I’d be concerned about people gaming the system and having their head unit control the trainer. Can’t I run a workout on my Garmin in trainer mode and have it control my trainer? So I’d get the indoor trainerroad offering at the discounted outdoor price if willing to do an easy workaround by putting my head unit in trainer mode using the outdoor workout that trainerroad pushed to it?
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I was thinking along that line too, but I wonder if Nate is saying it’s just the one plan, so while you COULD game the system, you’d only have one 16 week (or whatever) “summer” plan?
The outdoor workouts aren’t the same.
There’s definitely some carry over for sure and there’s always people looking to rip something off (look at the TR workouts on TrainerDay for example for an example of a breach of ToC)
I guess the question is how many people only want a training plan for riding outside in summer? Are there a significant number of people doing structured training ONLY outside (no indoor days) and only in the summer? Or maybe the assumption is that on those inside days they’re doing Zwift or something? And of course the question of whether there are that many people who want to do TR but find the normal price so prohibitive that they would join the family for the discounted outdoor only rate?
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If I am riding outside, I am either doing a recovery ride or a group ride. Structure just isn’t part of it. I have done a few outdoor workouts, but they just aren’t my thing.
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Only you know what seasonal churn looks like and you’ve probably modeled how many net new outside only riders you think you’d pick up, how much of that churn you think you’d eliminate and what cannibalization of current year round annual/monthly customers you’d see. So maybe this is a slam dunk to do in terms of marginal revenue.
But you’d also introduce a lot of complexity for yourself and for customers.
As someone who likes to ride outside as much as possible as the weather and life allows, I still like the option of having indoor rides year round. I imagine a lot of customers flow in and out of outdoor and indoor rides during summer or at least want the option to do an indoor workout. And surely you’d prefer every customer be an annual subscriber to all TR functionality at full price.
I’d much rather see you add value to outdoor rides so I don’t question the value proposition of an annual TR subscription. Just off the top of my head, what about:
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Doing something like using AT to adjust my plan based on unstructured outdoor rides, especially fast group and training rides. I still want overall structure, so analyze these rides and adjust the rest of my solo outdoor rides or indoor rides accordingly so I’m hitting the right structure at, say, a weekly aggregate level.
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I try to hit the targets for outdoor trainerroad rides pushed to my Garmin, but it can be hard to conform to the workout in the real world. I’d love to know what my compliance looks like for an outdoor workout in post ride analysis on TR.
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Even better, though it would likely require the head unit manufacturers to work with you, I’d love to get dynamic adjustments to my workout real time out on the road, so maybe the head unit tells me I can add an extra interval or reduce the rest period or change a power target or focus on consistent power output, or do something else to get my workout in line with the prescribed workout objectives.
I’m sure there are lots of other good ideas from the community on how outdoor rides can be improved, some of which might be universal and compelling enough to stop some of the churn and would be valuable to annual subscribers.
So I’d focus on making the core product more valuable for outdoor rides instead of doing a bunch of product segmenting hell.
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I subscribe year round for the 2ish years I’ve been with TR and do pretty much all my rides outdoors year round. It would be nice to have it built around outdoor riding. For someone like me, I’d probably select that since I loathe indoor riding and it would save me money but also cost TR revenue.
An outdoor only option would make TR a no brainer for those that use cookie cutter plans from other companies that supply Garmin workout files
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Yes, we always known forum users aren’t our typical athlete.
But it’s still good info and y’all have some great ideas!
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It would be self weighting with the ML approach. That’s if we can even do it that way.
So basically we’d confirm it or invalidate it.
We could detect that if it became an issue.
It could be an outside unstructured thing where you get a readiness score and TrainNow workouts.
That way it’s a La carte.
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This sounds intriguing. During summer I do longer rides outside on the weekend, which generally blows through the TSS target in the current plans. How would this new feature take that into account?
Ya’ll are being silly, this is obviously getting some more feedback on how Zwift users will use TR plans 
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But in all seriousness, I think there could be some value here. As I’m sure you’re also considering @Nate_Pearson , however, I wonder if it would cannibalize any current revenue? Kind of like why would I pay full price if I can pay less to take TR with me anywhere I go, be it outside, Zwift, etc. In that case I could just run it on a head unit with the head unit controlling the trainer to get a similar (obvs not the same) experience as current TR.
If that hypothetical is correct, on the other hand maybe that’s a good thing and the lower price point significantly increases the user base and subsequent revenue… more of a TR-lite vs. TR premium debate IMO
Yah, if there was massive abuse we could detect that. IE just say in the terms of service to prevent that then stop people if they try.
And it’s also right that it’s a math exercise. We’d need to retain more people who would have canceled compared to the ones that downgraded.
And if it’s horrible and we start to crash and burn we stop it ASAP 
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I wonder if there is a different population of users that might be worth targeting. Those who want to train during the winter and in the summer just want to do rides and no workouts. Say bike club rides and other rides for fun.
So basically your summer outdoor workout plan but not have any workouts. Daily readyness, red light/green light, and ftp prediction could still be useful as a way to know what ride they want to do and how well they could do it. Like when I pick to do the long route or the short route on a group ride.
As a 5? year subscriber, I won’t drop it at all as long as legacy pricing is there. We help cover the summers. So I think this poll probably only applies to people at full price that may switch in and out more freely - in that case, their answer might be different.
I also agree with the feedback that continually making the outdoor functionality better and more integrated may mitigate need to cut the price. I love the outdoor pushed workouts. Should get better with AT improvement. That and PR analysis and living in a rural area well suited for outdoor workouts makes it a great package for me. I even used to code them in manually via training peaks before that function existed in TR. Held out a long time waiting for it on Wahoo, again due to legacy price deal.
Did I mention how sticky the legacy price has made some of us even when frustrated or disappointed with things along the way?
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I voted that this has no impact because I already yearly subscribe. I might have voted differently if I was evaluating the app but the training plans and podcast give me more than enough value for what I pay.
I want a plan that supports my training and events year round. When you added outside workouts to the inside ones, that was an important step toward satisfying that need. Including unstructured outside workouts, be they soul rides or group rides or races/events would fill out the plan. And AI makes it all work for me as an individual almost the way a coach does. Having plans that cover only inside training or only outside training is kind of like going to a restaurant for it’s great entrees but you get average appetizers or deserts. I want the whole meal to be great. Finish the work and release the integration of unstructured outside workouts with everything else you’ve got going great and you’ll satisfy me and most cyclists that want a coach year round but can’t afford it. Thanks
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It would be the same plan. But for those who didn’t want to do a single indoor workout during the summer months, they would only have the outside equivalent workouts available to them.
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