I had Baxter -2 last week and then again this week on one of my endurance days (I’m doing LW Polarized Base right now). I did the workout last week but ended up replacing it this week with something else. It is hard for me to see what the point of all the little short but still low intensity intervals in Baxter -2 is when the workout is done outside. Seems like I’d get essentially the same training effect by just riding at a consistent power and skipping all of the annoying up and down intervals.
1 Like
Yes, it’s an endurance ride; ride within zone 1/2 outside. The small changes are made to make it less boring riding erg mode inside.
5 Likes
Makes sense. What I don’t get though is why TR transfers the small changes over to the outside ride. Or why it serves up something like this to me in the first place when it knows I’m doing my rides outside because that’s what I told plan builder I was doing. (Note, I’m self aware enough that I realize this is annoying me more than it should.)
1 Like
It doesn’t do that on a workout outside for Baxter -2, below is what Baxter -2 outside is. For me I ride between 160-218 watts or 55-75% ftp. It’s a big range which is my zone 2 power.
1 Like
Weird. My Wahoo must have glitched then as when I actually did the workout outside it gave me all kinds of different intervals:
1 Like
Oof - that would of drove me nuts!
2 Likes
Interesting, I would contact support@Trainerroad.com that is strange.
1 Like
Hey everyone!
@bmarum this isn’t a glitch by any means. The Baxter workouts have quite a few intervals in them (even the outside versions).
@Buckethead the workout description says “Settle into 49 minutes between 146-200 watts” for you which means that the power target will always be somewhere between 146-200 watts, but will change within those 49 minutes.
We do often make subtle changes to certain workouts when building their outside versions to simplify things, but these lower-intensity workouts often stay pretty much the same.
I’m actually discussing this with the team right now to see their thoughts, but for now, you can continue on with these if you don’t mind the intervals, or use Workout Alternates to find a suitable replacement if they bother you too much.
I’ll report back if I find anything else worth sharing! 
5 Likes
Thanks Eddie. My two cents would be that Plan Builder either shouldn’t serve up a workout like Baxter -2 when rides are designated as outdoor rides or that the outdoor version of Baxter -2 should just have a broad power range and perhaps a note that power should be varied within the range over the course of the workout. But it should not have all of the little intervals that the indoor version has.
4 Likes
@eddiegrinwald the power target does not change while outside on my Karoo 2 or the bolt v1 I used prior. Each time I was provided the range and one long interval. Notice on my screenshot it says 49 minutes - I would have a single 49 minute lap. I’ll have to load Baxter -2 up this weekend and try it to confirm - but that’s how it’s always worked on my endurance rides with a range.
1 Like
Interesting. 
I just had someone on the team load up Baxter -2 on their Wahoo and Garmin and it looks like each one showed ~25 steps. I’m looking for someone with a Hammerhead to test that out as well.
I do know that some outside variants of our workouts are simplified, but I’d like to ensure that things are working as they should with this particular workout, so let me know what you find this weekend!
It looks like Baxter -2 pushes to Hammerhead as a stepped workout as well.
Let me know if this isn’t the case for you and we can take a closer look!
2 Likes
@eddiegrinwald I just loaded Baxter -2 and got the stepped workout on the Dashboard also:
My bad here - most workouts when I see the outdoors version say ride at x watts for y minutes it just comes across as one long z2 interval/lap. That is what I saw with Koip this past weekend - no steps and just a long interval range.
1 Like
Good to know. I often download Carter for outdoors endurance as it has intervals to break things up, its good to know there is another 
2 Likes
I had Baxter -2 outside last night on my Edge 530 and I loved that the intervals changed every couple minutes. It kept the ride interesting, and after being in ERG mode all winter it felt good to have to try and hit different power targets every few minutes outside.
2 Likes