Do you remember the scene from "The Silence of the Lambs", when Hannibal Lecter explains to Clarice the that "Man covets. That's his nature. And how do we begin to covet, Clarice? We begin by coveting what we see every day."





Dr. Lecter is right. I covet a Tron bike because I see it every day.





As a middle-aged man in a snowy climate who likes to ride bicycles, I Zwift to keep in shape. Zwift gamifies indoor cycle training so that it is challenging, interactive, and weirdly social. So even an innately lazy person like me looks forward to hopping on his trainer and peddling through a virtual world with other cyclists, pristine roads in beautiful locations, exciting races and challenging climbs.





But after a few months of Zwifting I noticed a new kind of bicycle. Brightly coloured glowing wheels, no chain, no derailleur. The Tron bike. And the people on that beautiful bike would wiz past me going uphill.









A Tron bike









But I couldn't just buy one. To earn my Tron bike, I had to sign up to climb a total elevation of 50,000 m. That is, in essence, cycling up the side of Mount Everest six times.





For a fit cyclist, that is a big challenge. For me, this is almost impossible. I don't generate many watts, and I prefer to report my weight in kg because the number is smaller in metric. And when climbing on a bike, all that matters is your watts / kg.





But I covet. So day after day, I've been slogging up virtual mountains being passed by people on Tron bikes. And, dear reader, I'm now 67% of the way to earning my own Tron.





I am certain I will finish. And I'm hoping this kind of focus and discipline will spill over to something important.





Maybe even something in the real world.























