When I do a workout on TrainerRoad my mileage on Strava is only 33% of the actual mileage. Example: I ride for an hour on TR and constantly the mileage on Strava is only 5 miles. My Wahoo sensor is working. I recently went from using my iphone to doing TR workouts on my Mac laptop. Do you know why?
Small ring or wheel circumference set incorrectly or both. Plus technically you are not going any where
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âTrainer miles are not real miles.â /s
This is super common with smart trainers. Nate even mentioned recently on the podcast where because of his gearing in ERG mode, sometimes he will finish a 90 minute ride and it will say he did 50 miles or something like that. You really canât equate trainer time to miles. As mentioned by @ericallenboyd if you switch to the big ring youâll see the indicated miles go up, but realize this is purely a vanity thing. And trust me I get the vanity, tomorrow Iâm getting on the trainer for around three hours so I can end my year and hit my Strava mileage goal 
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Technically if mileage is any higher than zero then itâs too high not too low!
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Thank you to everyone for your response. This is my first experience with the TR forum.
My workouts on TR are on my road bike on an old fluid trainer. I have a 4iii power meter sensor on the left crank and a wahoo speed sensor on the rear hub. The circumference in TR is set correctly to 700, so I know that is okay. So it is not a smart trainer.
I did update the firmware on TR about a month ago.
your circumference should be somewhere in the region of 2100, not 700. you could take a guess, measure the exact radius (centre of quick release to the very edge of tyre) and then multiply by 2 and then multiply by 3.142, or you could even get a tape measure and mark the tyre in a particular spot and measure the distance rolled until the same mark is at the same spot.
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Or, Hereâs a chart that has the circumference based on tire size.
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Yup, the 700 (most likely from 700c) you are using is the nominal diameter and not the circumference.
Yes, this does makes so much sense. Set at 700 would give me 1/3 of my mileage. I have reset the circumference to 2105 [700x25] rear tire and ride today for results.
I use Zwift and TR in tandem, and choose to put the Zwift rides on Strava rather than the TR rides for this reason.
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I just discovered the wahoo app setting for simulated distance thanks to a post somewhere on here and wish I knew about it earlier. Rides in small ring are now reporting very realistic mileage based on power consistent with riding a very average non aggressive endurance position.
A bit slower than summer super aero optimized on the drops slammed, race tires etc⌠Zwift numbers I see from people are typically a bit inflated compared to their real life rides at similar power on similar terrain, but still reasonably useful.
Like it or not, lots of people clearly want to have a good idea of how many miles a year equivalent they ride, and like to see ânormalâ numbers on trainer rides. For companies in this space, it seems like a feature that is so easy to do itâs just not worth arguing against. You could even let people modify the default cda estimate for themselves to dial things in if they really want to.
I get it and usually look at the mileage for comparison purposes but mainly look at the amount of hours. Even outside a 1 hr hilly ride vs flat is a big difference.
Glad you got it sorted though.
Mileage updated. It is now correct. Thank you to
dannywin421
for the lead I should look at the circumference and to rhenager for the circumference chart. I changed my number from 700 to 2105 and it was spot on for mileage. My mileage went from 5 miles to 14.91 miles total for the workout.
To others who commented on my total hours. That is the most important stat I look at in my weekly log.
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Iâm with you on your concern. Before, it didnât affect me and I didnât care. All I cared about was time in powers. People say mileage is more for âvanityâ or youâre really ânot movingâ in an indoor trainer⌠All true, however, Iâve participated in virtual challenges lately and itâd be rewarding to see more realistic miles associated with the time I put in on the trainer using TR. Instead, I get discouraged and that doesnât really help me âget fasterâ, at least not mentally.
Itâs frustrating trying to play with settings or finding other alternatives to get closer to reality while indoors. I feel like Iâm âcheatingâ. I canât ride outside year-round cause of winters and those d@mn California fires causing very poor air quality every summer in Utah. I end up using Zwift which a f*cking hate. I donât think Zwift rides sync with TR directly, without me trying to figure out 3rd party workarounds (like via Strava, which I also donât want). I feel TRâs machine learning/AI get my prescribed âTrain Nowâ workouts skewed because it doesnât count my Zwift rides.
Selfishly, itâd be really great if TR can make it more accurate, especially that I donât want to keep using Zwift.
Follow-up Update:
For several years, my TR workout report always showed about less than half of the total miles on indoor workouts compared to outdoors. Tried firmware updates to all devices, wheel size settings, spindowns before sessions, etc. No luck.
FIX:
After trying all, I finally reached a resolution and brought it closer to real-world miles. I ran the âfactoryâ spindown (NOT the typical spindown) using the Wahoo Utility app. Hope this helps with others who have similar issue.
Which app do you use to turn this on for other apps? I found the setting in the basic wahoo fitness app, but a quick 2 minute spin and cancel on TR still reports low distance whereas the difference in wahoo fitness ERG mode workouts was 16 â 26 kmh