I have decided I wanted to start primarily riding outdoors (shocking right). For this reason I was originally thinking about canceling TrainerRoad and just resubscribing for the winter. But now I am thinking that TrainerRoad might still be a fairly attractive offering even if viewed as an outdoor training tool that allows you to ride inside on the few days you have take it inside. I mean it is cheaper than pairing Zwift with Training Peaks or Today’s Plan. I am still not sure, and I was curious to get other people’s input on using Training Peaks and Today’s Plan and having those workouts pushed to their Garmin’s or Wahoo’s.
Yeah, sorry, I guess my post wasn’t clear. Yes, I know TR has outdoor workouts. What I am curious about is whether I should use TR primarily for outdoor workouts or switch to something like Training Peaks or Today’s Plan (paired with Zwift for when I have to workout indoors)
Don’t really think you can compare Trainerroad to Training Peaks Today’s plan. They offer something different. TR offers training plans - series of workouts, with progression build in, and selected to suit different racing needs. There is a calendar to allow scheduling of the workouts, and sone analytics. Trainingpeaks itself doesn’t offer workouts, and especially not in some sort of plan. It mainly provides a calendar, and more analysis tools and views (though the high end stuff is in WKO), and makes it easy to share this data with your coach. You can buy a a million of training plans, but you have to pay extra. You can also build your own workouts and design your own plan - if that’s what you do, TP alone would be enough. I’m not that familiar with Today’s plan, but I think it is more like Trainingpeaks, allowing a coach to set your workouts and look at your data.
TrainingPeaks is good for outdoor rides. I have been using it for 6 - 7 years with the targets set to range.
I got some free plans from British Cycling and my powers meters also came with TP plans. I have also purchased a few but it only take seconds to create you own workouts which sync to your head-unit and Zwift etc. Plus most coaches seem to use it.
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I have been mostly outside last two months (except ramp test and couple bad weather days) using TR workouts pushed to Wahoo headunit. Works very well but as haven’t used other platforms, can’t compare whether better or worse. Took couple weeks to get holding prescribed wattage steady.
Only thing still missing is overlaying workout intended intervals to actual power. There are couple topics and feature requests about it. Until implemented (if ever), can use http://intervals.icu that has such functionality already.
Unfortunately not entirely true. Yes, all workouts that are part of some plan have outside counterpart but not all standalone workouts. For example, I’m interested in 4h+ Z2 rides with Z3 intervals sprinkled in (with progressively longer duration over workouts). There are bunch such workouts (Highland +3, Robinson +3, etc) without outdoors option.
Today’s Plan has amazing analysis tools, better than TP IMO, but you need a Sports Science Degree to understand it all. It was all over my head and I just wasn’t getting the benefit from it. You can still have a free account with them or TP and sync your TR data to them. I’d stick with TR for the workouts as they are way better than TP or Todays Plan.
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In what way are the TR workouts better? I’m unfamiliar with anything but TR and Zwift.
Trainerroad outside workouts pushed to the wahoo are way better than trainingpeaks. The ability to skip forward and pause but keep the interval going separate it imo
Paper on the stem
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I’m pretty sure you can do this on Garmin with either TR or TP. For me, TP is better as you can customize which intervals are ended by time and which are ended with a lap button. So I’d you know your route needs 10 min between work intervals but the workout has 5 then you can change that so it doesn’t move to the work interval until you press lap. TR has this built into some of their workouts and are typically in the place I would want them but if it’s not then you aren’t able to change it. You’re stuck with what TR thought was best.
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Wahoo handles that independently, no matter if it is a TR workout or TP workout.
On Garmin the defaults used by workouts created in Garmin Connect or TrainingPeaks are better (IMHO) than TrainerRoad on my 530 computer. I wrote up a TR forum feature request for Garmin: Feature request - 3s power on Garmin default workout page
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I would love the ability to end intervals on the lap button. Imo trainerroad does not do enough open ended intervals. Like 2x20ftp but stretch the 2nd one if you can.
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