You have options, and that is one. My personal favorite is to simulate outside riding by running/recording the workout on my Garmin while having Zwift or RGT control the trainer in sim mode.
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Other than temperature I think with the latest update (Garmin Training Status) all of the metrics are recorded/populated by TR now.
I do dual record though. Sometimes its a freeride in Garmin following a TR workout (TR controlling the trainer). Other times however I forgo the TR app and its just its a TR outdoor workout on a virtual course (Edge dual recording a RGT/Zwift session). Or in the case of an Endurance workout instead of having one long interval, I recreate the TR indoor workout which is more stepped an run that on my garmin on a virtual course.
Occasionally its triple recording just to confuse things 
TR controlling the trainer, RGT running for visuals and the Edge recording too as a back up. The Edge is also closer to my face in a TT session
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I also dual record. On my garmin I turn off auto pause and this is the data I send to Trainerroad so that my power curve isn’t over inflated because of any stops on the ride.
Because I’m vain I keep auto pause on the data I send to strava so that I look faster than I really am.
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I dual record because I have pretty much all garmin products. Tacx trainer, garmin power meter; this way I get all the extra and maybe useless cycling dynamics.
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Been dual recording since 2014… Only reason I don’t is if my head unit battery is dead or I can’t find it. I prefer to have all the metrics and the actual raw file stored on my home NAS.
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So I was thinking about this all over again and am comparing two workouts in Garmin Connect, one uploaded from TrainerRoad, and one uploaded from my Edge 1040, both with the same power meter, hear-rate sensor, trainer and running a workout on TrainerRoad. Things missing from the TrainerRoad upload (i.e. what I lose if I don’t dual-record, and I don’t have the fancy Garmin power pedals but just a Quarq PM):
- Performance Condition (as a graph over the workout, not to be confused with anything in Training Readiness)
- L/R Balance (and other advanced PM metrics if you have them)
- Respiration rate (as recorded by my Garmin HRMs)
- Temperature (as recorded by the Edge)
- Stamina / Potential Stamina (as recorded by the Edge)
- Detailed “Nutrition and Hydration” (the TrainerRoad activity has total calories, the Edge activity has Resting/Active/Total and Consumed if you recorded that, as well as estimated sweat loss and fluid consumed)
- Self Evaluation as recorded on the Edge (if you choose to do so, similar but not the same as TrainerRoad’s post-workout survey)
- Training Effect (on the activity anyway, this one is weird because it is calculated for the TrainerRoad ride and included in Training Load / Status, but it is not on the activity, that is, no indication of “Tempo” vs “Threshold” etc.)
- Strokes (which is funny because both have cadence)
- Garmin Badges (i.e. Indoor Cycling completions)
But I want to point out that the TrainerRoad activity does have Intensity Minutes calculated and reported on the activity, and it does “properly” fill in total Training Load / Status / Recovery metrics, they’re just not reported on the activity itself. You can actually kind of cheat your way into finding it by going to Training Load and looking at what was reported during the timeframe of the activity.
Anyway, between the above and the extra backup for that one fatal day TrainerRoad might crash, I’m going to keep dual-recording with the way I mentioned before that lets TrainerRoad push workouts to Garmin Connect, Garmin Connect push activities to TrainerRoad, but TrainerRoad does not push activities back to Garmin Connect.
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I’ve been wondering about it too. The TR app is back to crashing on me regularly and I was wondering if I should just use my 530.
I just find TR so easy. The workout is there, the calibration is there, the trainer control is a lot more fine tuned. I’m sure I could adapt to it, but the couple of times I used the Garmin to briefly control the trainer the resistance wasn’t quite right and I couldn’t fine tune it enough with the 10 levels.
I do not use the Edge to control the trainer. My iPad is running the TrainerRoad app and is Bluetooth connected to my Kickr, Quarq PM, and HRM Pro+ and I let TrainerRoad control the trainer in ERG mode. My Edge is just recording and displaying the data.
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I know, I was just thinking aloud.
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If I dual record, but want the Garmin activity to be the primary one, will TR still take the data from a completed workout?
i.e. if I completed a TR workout and had my Garmin recording so that I could just carry on with the endurance portion as one ride. If I remembered to pause the TR workout before it ended (which I didn’t yesterday 
), and let the Garmin activity upload first, will it still get all the relevant information from the TR workout?
Yes, TR will still take the data and get everything it needs!
From your description, it sounds like there’s a chance TR might recognize this as an “outside” ride or non-TR workout, so if you don’t happen to get updates to your Progression Levels/Plan as expected by default, you could try matching the planned workout with the completed ride.
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Hi, sorry for posting this so long after your comment.
I’m going to keep dual-recording with the way I mentioned before that lets TrainerRoad push workouts to Garmin Connect, Garmin Connect push activities to TrainerRoad, but TrainerRoad does not push activities back to Garmin Connect.
Why would you want Garmin connect to push the activities to TR if you already have them natively there? What I understood from your logic is that you can either 1) use TR alone and send activities to Garmin connect; 2) dual record everything, but keeping each activity within its corresponding platform. Am I missing something here?
Cheers
You’re right in that activities I’ve recorded on TrainerRoad don’t need the copy uploaded from Garmin BUT I do want all my non-TR activities (outside and Zwift etc.) from Garmin pushed to TR, and it’s all or nothing. But that’s completely fine since TR deduplicates and matches everything pretty much flawlessly. Hope that clarifies why I keep the Garmin activity to TrainerRoad connection.
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