Fit workout to nearby routes

TrainerRoad Software
1

Hi,

Trainerroad workouts give me an additional motivitaion to go out and ride as frequent as I can, however I find it difficult to find routes matching the proposed workout. For ex: I live in area where I have one really good flat route optimal for almost any planned workourt, but only this one, any other route has hilly sections with gradients of 9-10%.

Doing the same route every day though gets boring. However, with all the location and map data available, it should be possible for the system to automatically match/propose routes for specific workouts, use steeper hilly sections for Z4 workouts, flat sections for endurance or warn the user if he plans to go to a new route not matching with the planned workout.

Seeing other people struggling with similar problems (Finding Routes, Matching routes) I think it would be a valuable and unique feature of Trainerroad.

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My solution to this is to use strava to find an appropriate segment for the time duration of any interval.

If you click the ‘go for a workout’ you can filter by length / distance and incline.

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Welcome to the TR community! Glad to hear TR workouts have given you more motivation to get out to ride. :smiley:

I (and many other athletes!) definitely prefer riding outside.

Your idea to use location/map data to pair up with TR to recommend where to go and do a training ride is super cool! I’ll be sure to pass it along to the rest of the TR team.

In the meantime, though, we’d second @Neuromancer’s suggestion. Using Strava, other heatmaps, or even just a plain ol’ map paired with your own local knowledge/tips from other cyclists in your area can all be good ways to come up with training routes for your workouts.

How long are some of those hills that get up to 9-10%, for example? If they’re long enough, they could be excellent training grounds for VO2 repeats or even longer, sustained power intervals, such as Sweet Spot or Threshold.

Here’s a TR training article we have on this subject as well that might be useful:

Hope this helps! Feel free to let me know if you have any other questions.

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sounds good, but I don’t want to pay fro Stava aswell (as far as I can tell this is a premium feature)

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Your idea to use location/map data to pair up with TR to recommend where to go and do a training ride is super cool! I’ll be sure to pass it along to the rest of the TR team.

The data is there and there only for Trainnerroad (map + user’s performance w/kg/speed + scheduled training). No other service has such a feature.

I will skip on the Strava solution and stick to manual planning (one subscription for cycling is plenty $).

The trouble with those 9-10% climbings is not that they are long, they are short sections only, but I can not go past them without 300W+. Currenlty I am on a sweet spot high volume plan, and the max the workout is proposing is usually around 220W+. Wouldn’t it be contrary to the workput plan to have ~30s long sections inside a 7min 220W interval?

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We’d encourage trying to lower your cadence a bit – it may be worth looking into different gearing combinations you could install on your bike if you encounter these steep sections frequently enough.

Ideally, you should try to match up the segment of the road you’ll be on with the length of your interval – so it may be best to avoid those roads with steeper pitches if you’re finding they interfere with executing your workout.

You could also check out Workout Alternates, which you can use to find different sets of intervals that may be longer/shorter so they fit in more nicely with the stretches of road you have available near you for training.

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I am already looking it changing my current cassette of 11-32 into a 11-36 maybe, or even considered waiting for the new Shimano 105 mechanical 12 speed, since it comes with 52-36 frontal and 11-36 backwheel cassette options. Maybe these would help to be able to vary around the routes around my city my I have 6 endurance days planned ahead :slight_smile:

Thanks anyway for the responses. since this is my first post in the forum, does it help if I mark your response as “Solution”? @ZackeryWeimer ? My original intention with this post was anyway to draw attention to a possible feature upgrade :slight_smile: