Today’s a big day for TrainerRoad and I have three major things to share with you.
- A best in class training calendar
- A new TrainerRoad forum for people to share how to get faster
- Updated $15/month and $129/year pricing which goes into effect on Oct 8th, 2018. All members with active memberships get locked into their current price forever. That means you have one week to lock in!
Let’s take you through each one.
The All-New TrainerRoad Calendar
A calendar might seem like a “generic” feature, but we’ve added some features that make the TrainerRoad Calendar stand out as best in class!
A Total View of Your Training with Easy Navigation
The first thing you’ll notice is your Training Stress chart is pinned to the top of Calendar. It includes your planned Training Stress (grey bars) and the Training Stress you’ve completed (green bars).
This gives you a high-level visualization of all your training as you plan out your season. The Training Stress chart also doubles as navigation. If you click on any of the bars, you’ll be scrolled to that week on your calendar.
Additionally, there is a great “infinite scroll” feature where you don’t have to select a month. Just scroll the page and Calendar updates dynamically.
Add Any Kind of Workout and Plan Your A/B/C Priority Races
Click on any day you want to add a workout. You can choose to add a workout from TrainerRoad’s library of 1000+ workouts or create your own custom workout. Now you can schedule outside rides, runs, swims or “other” workouts, and include their Training Stress in your training plan.
Use the Training Stress estimator tool or manually type in your own Training Stress. These will be reflected in your weekly totals and Training Stress charts across the site.
When creating any custom workout, you have the option to mark it as a “race” and assign an A/B/C priority to it. Marked races get a distinctive styling that makes it easy to see where your races are on your calendar.
Instantly Customize Any TrainerRoad Training Plan
This is a big one. We’re moving away from our “bingo card” style training plans and gone all in on Calendar. For a really long time, users have asked to change their training days around. With Calendar, we’ve made a straightforward way to do this.
When you add TrainerRoad training plans to Calendar you can change the default workout days to the days you prefer to train. Just drag and drop them to the appropriate days before you add your plan.
We also let you see the general difficulty (easy, moderate, hard) of your plan’s prescribed workouts and the duration range. You can choose to rearrange your prescribed workouts to fit your schedule based on that information.
After your training plan is added to Calendar, you can further refine your training to match your schedule. Drag-and-drop workouts, push entire weeks out (maybe you’re traveling?), and plan mini tapers to accommodate B-priority races. This essentially allows you to build your own custom training plan from scratch!
Another benefit of Calendar is the ability to choose the end date of your training plan. If there isn’t enough time to fit an entire training plan, Calendar will cut the plan for you. This allows you to work your way into your A races by starting with the plan you’d like to finish with and the specific day you’d like to end on.
Add Your Complete Triathlon Training Plan
You’ll get some extra functionality out of Calendar when you choose a triathlon training plan. Alongside your structured cycling workouts, TrainerRoad triathlon plans include swim and run prescriptions. You can find these in your plan’s weekly tips.
To make these workouts more visible, when you select a triathlon plan all your prescribed swim and run workouts are automatically added to your calendar. Like choosing a cycling-specific training plan, you also have the ability to modify the days your swim and run workouts are scheduled for.
After you add a triathlon plan to your calendar, if you click on a swim or run workout you’ll see that each workout has its title, duration, and Coach Chad’s notes in the workout’s description. Run workouts also include your estimated training stress. Swim workouts will not have training stress associated with them yet.
Create Annotations for Life Events That Impact Training
To get a total view of your training, things like travel, sickness, planned rest, etc., should be put on your calendar. We’ve created a flexible system to add annotations for all these “non-workout” activities that impact your training.
Annotations simply have a start date, end date (optional), title and description. You can also assign a color. From there you can get as creative as you want. I like to use them to mark my rest days as green, my travel days where I can’t work out as blue, and other “events” as purple. It’s a very flexible and useful feature that adds a lot of context to your training.
View Calendar from the TrainerRoad App
As of right now, to create and edit Calendar activities you need to go to TrainerRoad.com and log in to your profile. Anything you have planned on the web will make into the TrainerRoad for iOS, Android, and Windows apps (Mac app functionality coming soon) without you having to do anything.
What’s Next for Calendar?
We still have a handful of features we plan to add to Calendar, including the ability to copy workouts, move/copy weeks, and sync your training calendar to an external calendar (Google, iCal, Exchange). Building deeper app integration so you can manage Calendar from the TrainerRoad app is also a goal.
