In your example, it’s only 30% added getting in and out of town. You won’t have been coasting for those 40 mins. The 50% number does seem exaggerated. If you analysed your fit file you’d be able to tell exactly.
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This video is awash with very subtle British humour, and I’d view as a ringing endorsement for TR.
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That’s a totally fair point. We should also include the fun aspect: on long outdoor rides I do tend to make stops to grab something to eat or simply to enjoy the scenery.
And even when less efficient, it certainly need not mean worse. 
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TR’s incredibly boring.
That’s why I overlay it on Zwift 
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I am on the exact opposite end of that spectrum. I live minutes from the highway on the outskirts of the city, so other than waiting for one single light for 1-2 mins, I have no need for coasting to get out of the city. My total elevation for a 100km ride can practically be measured in centimetres, so no descending. The only coasting or active recovery therefore will be purely by choice, and not mandated by my route. I have access to hundreds of kilometers of road and gravel from my door. So while it won’t be as efficient as TR/Zwift, it’s pretty damn close.
And yet, I live on flat, boring and windy prairies, and would love to have mountains easily accessible. Or even a 5 minute climb 
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I feel this!
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I actually like watching action films and the fight/high adrenaline scenes give me energy during hard intervals.
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Do any of you ever use TR without music, movies or entertainment of any kind, just sit there and rawdog a workout for a couple hours? I do that sometimes and I’d like to think it helps me with mental endurance; an Ironman bike leg seems to go by so fast in comparison.
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Probably more efficient/effective, as outdoor riding is for myself, no cooling issues.
Indoors I generally need to do 1.1 more than outdoors. Yes this is an outlier situation, but there you go (1.5 rule is nonsense, it depends)
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Route selection matters. 50% is outlier territory, and if that’s the best you can do I feel for you. Around here, if someone coasts or zone 1’s that much, they’re just not riding efficiently. I can go 3 hours in the mountains with 4kft EG and get under 1 minute of coasting time and less than 10% zone 1 time by pedaling the descents, but I also focus on getting the most bang for my buck. 3hrs on a flat route I use all the time for endurance, I spend less than 10min in zone 1.
If you need to add 50% time to your outside rides to get the same amount of work as a trainer session, that’s really unfortunate.
Here’s a suggestion that I use for training: slow/robust tires on box rims, bar bag… don’t worry about being fast. In fact actively try to be slow so you have to do the work.
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I always try and do the warmup with nothing, helps the workout go faster when adding entertainment further along. Sometimes that extends to the full ride, caveat that 90 minutes has been the longest.
Mind you, I was once a sport science guinea pig and had to do FTP efforts for 1 hour with nothing, no data, not even the time. That was hell.
I guess I must be boring as I never use TR with headphones and only occasionally use it overlaid on YouTube etc but I tend to do only 45mins sessions.
Absolutely not. Indoor riding sucks as it is, I don’t want to put any more brain cells to sleep
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Don’t bother, google for “effect of music on exercise RPE” or “ergogenic effect of music during exercise”
Exactly, all about balance! Like group rides - sometimes they’re a hammer fest, and sometimes it’s a social ride with pastries, coffee and beer worked into it. Summer’s a very long ways away it seems 
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Yup, and I am going to raise you one: attach a trailer with your kids. I regularly do that to get them out of my wife’s hair. In our new home it also makes it easier with the rolling terrain: I have more easy gears. Even on flat courses, the trailer acts like a wind brake.
However, I don’t have a power meter on my mountain bike, so I did not think it’d be good to pick one of those rides.
Perhaps I am an outlier, dunno. But outdoor endurance rides are much more fun and allow me to zone out in ways I cannot indoors. Even if they are less efficient.
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This got me wondering about a similar route I do: 3 hours w/ 1500m elevation. The last time I rode it I had 54 minutes coasting and another 15 in Z1. Perhaps my risk tolerance is abnormally low, but pedaling the descents sounds like a death wish.
Now that you mention it, I seem to remember a cycling game that was more akin to Grand Theft Auto than traditional cycling. Pretty sure there was a beta version floating around for a while. Does anyone else remember this?
I believe this is what you are looking for??
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I remember a podcast a few years ago where Jonathan talked about riding with a female pro (I think?) where they were riding very specific power targets.
He basically said the climbs were extremely slow and the descents frighteningly fast.