Is there a way I can take a planned route (e.g. a race/event route) from Strava or RideWithGPS, and feed that to TrainerRoad as a workout to be ridden?
First, this could allow a “dry run” of the event to be ridden inside. But also, it would allow me to tell TR exactly what my “outside workout” will look like over the weekend, so the AI can better analyze my outside ride against my outside workout without my having to look for some random outside workout in the TR library that has roughly the same duration and intensity.
You can use bestbikesplit and do exactly what you are wanting to do.
I like BBS a lot and it’s a powerful tool, but they do a horrible job of teaching you how to use it. If anyone has a resource on how to use some of BBS’s more advanced features I’d appreciate it!
Even if you create a workout and run it in TR unless it’s one of their workouts, it still won’t pick it up against progression levels because there’s no progression level for that workout that you’ve made.
It’ll be the same as if you’d just done an outdoor workout
Route wouldn’t really help anyway, as a route isn’t a workout. All TR cares about is time and power, not speed or terrain.
As above you could use best bike split to work out power targets to optimise speed for a given average power on rolling terrain. But unless the route has some quite big gradient changes then that tends to work out as basically one big threshold/over under/Sweetspot interval depending how long it is, so it’s not really a particularly structured workout anyway. And if it’s a drafting event then BBS isn’t much use as your speed will depend on the bunch not on your power, and the hills will likely be raced at a power higher than you would pace them for a fast solo effort.
Athletes can currently use Best Bike Split in conjunction with Workout Creator to make a TR workout similar to their event and use it as a training/preparation tool like @ebikas mentioned.
For what it’s worth though, some athletes internally have prior experience doing so and shared the sentiment that they didn’t feel it prepared them for their race any more than sticking to a structured training plan would have.
In case you do want to try that out, there’s more info in this article on how to use Best Bike Split with TrainerRoad.
Apart from this Feature Request to build a workout based upon a route, I’m happy to report that Workout Levels V2 will do a killer job of comparing your outside workout versus what was actually completed, and giving you credit/Progression Level changes accordingly. It’ll be a huge step for all outside activities; structured and unstructured.
This feature is being actively working on as a high priority, and I’ll be sure to post updates on the forum on its status when they become available!
Thanks to everyone for the input and ideas. Also, thanks to Ivy for the feedback.
I thought using the example of a race or event would make the idea clearer, but it appears I was mistaken. Sorry about that. Here’s the key part of my OP:
[quote=“agingcannon, post:1, topic:75799”]
[…] it would allow me to tell TR exactly what my “outside workout” will look like over the weekend, so the AI can better analyze my outside ride against my outside workout without my having to look for some random outside workout in the TR library that has roughly the same duration and intensity.[/quote]
@IvyAudrain, do I understand you correctly that the AI will (soon-ish) analyze my outside workout and figure out what the right progression levels for it are… but that this isn’t ready yet? For now, it’s best to just hunt down a similar-looking outside workout in the TR library?
Got it. Thanks for clarifying! In that case, I think Workout Levels V2 will be exactly what you are looking for!
Yes, that is exactly right! Workout Levels V2, a new feature in the works, will analyse all Outside Workouts to determine the zone and difficulty of the Workout. Ultimately, when this feature is released, all Outside Workouts will impact your Progression Levels and, thus your Training Plan!!At the moment, we suggest matching a TrainerRoad Workout with your outside ride only if you followed the instructions in the Workout Description. We do not suggest you pair an unstructured ride with a TrainerRoad structured Outside Workout if you did not follow the Workout as prescribed, as this is not the intended use.I hope this helps!