Introducing the TrainerRoad Forum
Along with Calendar, today we’re also launching the TrainerRoad Forum! This is a new spot dedicated to cyclists who want to get faster. Everything that goes into becoming a faster cyclist — training, racing, nutrition, and equipment — can be discussed there.
Also, if you’re a fan of the Ask a Cycling Coach Podcast, we have a Category just for you! There you can find episode summary notes posted by Coach Jonathan, and discuss topics from the show with other listeners.
You don’t need to be a TrainerRoad user to join the forum. If you have a TrainerRoad account, however, you can sign up for the forum with your same account login credentials using the “with TrainerRoad” option.
Updated Pricing
On Monday, October 8th, TrainerRoad subscription pricing will be adjusted. Monthly Plans will be $15 and Annual Plans will be $129. All TrainerRoad users with an active account will be grandfathered into their current pricing plan. If you want to learn even more about the pricing update, we have a Pricing FAQ page here. I also shared why we’re adjusting our pricing over on the forum.
Our mission is to help you become a faster cyclist. With the addition of Performance Analytics, and now Calendar, I’m proud to say TrainerRoad users have a complete set of tools that can be used all year long to achieve their goals.
We’re excited to continue building TrainerRoad into a best-in-class training system. If you have any feedback or requests, as always, please share them with us. Drop a comment below, or let us know what you think over on the new TrainerRoad Forum.
Happy Training!
-Nate
CEO & Co-Founder
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Excellent work on the new features, and thanks for locking in the current pricing. That’s a classy move to reward existing customers. 🙂
That’s just our little way of saying we appreciate you guys!
Appreciate the current pricing holding for current customers.
I’m 1/2 way through a training plan but now that the TrainerRoad app updated with calendar, that plan progress isn’t showing up anymore which is kinda frustrating.
Do I now need to add the remaining rides to calendar? I sometimes decide the night before or that morning if I’m going to ride and it was nice having the ‘next ride’ there in the plan. Not sure I like this (yet).
Hey Daniel!
Here is how you can manually add your Current Plan to the TrainerRoad Calendar:
1. Log into your online TrainerRoad Profile.
2. Find the date that you started your current plan by going to your Past Rides page and scrolling back.
3. Once you’ve found your plan’s start date, click on the Calendar tab under your Career tab
4. Go to the (+) in the lower right corner, and follow the prompts to add the plan you are mid-way through.
5. Enter your plan’s start date before adding the Training Plan to your Calendar.
This should get you up and running on the new Calendar! Feel free to reach out if you have any further questions and I’d be happy to answer them for you 🙂
Happy Training!
Only been on the calendar 10 mins and already like it. Very intuitive, will be really really great when you can copy a ‘other’ workouts to appear on the same day each week instead of doing it manually. Thanks to you TR.
Re: Pricing:
Wow Nate, That is very generous of you to grandfather current annual subscribers to current pricing. Thank you! I also believe that your new pricing is very fair and will proudly recommend friends.
Thanks Bob!
We’re more than happy to lock prices in for all the users who have made it possible to get to where we are 🙂
Happy training!
Omg, where is my career progress in app? And the week tips for triathletes with swim and run training? Simply disappeared!! So frustrating… I confess some changes in these training apps appears be made by someone who never use It everyday… Its unbeliveable. Update It urgently please! Thank you.
Hey Pedro!
I’m so sorry to hear that your initial experience with the new Calendar hasn’t been a positive one! I assure you that we all use the new Calendar extensively, but it does take a few steps to upload your current training plan into the new format. Once that’s out of the way, it will be smooth sailing 🙂 Here’s the procedure:
1. Log into your online TrainerRoad Profile.
2. Find the date that you started your current plan by going to your Past Rides page and scrolling back.
3. Once you’ve found your plan’s start date, click on the Calendar tab under your Career tab
4. Go to the (+) in the lower right corner, and follow the prompts to add the plan you are mid-way through.
5. Enter your plan’s start date before adding the Training Plan to your Calendar.
Let me know if you have any trouble along the way and I’d be happy to help you set things straight.
This Calendar feature may be great for a lot of people but I liked TrainerRoad specifically because it didn’t come with a training plan coupled to dates. Like Daniel Fields I often have to change my training times at the last minute because of other commitments. Can you allow the old style plans as well as the Calendar feature?
Hey there!
