My office had a small gym that included Pelotons and their memberships. Easy to use with the instructors telling you ranges of resistance (and the bike adjusting with the turn of a wheel) and cadence. With Covid, I’m working from home. Got a 27 speed bike and a CycleOps Fluid2 trainer and bought the Wahoo cadence and speed sensors and now looking to ride indoors. So the really basic question is…how do I use TrainerRoad? Not really a bike rider before so I was learning the gears on the fly when hitting hills or flat roads (and forgetting which was for hills or flat roads by the time I took the bike out again) but not sure if that even equates since I don’t have a smart trainer.
If this is already posted somewhere, please point it out. Any help is appreciated. Thanks.
Well…Peloton has it’s place in encouraging people to exercise and if people need the social side of it plus all the extra bits to get them on the bike that is fair enough (especially as you say your employer supplies it…that is one of the huge stumbling blocks IMHO - for the price of the bike you could have a great smart trainer set up with a bike you could take outside and have a subscription to TR, Zwift and Sufferfest for the monthly cost). As you can see I am not a peloton fan if you WANT to become serious about your cycling. If you do set the trainer up with the sensor which will give you virtual power (that’s ok as it is consistency of data which is important not accuracy). Then I would suggest that you do 2-3 weeks of just using the easy endurance 1 hour sessions - like Pettit, Bald Knob, Baxter -2 etc at a low power just to get use to it. Then do a ramp test (you are supposed to start with that but if you have no experience of throwing the kitchen sink at a session it may be a shock as your first session.) Then pick SSBLV and have a go at block 1 - be prepared to turn down the intensity a bit as LV only has 3 rides/week but they are tough - otherwise you get little TSS. Then after 6 weeks retest and if you had to turn down the intensity I would complete LV1 again. If not go on to LV2. After that you have to decide what type of rider you are for build. I time trial so always do Sustained power build but General build is a good allrounder - obviously! Hope it goes well for you - it’s the best sport in the world - and the TR community - are great - even though I have never met any of them!
TrainerRoad workouts are power-based, but I don’t believe your trainer has a direct power reading - so you’ll need to set your account up to use VirtualPower, like this:
TrainerRoad is quite goal-oriented - so before you start, it helps to have an idea what you want to get out of it. If you don’t have a specific race or event in mind, that doesn’t matter - just pick a plan that you feels matches your interest or motivation. Or post on this forum…
As noted above, TR is really goal-based. Even if you don’t see yourself competing in races, decide what type of outdoor or indoor ride is your “priority”.
Set up your “virtual power” if your trainer doesn’t have “actual” power. There’s a post already how to do that.
I’d say, ride a week or two with the same perceived exertion (during self-planned free-rides) as you would have experienced on your peloton class, then pick the plan that most closely matches your “goal ride.” Plan builder literally lets you pick a goal date, race type, intensity, length and then will build the weekly plans for you. The first workout of plan-builder will be the TR ramp test which will set your power targets.
TR will require a greater enthusiasm for the goal (internal motivation) than an instructor-led, streamed classes with a sweaty sexy encouragement personality on the monitor, but you can always supplement your motivation with whatever will keep your attention.
