E-bike ride (HR only, no power meter) TSS

TrainerRoad Software
1

Two things here.

  1. when I do an outdoor ride on my (non-electric) MTB, TrainerRoad pulls it into my calendar and shows a TSS. For instance, I did a ride on Jan 30th which comes up as 88 TSS. If I look on Strava it says my “relative effort” was 71. I think I understand that RE is relative to my recent history, where TSS is computed using my FTP, so it makes sense that these numbers are different? I appreciate that the TSS is only an estimate, computed from my heart rate, since there’s no power data in my ride, yes?

  2. when I do an electric MTB ride, it doesn’t get pulled in. Why? Is this a setting I can change? The one I did this morning was marked as 27 RE on Strava, but when I put in the duration and my intensity effort TR suggests a TSS of 92, or maybe 107 (hard to judge intensity level on such a varied ride). I’d rather pull the ride in so TR can do its best effort at calculating TSS from the HR data. (This will make @The_Cog angry, I know… but until I get a PM for all my outdoor bikes, it is what it is)

If I can’t get a solution to this it’s going to make me want to avoid riding my E-MTB, which isn’t ideal since Z2 is a lot more plausible around here (very hilly) on that bike than it is on my non-E MTB!

Thanks all

1 Like
2

Per #1, this is likely related.

ETA: Link to the existing topic you found related to #2, for anyone else to see.

3

Are you sure your e-bike doesn’t broadcast power? There’s an ANT+ profile for e-bikes. I know many of the Specialized Turbo models use it. My wife gets power from her Turbo Vado gravel-hybrid-commuter bike. We were surprised to see this - but it’s nice because she does use the e-bike on interval day if she wants to ride with me.

4

Yep, mine is a Shimano EP8, definitely not possible to get power data out of it

5

I feel TR’s algorithm might be squiffy. Is it maybe taking into account GAP as well as HR (and ignoring the vital fact that I’m on an e-bike)?

For yesterday’s ride, TR gives me 121 TSS.

Intervals.icu gives 56 “load”, and 82 trimp.
Elevate gives a “stess score” of 58
Strava a “training impulse” of 76 and a relative effort of 59.

I think “relative effort” is irrelevant, that’s some propriety Strava thing.

But TSS, “load”, and “stress score”, are, I believe, all largely the same thing - with minor differences in how they’re calculated on the different platforms. Other than TR’s which is hugely inflated?

:man_shrugging: