Still out there… WKO, free TP, and coach plans. It’s a bit of a hassle and you’ll likely end up paying for a TP subscription but it’s not required.
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You’re right - although the pay-per-plan model is more of a freemium model than an all-inclusive single-pay app. It’s like a PowerPoint template bundle. Or a FitnessBlender training plan.
TR competitor, I and all the other MTBers who are not racers and want a simple program to do workouts in the off-season are waiting for you. We are are people who want to keep up out fitness when we can’t get enough days in outside due to life or weather and appreciate structured training. We are not obsessed with every performance hack and therefore may not be on this forum or listening to the podcast. We don’t need all the racer and life consuming obsessive features as nice as they may be. Put out a simple structured product (i.e. not Zwift) for us thank you. 
I meant companies who compete against TR, not cyclists who compete using TR…
My Tacx trainer came with the Tacx Training app. You can run it to control the trainer manually or you can load any number of workouts including an FTP test. You can also build your own workouts on their web site which are then stored and show up in your Tacx Training account.
It’s actually a fine solution to program workouts and ok “free” solution if you already own a Tacx trainer. Do other smart trainer companies offer free software?
The Tacx training app free version does allow you to create workouts and run them, but does not include training plans, riding GPS files, not access to their films or workout library. All these features are… by subscription.
You log into the web (cloud.tacx.com) and create your workouts. They will show up in your Tacx app.
Correct. See Garmin Tacx Indoor Bike Trainers for a comparison between the free and paid versions of the app.
I’ve been creating workouts for free in Garmin Connect (mobile and web) since buying my first bike computer. I’ve got a pretty sizable library of workouts on GC. Apparently it will control my trainer but I’ve never tried that. It’s another reason I continue using Garmin.
TrainerRoad just makes indoor workouts easier. And I like the analysis tools for basic views of indoor and outdoor workouts. For any serious analysis I turn to WKO.
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Have to say that I agree with the intent of what you’re saying.
Plan builder to me just stitches together the normal training plans to fit in between events you have.
And yes I would love it if you could specify the duration of individual workouts. Some mornings I have time for longer workouts and others I do not. A proper plan builder would allow you to enter this and any other parameters that it needs to plan against and then pull individual workouts from the vast library to construct a cohesive progressive plan that fits your individual parameters.
I guess we have to wait longer for this.
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An off-topic observation - isn’t it fantastic that everyone in this thread has so much passion for cycling?
It’s clear that those who are unsure whether to re-subscribe want to get better, and that those who have subscribed are trying to support them with some great suggestions.
What a wonderful and supportive community!
Just goes to show that we all love riding our bicycles 
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Theres a reason for that, 30min workouts don’t cut it. better off doing 3x 60-90mins a week
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I think this right here is your biggest disconnect. You and lots of other people, a gigantic market really, enjoy cycling casually to have fun and stay fit. That’s not a market that TrainerRoad serves particularly well out of the box, and that’s intentional. The TrainerRoad motto is literally Get Faster. The tagline for the podcast is The podcast dedicated to making you a faster cyclist. If your aim is not to make yourself better, you’re not in TR’s target market. That doesn’t mean your market isn’t worth serving, it doesn’t mean your problem isn’t worth solving, it doesn’t mean your market is “wrong,” and it doesn’t mean your market can’t adapt TR to work well; it just means you may not ever find a ready-made TR offering that gives you what you’re looking for, even after they launch the machine-learning-powered plan builder they’ve been hinting at for years. TR isn’t trying to keep you fit and healthy; it’s trying to make you better.
So to answer your question, nah, I wouldn’t resub. It doesn’t work for you, and it likely won’t without extra effort on your part to adapt the structure. Get on Zwift and use one of their plans, or buy one on TrainingPeaks for a lot less than $100 and use that.
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/Thread ends.
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You can find thousands of workouts on TrainerDay (used to be ErgDB) or use their workout creator to make your own and download them to use for free with ErgVideo. I’ve been doing this for two years now.
TrainerDay also has a Plan/Calendar feature so you can lay it all out and see what the TSS comes out to for each week. Pretty nice for a free site.
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I’ve been using TrainerDay as well, I’ve subscrived (not that you get much extra) but for $25 a year, hay ho … as I’ve got a Zwift subscription, been using trainingpeaks as a link to get the workouts into zwift … didn’t know about ErgVideo, thank you
Why not just use a plan from Training Peaks on Zwift? Are they not compatible with ERG?
They are are, and I could, I just like TrainerDay because of it’s workout library, training plan planner and freeness and my training peaks is free, and won’t let you me add to my library any more. TrainerDay can send directly to Garmin as well, so experimenting with that
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Hey Rose!
It sounds like our time crunch training plans could be exactly what you’re looking for. We have Low and Mid-Volume Time Crunch training plans in both 30-minute and 45-minute variants depending on the time you have available to train each day. Here is the general breakdown:
If you have an active TrainerRoad subscription, you can view these plans in detail by following this link.
These plans are not configurable within Plan Builder, but for those just getting started out and want a solid plan without digging too much deeper, these are a great option.
Love this idea, I will pass this onto the team 
.
I suspect you are familiar with these options @bobw, but for anyone wondering how to modify a plan to fit in between the LV and MV plans, we have a few guidelines.
+ Volume
If you want to increase the volume of your selected plan, you can
- Complete TSS filler. This is basically low-intensity endurance riding that increases your TSS without drastically effecting your fatigue for the week. This can be a separate endurance ride, or extra endurance riding tacked onto the end of your planned workouts
- Select the +1, +2 version when you have extra time and want to do the harder version of a workout. Read the workout closely to make sure that you aren’t biting off more than you can chew. Some “+” versions just have an extra set of intervals, while other “+” versions reduce recovery time and/or increase the interval intensity.
- Volume
If you want to reduce the volume of a selected plan, you can:
- Eliminate the recovery workouts and replace them with complete rest
- Choose the “-” versions of workouts.
In general, we recommend adding volume to a plan rather than subtracting, so if you are in between Low and Mid Volume, we recommend starting with the Low Volume plan and adding endurance workouts to increase your volume. This also gives you the flexibility to work on skills building, group riding, etc.
One day, we may be able to improve on this and automate some form of LV+ or MV- plans, but at the moment there is a bit of manual intervention needed.
I hope this helps explain some of the options we have to help train all different types of athletes. If anyone still feels that they are not well served by our plans, I’m all ears. I may be able to recommend some modifications or point you to a resource that may be able to help you reach your goals, so don’t hesitate to reach out.
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This alone is one of the biggest benefits of TR. If a plan doesnt work for you, or you’re not sure where you should start, someone from the company will always help. Quite quickly and thoroughly. If that fails this forum can be a wealth of information.
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