I’ve been using TrainRoad for just over a year now and ONLY ride indoors on a WattBike at my local gym, now not possible until they reopen again. Until recently I’ve not been able to ride outdoors as I don’t have a bike but I’ve now managed to get access to a bike and purchased a pair of Vector 3 power pedals.
For my first outdoor ride using the Vector pedals I just synced them to my Garmin Fenix 5 to track the power output but was thinking that I could just connect to my App on my iPhone and follow the training rides. Does anyone else just use the TrainRoad App on your iphone when training outside [I don’t have a bike computer]
I do that, it’s a useful way of me tracking the distance I’m now riding outside. I miss the structure of following the plans hence I was thinking about linking it to my iPhone and using it like I would indoors. I imagine it will be harder to follow due to external factors though.
I was wondering if anyone does this or if there was a better way without having to purchase anything additional.
The way it works on my Garmin Edge unit is pretty straight forward and I’m assuming it works similarly for their watches.
For a scheduled workout on TR, click into the workout on the website calendar. There should be a toggle to switch it from ‘indoor’ to ‘outdoor’. Then it should push automatically to your Garmin. If it doesn’t there’s a button to push it manually. Then when you go to start you activity you can go to the ‘training’ menu and choose the workout.
And if it’s the same as my Forerunner watch then from the Garmin side when you select an activity, but before you start it, press the up arrow to go into options. Then scroll down the ‘training’, then ‘my workouts’.
Thanks so much it works perfectly. I had assumed outside workouts were entirley for head units and didn’t include watches. Given I use a chest mount and always mount my watch front and centre this will work.
Will report back in a few days after my first outside workout in plan builder.
Glad it’s working out! It may take some tries to really nail down which data fields you want visible and all that but you may be able to take some cues from the TR blog posts about the Edge head units.
Followed @mwglow15 advice and the TR blog on outdoor workouts [I wonder how many other people do not know that you can sync workouts to a watch? Surely I cannot be the only one.] Pushed the workout to my Fenix5 no issues, went out and followed the power based levels and it all worked exactly as it should do. Super happy.
Now don’t get me wrong, it is not like riding inside, well at least not for me. I had to really think about where I would be able to ride to get the length of interval in. One odd thing I expereinced though was that it felt easier to hold the power outdoors to what I remember indoors. It was only 1 ride though so I can’t really make any firm decisions off of that.
So with plan builder setting out my rides for the next 16 weeks I’ve selected them all to outside rides, just need to do an FTP test outside somehow.
Lots of power spikes, but the overall jist of the training zones is there.
Glad it worked out well! As you do more of these you’ll get better at limiting those power spikes and your ride file will tighten up and begin to look more and more like the template in TR.
I’ve just bought a Fenix 5 - interested in how you’ve been getting on @M42CMF.
I don’t seem to be able to set a screen up as recommended on https://support.trainerroad.com/hc/en-us/articles/360028351772-Pushing-an-Outside-Workout-to-Garmin due to the fact there isn’t a Workouts section of fields to select from on the Fenix. I also scheduled an outside workout and it pushed fine to my Fenix but reading the overview of the workout made it sound like I needed to keep pressing the lap button to work through all the sets. Is that correct? My only previous outside workout experience is using a Wahoo.
It works okay. My preferred ride will always be outside. You do need to hit the lap button occassionaly but once I am in the interval segments it just scrolls through.
I very rarely ride outside, especially now we are in the winter and with gyms closed and no indoor trainer for me to use, or space, I have resigned myself to being off the bike until Mid May
I usually use it to stop the session until I get to a suitable location to start the sessions. Once I have completed the session I leave it to run down and end. The lap button is only really used at the start for me.
Crazy, just tried it with my Garmin Vivoactive 3 and it seemed to work as well. Bumping this thread to say thanks. It’s not that clear that syncing to a basic watch is something that is possible. I thought you needed a head unit for sure. Gonna make the outdoor workouts a lot easier when my watch can tell me what to do.
