power ups you have on that route.
It only worls if you select the portal and start from there.
This wasn’t the case. Selected the Portal before the map loaded and it still saddled me with a couple Aero and Draft powerups on the way up.
Cote de Pike, go through arch 9-8-7 flip a U-turn go back to arch 9 flip a U-turn and repeat, power ups are feather 10xp and 250xp, in 90 minutes I got in excess of 15 x 250 xp. Good grind for any lower level riders 👍
Great tip, Couch Potato. I wonder if you use a TT bike if you get even more XP as those bikes only get XP elsewhere in Zwift. I have climbed Cote de Pike 9 times over the past 24 hours and scored 20 by 250XP and 48 by 10XP using the Tron bike.
David, in my tests if I ride the climbs with a TT bike I just get the +10XP bonus at every arch.
Tried the TT bike, no go, 10xp for the effort.
Look for the flatest/shortest section on any of the climbs to ride at an easy pace through about 3 arches before you U-turn.
Can attest to this – I did around 4k xp in an hour. 3 banners is around 3 minutes including descent at 2.6wkg.
60 banners – even at 10 xp per banner is 600xp plus 25k x 20 xp is 1100 xp
Then any 250xp bonus is a plus – I got around 12 of them!
It can get pretty tiring hitting uturn though!
You didnt get any feathers at all ?
@Couch Potato wow that really works. Got 1080 XP in 30 minuts just now doing 10.5km with 229m elevation. Just need to think about using the feather at once if you get that en watch the minimap when going back to 9 since the number isnt been showed anymore.
Doesnt work with 2 arches though. Tried that also by going to 8 and do a Uturn, but that is a no go since you do not get powerups than so 3 arches is the minimum it seems.
Thank you, Couch Potato. I followed your advice this morning and earned 21 by 250XP, 61 by 10XP and 20 feathers in 93 minutes covering 36km and 839m of elevation. The total of 6,580XP lifted me to Level 58. I was not alone on the Pike gate 9 to 7 loop, so the word has spread! BTW just doing gate 9 and 8 does not work.
If you’re doing a steady XP farming ride, I recommend riding UP the slope after arch 7 until it reaches 20% BEFORE doing your u-turn. You’ll be able to build up a nice bit of momentum to carry you most of the way back up the slope btwn arches 7 and 8. For the same constant power you’ll be doing a bit more distance, but in less time.
Here is another confirmation that Couch Potato’s idea works. I got about 3,000 xp in an hour used ng this method. Cote de Pike, arches 9,8,7 then flip a uturn before climbing to 6
Couch Potato. Thanks for the idea. I went from level 56 to level 60 in 10 days. Amazing farming of XP. I saw a lot of the same people out there during my crazy personal goal.
Really hoping they don’t change the rules on this, looking forward to massive amounts of XP pouring into my account!!!
I bet they nerf it soon. It’ll probably be a bit of a bonus to get people interested in trying the portals for XP so the portals get more popular than they would have otherwise.
I’m surprised they didn’t add the TT route (Passy > Combloux) in the climb portal. I would still love to see this particular route added. Now that we know the results of the pros, I bet a route like this would see the most activity seeking bragging rights!
+1 Hopefully they add it soon. Such a decisive stage/setup for the upcoming battle makes a strong case for it.
In the meantime a reasonable facsimile might be Legends and Lava I guess which is maybe the easiest/most straightforward (and overall pretty close I think)) but trades a bit of length for a bit less vertically.
Anyone got something better?
The climb from the TT (Cote de Domancy) is in the portal.
Ooh yes, even better!
Rebel route TdF 2023 Stage 16 TT suggestion then:
Legends and Lava w/ Turn onto Cote de Domancy via Climb Portal (scheduling willing, for now at least)
Did Areves yesterday and received three 250xp bonuses. Pleasantly surprised!
I’ve been farming XP by doing a short climb and looping back through each arch on the way down…gives about 1000XP extra each fresh climb, which is great. But I hope this is only temporary during the July mission badge. For those who treat Zwift more as a game than a workout aid, I fear it will distort the experience. Anyone know what Zwift are thinking?
Only 2 x 250XPs in 18 arches this morning…just unlucky or has the algorithm changed?
Just got 10x250xp in 37minutes and 14.4km
Does anyone post level 30-35 even care about XP?
Absolutely! I was level 47 when they introduced the portal, and I want the firesocks (level 50), so have been hauling my fat rear up Cote de Pike at least twice before starting any activity. Now at level 48.75. But getting a bit fed up. 😉
ok, aside from the firesocks, is there any motivation to gain XP? 😉
Level 42 is needed for the best TT bike and the best aero wheels.
which gives you about 1/8th of a second over an hour stint? 😉
10,440xp in 2hrs (5,220xp per hour) using Couch Potato’s Trick from the comments of repeating gate 9-8-7 on Cote de Pike.