Unfortunately, it is not possible for us to offer My Plan format and the Calendar format in the same web release. It’s either one or the other. That being said, with the features that we’ve included in the new Calendar you can now move your workouts with unlimited flexibility, which will actually help in situations where things don’t go according to plan. If you have to push a workout back, all you need to do is drag and drop the planned workout to the day that you will actually complete the workout.
This will allow you to get a better “picture” of your overall training and can help you see your consistency over time. The ultimate goal of course, is that this feature will help you plan your training, and get faster than ever before.
The more I look at this, the less I like it. It assumes we’re all doing the exact plan. During the winter I may get 2-3 trainer rides in per week. But during the warmer months I usually just do 1 trainer ride per week, maybe 2 if it’s raining a lot. I use TrainerRoad to supplement my riding. But outdoor riding is what I really live for. Not 3 indoor sessions per week, every week. So I’ll be constantly missing my calendar dates which is demotivating. Can we use the old system as an alternative? AND I’d like to see my progress in the current plan which is gone!
Hey Daniel!
To clear things up, we do not expect you to follow the plan to the ‘T’. In fact, the main reason we developed Calendar is that we know life is unpredictable and we wanted to be able to account for all life’s mishaps in a central training platform.
You have a few good options for when you start mixing in outdoor workouts alongside your TrainerRoad Training Plan.
1. If the rides you are doing outside are designed as replacements for the indoor workouts (i.e. similar duration and intensity) then you can associate the Outdoor Ride with the Planned Ride. To do this, first, make sure that your planned ride and your Outdoor Ride are on the same Calendar Day. If they aren’t, drag the Planned Ride to the appropriate day. Click on the Outdoor Ride from your Calendar, and then click the “Associate Ride” button and associate it to the Planned Ride.
2. If you want to “free-ride” most of the week, and only do a couple structured rides, you can delete all of the Planned Rides that you don’t intend to do. Then, when you complete your outdoor rides, they will populate into the plan as you complete them.
3. If you are doing structured riding outdoors that is unrelated to the TR plan, you can schedule a workout manually, and then Associate an Outdoor Ride with the workout when you complete it. This also works for scheduling Shop Rides and races and allows you to estimate their TSS ahead of time.
I hope this helps clear things up a bit, let me know if you have any more questions for me!
Grandfathering existing and active users is much appreciated. Thanks a lot, Nate. ?
Hi, I train with virtual power on “silly” wheel-on turbo trainer and often wonder how accurate my power really is. It depends on tyre pressure and how hard I press the drum onto the tyre. I always use 1 full twist of a handle from the moment rear tyre touches it. But still…
I was thinking about some function of actual HR to %of max HR that would be recommended for people training with HR alone.
It could be displayed in a similar way to actual power and required power which is displayed on the left of the screen.
Thanks, Matt S
Hey Mateusz!
While VirtualPower is not perfect and can be subject to variability, it is much easier to control the variables associated with VirtualPower than it is to control the variables associated with Heart Rate. For example, Heart Rate can be affected by your sleep, stress, nutrition, hydration, caffienation, mentality, the temperature, humidity etc. It is also subject to cardiac drift, or a change in readings as you begin to fatigue.
While there are a few variables with Virtual Power, they are fairly easily addressed.
1. Always pump your tires up to the same PSI before starting your ride.
2. Always use the same tires from ride to ride.
3. Count the number of turns on your wheel tensioner. Tighten it until the roller just contacts the tire. Then count how many rotations it takes to get tight. For you, that number is ‘one’, so always tighten to the same tension.
If you do these things, your results will be consistent and you can compare your data from day to day and week to week 🙂
Hi Nate,
Nice work! I’ve expressed one ‘major’ requirement before and do not see it being released jet: Within the ‘Team’ option, a very great asset used to be the “comment to a training/workout-“ option. Among team members, it motivates hugely when you know your team member will see your data and will be able to comment (pos/neg?). I understood many didn’t want just anybody to do so, but among the controlled team environment, it’s a key motivator. Are we getting this back soon please?!
Hey Ronald,
I’m super sorry that I missed your comment the first time around. I have passed this feedback onto the team for consideration 🙂 Our decision to remove that functionality was due to the fact that our data indicated that this field was very rarely used. I totally agree that feedback/interaction within the team structure is healthy and potentially very motiviational so we will keep this in mind as resources free up and new projects are pursued.
Cheers!
As a Canadian user the cost continues to rise. A monthly plan is almost $20 with the new adjusted plan. Yes, I understand I can lock in at the old price, but I am not comfortable in doing that. A little disappointed that there is no Canadian price.
