Hi all, new to the forum, loving the TrainerRoad program. I ride to work 20 miles a day 5 days a week, with about 800 ft vertical gain each day. Some of the pitches are 6-10% for up to half a mile. So its hard to ride at low intensity.
When I ride indoors, I have a power meter on my road bike, but when I commute, I use a mid range cyclocross bike that doesn’t have a power meter.
Is there anyway to be able to measure/incorporate my commuting mileage into a training program without a power meter? And also, without having to estimate TSS for each indiviudal workout(ride).
I feel like these commutes combined with a low volume plan, make a hybrid high volume plan with not terrific recovery. I’d prefer to train harder on fewer days, instead of 13 sessions of work.
Hi, I’m in the same situation 11miles each way twice a day 500 feet elevation and lots of stop starts due to traffic. On top of this I’m doing SSB1 low volume leaving Sunday for complete recovery. I know everyones TSS isn’t equal but my commute was giving tss40-60 on average per journey. I can’t change my commute and I can’t go any slower so I just adjust my training days and time to feel , so far my FTP keeps climbing even though a 6 week plan turns into an 8 week plan but I’ve found eating correctly (fueling for rides) makes a huge difference to my energy levels. I’m 46 and honestly never felt stronger as the commutes really help with backing up and sustaining the base strength.
If you wear a heart rate, you can use the estimate tss on trainer road, or training peaks (free version) to estimate your tss … it’s not as good as having a power meter, but better than nothing
You’d be suprised at how much tss you can gain by commuting.
For me it’s too much effort to make my commutes useful for much else besides recovery. My morning commute is also fasted so that my body might improve its ability to burn fat. I also switched from a 26” MTB to a hybrid to reduce TSS even further.
thanks for the responses, and I agree on the tire choice, low rolling resistance tires and tight clothing make a difference to keep a person fresher for the real training.
I totally agree with paulgav, my commute bike a massively undergeared single speed, spin the legs and enjoy the ride, and be fresh enough to do the session in the evening
My commute is seasonal (I start rolling around April 1 in Massachusetts and go 2-3 days a week by bike through Halloween) but similar to those described above. 15 miles each way, a few hundred feet of elevation depending on which route I take. Essentially, it’s two Pettits with a hill each way.
As the weather warms I’m going to do less Trainer Roading and more outdoor, as I expect others do as well. What I might try this year is keeping 1-2 focused interval sessions indoors each week because it’s hard to properly interval train on road. That’s where TR really shines.
I think 5 round tripper commutes a week plus any TR plan sounds like an awful lot of training stress. Even at low volume I’d be at least nixing the long, sweet spot/threshold ride on the weekend.
The frost finally left and I got to ride into work on a Monday. I’m on the BP SS L2 plan. I had a 65 TSS ride on Friday, followed by full body weight training on Saturday, and 110 TSS ride on Sunday. That’s not a great bundling, but given my week has consisted of commuting without my bike and sitting at a desk for 9 hrs a day, it kind of worked.
Monday I added my bike commute of 22 miles and 1000 ft climb and used some strava metrics for TSS because my commuting bike has no power meter. Commute ride was 90 TSS return.
I didn’t ride on Tuesday.
The BPSSL2 is about 240 TSS, but my commutes are already 450 TSS(approx).
It would be great if TR could auto populate these TSS values based on speed, elevation and weight. I know you can’t get the accuracy of a power meter, but it was a bit of an eye opener for me and sweet justice to be able to justify to my wife why I was laying on the couch on Monday after work.
Ya, that’s right, and I think those values from TR are much better than the ones I get from Strava, but the nice thing with the Strava values is they are generated automatically, vs TR you have to go in one by one.
Isn’t that a entirely individual thing based on FTP, wheel/tyre size and natural cadence ? (One mans shoe is another mans boat)
But I really don’t know, I changed the gearing on my sunday club bike, but for commuting I wanted a under geared single speed, got on it, rode it , found it was under geared … commute to work
