I’m going to be starting a TR plan on 15th October, and I’m wondering if there’s a way of doing TR workouts on Zwift without having to run two devices?
What I do currently is have powermeter giving cadence and power to my phone via bluetooth which is running TR. I’ve then got Zwift on my laptop with power/cadence/HR via Ant+. When I’m finished a workout Zwift uploads to Strava and imports onto TR. I discard the TR workout as I don’t want duplicate workouts on my calendar, and only have HR data on Zwift.
I want to still link TR with Strava so I can get TSS scores from my outdoor rides over the winter.
Am I missing a trick in doing this another way that’s more streamlined?
You are essentially using option #2 of the two main options:
Run TrainerRoad & Zwift on a PC/Mac, with 2 ANT+ dongles.
Run TrainerRoad on one device, and Zwift on another device.
There are no provisions for exporting TR workouts outside of the TR app. Doing so is a violation of the Terms & Conditions. Specifically ‘c’ in the " Responsible Use and Conduct" section:
c. Accessing (or attempting to access) any of our Resources by any means other than through the means we provide, is strictly prohibited. You specifically agree not to access (or attempt to access) any of our Resources through any automated, unethical or unconventional means.
I have seen people reproduce the TR workouts in other apps, but it is not permitted.
If you want your TR workouts to be the ones you keep, you could get an HR monitor that is BLE. That would give you all the data in the TR workout so you could maintain that as your primary. Then the outside rides from Strava would come in for everything else.
Hey Chad - so 2 ANT dongles works? I see that there’s a BLE option on TR (for PC) and I have it both built in and a seperate dongle and I can’t get it to search. I’m doing the same as the OP and can run TR on a seperate device but it’d be nice to do it all on the PC.
I believe TrainerRoad requires a serial bluetooth connection, which is not part of the default Windows Bluetooth stack.
I’ve had success with the Bluetooth dongle recommended in the support documents, although remember not to pair your trainer as controllable in Zwift and accept you look strange with all your surges around Wattopia.
I can’t speak to BLE + PC + TR. I have not tried that and don’t know if that is programmed to work.
Probably worth a test to see if the BLE avenue can work.
Here is my constant reference for the TR + Z blending methods:
I’m one of those strange guys surging at random times all over Wattopia!
I go Trainer Road via bluetooth on my iPad or iPhone and it controls the workout. I then set up my laptop with ANT+ and connect Zwift to my Kickr as power source only just for something else to look at while on the trainer. I’ll usually have a movie going on a second screen too! (whatever it takes to keep me occupied!)
My Zwift file goes to Strava and does look funny sometimes as some of the workouts only get me 6 or 7 miles if there is a lot of recovery built in. With TR’s analytics and now Calendar I really don’t use Strava for that kind of stuff so I don’t really care what ends up in my feed.
i’ll chime in because i finally got this working.
Go the two ANT dongle route, dont try and use the bluetooth dongle that TR recommends it is not reliable. Not to say it doesn’t work, it just experiences dropouts on PC versus what you might see on Apple or anothing device via BT.
Plug both in, launch both apps, then you can run power match on the TR if you need to and only link Zwift to your trainer. Just make sure in Zwift that you turn off “Controlable” for the Trainer so you dont have two programs trying to control your trainer.
Boom…TR workouts that you can do while riding in zwift.
I do a similar thing. I have the Powertap P1 pedals and use just my Mac.
I launch TR first and connect pwoermeter/HR via Ant+ and then launch Zwift and connect power to that via Bluetooth. It works really well. I always prefer using Ant+ for TR because it amalgamates L/R power from the pedals whereas bluetooth only takes left side and doubles it.
Wow! I had never considered trying to do both at once. I do like Zwift’s pretty gamification, but I prefer TR’s rigorous training plans.
I use a PC, so it sounds like two Ant+ dongles is the best way to go. I have a Kickr, so will it support two Ant connections or will I need one Ant and one Bluetooth? I get that only TR should control the trainer, but can both apps share the heartrate and cadence?
I do dual ANT dongles as described and careful for Zwift to not be “controlling” and seems to work well. I’m having good luck with the other sensors showing up in both. Seems like a lot to look at pretty virtual worlds but I like it…
I just signed up for TR yesterday and my first ride was today. I ran TR in minimal while Zwift on full screen using two ANT dongles on my laptop (I happened to have two dongles). I didn’t do anything special, they both found the devices and all was good. I’m using a Kinetic Road Machine, Speedsensor on bike and a Pioneer Power Meter (w/cadence) all ANT+. Admittedly I only did it as a test and after a few minutes I closed Zwift. Unless in a group ride there isn’t much to see. I really looking forward to using TR to get more structure.
Maybe dude, I just use it as a distraction technique. i’m following the TR workout but moving around in the zwift world more or less arbitrarily. gives me something to look at. helps with boredom. plus it clocks up some zwift exp so I can open up the rest of the maps and whatnot.
When I did this (before I got bored of looking at zwift during workouts), I used TrainerRoad with my ant+ dongle and zwift with the companion app. So my power meter/hr monitor would connect to my phone’s Bluetooth and zwift on my computer used the companion app on my phone as the source for power/cadence/hr. Really, though, after a few months I didn’t see the point, since once the build phase starts, I just stare at the numbers anyway.