Sounds much better than doing the whole climb.
If you try to go up Cote de Pike at 3.0 w/kg with the trainer difficulty at max and a 39-25, you’re going to come to a stop on the steepest pitches, though. Right? I was out of my saddle in my smallest gear, pushing like 6.5 w/kg, and I could barely turn the pedals over.
The good thing is you dont fall over in Zwift
For a lot of drops, keep soft pedaling when going down. When doing 0 Watts (for supertuck or just rest), the drop counter stops.
I have been averaging around 3000 to 3500 xp per hour. Here are my tips. Similar to yours with a couple of extras. Choose shortest route and lowest grade segment. Currently, this is Col Du Trebiac. Ride up to section 1 (complete the climb if you like) After you pass through this section make a U-turn and ride back down to section 3. There is no banner but there is a star on the mini map. Hit the U-turn again and back to 2 Repeat until bored kills you! It takes me around a minute and 15 seconds to climb… Read more »
I second this, except I think the optimal set of gates might be 5-4-3. Make sure to u-turn back through gate 4 on the way down. Gate 5 to the top seemed similar, if maybe slightly less efficient (make sure you u-turn through every gate on the way down). Repeating gate 3 to the top seems like it would be slightly slower, because there is one that takes longer in that section (gate 2 to 1?). I did ~5200 xp in 1:35, but I also wasn’t consistent with the 5-4-3 loop because I was experimenting.
I just realized that you can select Cote de Pike any day (I think) by using the climb portal challenge and selecting stage 2. Pike 9-8-7 was ~4800xp/hr compared to Trebiac 5-4-3 at ~3400xp/hr, both at around 2.6w/kg average.
Yeah, but the challenge is only available until July 31!
Interesting stuff, thanks. As an aside are there any signs of climb portal climbs being released for events? I can imagine the primary remit is the solo climbing experience but I can’t help thinking it would be great “fun” racing others up these climbs.
I’ve heard folks from ZHQ mention that it’s coming. Not sure when.
That’s good to know, thanks. I think I’m looking forward to it…
It might help to balance out the variety of racing parcours too, a few more mountainous options would be welcome.
I’ve spent most of my time on Zwift maximizing my XP as much as possible. I just recently got to Level 42, and now that I have the fastest wheelsets and frames in the game, there’s unfortunately not a lot of incentive to continue XP farming for every ride. But there’s also the thought that there may be incentives in the future, and continuing to farm XP now will benefit me later. The internal struggle!
I’m level 37 and 42 is my goal. After that, doesn’t seem like much point in intentionally farming xp, aside from maybe the fire socks at 50.
I rode the Climb Portal for the first time this morning. I chose the Cote de Trebiac and rode up it three times during my 75-minute workout. I gained 2,020 XP during that time (1574/hr). The hype is real! I typically average 800-900/hr using my older method(s) of typical XP farming. I was mostly curious in the XP, but I also wanted to try the Portal (yes, I’m very late to the game but I’ve been focused more on XP farming…little did I know, the Portal was the ticket). I don’t really need the XP anymore, but it was fun… Read more »
Is there any news on this switching to a daily climb schedule come the end of the TdF Femmes rather than the greater freedom of being able to select any climb via the July challenge? Seems like an own goal for Zwift to suddenly remove freedom of choice depending on your required workout or preference any given day 🤷♂️
I did repeats of Crow Road, gate 1 to finish (so complete the climb and then circle back to gate 1 and repeat) today and it’s no Cote de Pike, but not bad. About 1 power up every 1:20 @ 73kg and 200w. Note: the “reset” for when you can gain a power up from a gate again seems to be distance based, since Cote de Pike (and Trebiac) required a set of 3 gates to cycle through, but this only needs 2.
Update: realized that looping the first set of gates (9 and 8) doesn’t take much longer than 1 to finish line and you don’t have to ride some of the tougher sections, so it’s probably better if you’re doing a shorter or easier ride.
Looks like they’ve taken away the arches on the way down. I did Crow Road today and only got powerups/cup on the way up!
You are right, there is no bonus 10XP for crossing the curve on the descent, having tower TT (changed on the upper loop).
Well, and the ability to farm XP by converting under banners is over 😀 Since the last update (v1.47), converting and passing under the banner does not draw the reward 🙁 The frequency of drawing “250XP” has also changed. On Tuesday, after beating “Bealach na Bà” twice, I only drew “250XP” once. :/ Today I also drew “250XP” only once after beating “La Laguna Negra” twice. And just today I confirmed my belief that Zwift has blocked the possibility of drawing after crossing the banner. Only after going all the way down and crossing the “gate” and turning around, that… Read more »
.. and there goes my only reason to ever want to try climb portal (on level 57 fwiw).
Looks like no more xp rewards on the descent now too?
P(250)=20% false
30 sections only two time 250p
Controll please F(30,0.2,2) please
P(250)<0.2!!!