I’m really sorry about the exchange rate Shane 🙁 As of now, your best option would be to lock in the USD$99 yearly pricing if you feel TrainerRoad is worth the money. The already discounted yearly rate
plus getting locked in at the less expensive price would be the most cost-effective route for you. If that’s out of the question, we totally understand and maybe you can subscribe for just a few months out of the year to keep your costs down.
I read the comments below……
Where is my training plan?
Where is the past rides page? Click on the calendar tab under your career tab?? What? I do not understand how I find the date I started and then click on the calendar tab? Where is the calendar tab??
Where is the Career tab?
This is so confusing. Why do I have to scroll backwards to find a start date???? What?????
Hey Sheryl!
We’re really sorry the rollout of Calendar was not as smooth as it should have been. To make things easier, we created a banner that will show up when you open the Calendar that will allow you to add the plan you were previously on. This can be found in the top center of the Calendar window.
If you continue to have issues, don’t hesitate to reach out to our Support Team at support@trainerroad.com 🙂
Cheers!
I have conme to use Trainer Road as a long time user and it would appear that the plan I’m presently on has disappeared since you introduced calendar. Please help.
Hey John!
We’re sorry about the tough transition here. To help ease the process, we created a banner that will show up when you open the Calendar that will allow you to add the plan you were previously on. This can be found in the top center of the Calendar window.
If you continue to have issues, don’t hesitate to reach out to our Support Team at support@trainerroad.com
# Ronald says:
September 28, 2018 at 2:18 am
Hi Bryce, any comment on my post too?
Would be appreciated very much,
BR,
Ronald.
All of this is awesome, period! Would love to see a high vis version of your kits for us cyclists and triathletes! Keep up the awesome work!
I lived trainerroad before the calendar function. Sorry but i think you’ve ruined it for me. I train when i can and cant plan too far ahead. I’ve lost 20 odd rides and have had to start my plan over again. Really disapppinted.
Hey Simon!
I’m really sorry to hear that your experience with the Calendar has gotten off to a rocky start. I’m going to have a Support Agent reach out to you to see what we can do to help recover your 20 lost rides and help sort out any issues that you may be having with your calendar.
Sorry again,
Bryce
Well done on the new features and grandfathering current subscribers.
I am on an iMac and just tried to build my training plan with the new calendar functionality. However, the moment I select “add to calendar” it opens up the calendar in the browser and it does not transfer back to my Trainerroad app on the Mac. From the calendar in the browser I am not able to load the workouts.
Hey Gerard,
Mac App development has proven challenging and is a bit behind where the other apps are currently. For now, only the next 5 rides will sync into the app from the calendar. This allows you to carry on your day-to-day workouts in the app, but for a big-picture view, you will need to go to the Browser.
If none of your rides are syncing, then try refreshing your app by clicking the re-sync button. This should bring the next 5 days of workouts into the app.
We are working hard to bring the Mac App to the same level as the other apps, in fact, we should be releasing a Beta Version in the near future.
Sorry for the inconvenience, if you continue to have issues, you can reach our Support Team at support@trainerroad.com for further troubleshooting steps.
Cheers!
Hey! I’ve been asking for a calendar feature for a while and you guys delivered! Truly is the best training calendar tool out there, awesome stuff! When do you expect the sync to iCal feature to be released? It’s all about moving work meetings around to fit workouts in! I mean… the other way around! 😛
Hey Dylan!
We do not have an ETA for our Calendar Export feature, but I can say that it is high on the list of Development Priorities 🙂
Hang tight, it will be ready soon!
As a long-long timer user of trainerroad, I’m extremely disappointed with this calendar approach.
It has really ruined the usability of the app. Please fix this, revert to the training plan approach or allow both choices. This calendar approach is completely broken for people who don’t follow a calendar for training.
Like many other commenters above, I don’t do the training plans in a strict calendar structure, life gets in the way. I just want to do the training plans in order. It used to be perfect. The app tracked where I was and showed me the next one. Now that doesn’t work at all. I need to manually track where I am and manually move the next workout to today whenever I have time to do a workout. This is a huge regression.
Please please fix this, get rid of calendar.
Hey JJV,
We’re truly sorry that the Calendar has complicated your TrainerRoad workflow. We have plans to make it easier for users that just want to see their “next” workout and go, however, we do not have an ETA at this time. Making things easier for riders without consistent schedules will be a point of focus for us as we continue in our development.