Hi there,
Yes, the new TR planbuilder feature looks promising. But, as far as I’m concerned, my training characteristics changes dramatically as soon as spring is approaching. Instead of riding 1 hr. intervals I prefer to do long rides for 3 to 5 hours per session. So for me, choosing indoor / outdoor training is not much of a help here.
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I’m sure they’re pretty broken up about it.
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If you are my competition I’m so happy to hear!
I know I’ll be following TR since after using it for a few years now, consistency with this program does deliver results.
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if you keep your subscription open they grandfather you in at whatever price your paying. im still paying the original $8.25 a month. i think the price has close to doubled since then
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I keep mine active year round cause I always have bad weather days where I still want to ride so I end up doing rides inside. Sometimes I zwift free ride, other days I will lock in to an ERG mode workout to force myself to stay in certain zones, its a good way to ensure my easy rides are truly easy since all too often I end up hammering for Strava when I should take it easy
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I’ll use mine if the weather is bad. Otherwise I’m there with you, riding outside is far too fun to sit inside on the trainer. I’m not a pro, I ride bikes to have fun.
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If you’re riding 4-5+ times a week and doing 3-5 hours each session then yeah, TR may not be that useful.
If you’re riding 3 or fewer times a week at 3-5 hours each time then you would benefit considerably from adding in some shorter structured sessions on the remaining days, in which case TR would be extremely useful.
If you’re not actually riding 3-5 hours every session, but just at the weekends, then using TR to structure your midweek training is also a good way to go.
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I’ll chip in to say that I think an area of improvement for 2020 for me personally is to keep at least some structure going year round. I might not follow the base, build, specialty ethos but I think keeping TR all year will ensure I’m thinking about what I’m doing and striking a solid balance when the weather is too warm to be indoors. With the calendar and ever improving analytics it makes sense to do this.
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I joined a fishing forum so I could tell everyone I buy my fish at the market rather than waste my time fishing.
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TR Outdoor workouts. Thank me later.
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I put the low-volume plan on my calendar. If riding outside, I’ll take the “meat” of the workout and do that at some point during the 3-5 hour ride. So if its 3x15 sweet spot, I’ll spend an hour doing that inside the overall ride even if that means dropping off the back of a group ride and rejoining at the next regroup.
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TR outdoor intervals are too short. I miss the enjoyment of riding my bike when I only focus on intervals. But more importantly, it’s almost impossible for me to do interval training on the road due to traffic, traffic lights, slow bikers, pedestrians with dogs, dogs without pedestrians …
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Okay, this might be worth to consider. Although, when I drop of during the club group ride to do intervals, I’m pretty sure they’d call me snobby. 
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the goal is to go off the front and do intervals 
At my current level of fitness, I’ve been dropping back and pulling a slower group
I stopped indoor interval training for about year and missed the enjoyment of not getting my ass kicked.
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Convenient how you left the part about the bad weather out of the quote, which includes 4-5 months of winter for me.
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Been pondering my usage of TrainerRoad for a while now.
Truth be told I blame Coach Chad. He said to go lift weights. So I did in late 2018 on to early 2019 and did very little if any indoor training on the KICKR.
2019 was my best season to date. My Local Bicycle Club, I was constantly being asked what I had done in the off season, as I now was being classed as one of the best climbers and pacers in the Club.
um… early 2018 I could barely hold on to the group rides!
TrainerRoad in one way or another will be with me for the rest of my existence…
The Calendar
The Podcast
The New Build Plan
The Forum
The Impending AI Coach that is development
So the way I see it, If I hardly ever use any of the Workouts and just lift weights… get on my bike… and do Outdoor Workouts…
TrainerRoad taught me what Power Feels Like!
For that reason and that alone… I look down at my ELEMENT and see the data provided by my Power2MAX NG Power Meter and end up smiling as I look at my 3 sec average power…
Coach Chad… I love you!
Nate… I love you too… get back to work and get the Machine Learning Code to the Beta Testers!
Jonathan… Love you too… Keeping Chad and Nate in check on the podcast!
The entire crew that makes up TrainerRoad… they are just a bunch of Bike Geeks and Nerds!
I signed up for the yearly plan and I’m grand fathered in…
So the only aspect I rarely use… the Works Outs on the KICKR!
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Where do you live? While some places truly are unforgiving for interval training, people usually end up getting faster almost anywhere if they put some thought into it. I am quite sure some people on the board would be happy to help with finding 1, 5, 10, 20 minute etc interval length stretches of road.
You mentioned being part of a club… surely some of your crew would know this information, and while they might give you a light ribbing over skipping the social aspect to focus on yourself a bit, I bet they would support your goals. If not, why be in the club?
My plan for summer will be low volume plan with (hopefully mostly) outdoor workouts during the week when time is more crunched anyway. And then do long non-TR rides outside on the weekends… I think that’s a perfect mixture of structure and the enjoyment of just riding.
Whatever works for you?
If you want to get faster though, I think you’d find that getting even just a core set of low volume workouts in during the week and still doing your long rides would be more beneficial for your training.
Best of luck in 2020!
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