As long as AI FTP Detection takes into account all rides, outdoor & in, and workouts & ‘just ride’ rides, then this is a brilliant feature.
The software you’ve got is brilliant and the more it can adapt to us as riders the better it’ll be for us!
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Yes, it already does this.
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My newbie feedback: When I started TR a few weeks ago, I had been doing outdoor rides and occasional steady state intervals with my FTP set at 175 (a friend’s guess based on our rides together). TR uploaded my data and set my FTP to 72. I did a ramp test and it put me at 159, which seems about right.
All this to say: I am all for AI, but if I feel it is 80-100 watts off (or even, let’s say, 15-20 watts off), I want the ability to double check it somehow without contacting support or just guessing what my FTP really should be.
You can always set ftp manually and bypass ai in situations where it makes sense. Or just wait for the system to gather enough data to dial it in.
I thought the questions in the initial post were all about whether to have manual at all or just auto, so I gave my anecdote in favor of keeping manual as a failsafe. If AI sets my FTP to less than half what it should be, I don’t particularly want to do a few workouts and just hope it will catch up. My 2 cents.
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@Nate_Pearson Speaking of outside training. How close is TR to having ALL outside rides be accounted for regarding Progression Levels, FTP increase/decreases, etc? This is the time of year many of us do most of our riding outdoors, so should be a high priority imo.
Great work by TR!
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Yah, I’m not using the right word. Continuous time in zone? The idea that 4x10 is not the same as 1x40, even though the TIZ is the same.
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IT DOES! :-D.
ALL RIDES (indoor AND outdoor) WILL IMPACT AI FTP DETECTION. 
Even those with just a HR monitor (although having a power meter is best).
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You can still have the tests. It will be a choice like this when you build your plan.
When we launch the feature, we’ll do onboarding to let people change their current plans to AI FTP Detection.
This picture is just a mock up, we’ll probably just call it AI FTP Detection.
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AI FTP needs something like 12 rides with power before it can give you a good estimate. Did you have that when you started with TR? (When I started, long before AT and AI FTP, it gave me an estimate of 65 or something. I think the vanilla, non-AI FTP starting points are pretty conservative.)
AI FTP DETECTION TAKES UNSTRUCTURED OUTSIDE RIDES (or indoor zwift, etc) INTO ACCOUNT!
What we are working on is having unstructured rides count towards progression levels. They are in the validation phase of that project.
But they count for AI FTP Detection. In fact, it works with ONLY outside unstructured rides and no TR rides.
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It’s different than this.
PLs allow for the small variations in your performance in each zone.
And using a power curve only gets you so far, as it doesn’t address things like repeatability.
You can have an FTP at 300 but only be able to hold it for 40 minutes but you might be able to hold it for 70 minutes. PLs allow us to work you up to those longer durations where appropriate.
This is how AI FTP Detection works! It looks at where you are in your training plan to give you the detection at the right time.
Athletes plateauing has to do with a ton of variables. History, genetics, life stress, too much volume, too little volume, motivation, nutrition, sleep, other workouts, recovery, and a bunch more things.
We have a few blog articles about what to do if you’re plateauing and I suggest you read that. I don’t think we can solve that with just PLs or changing your FTP.
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This is what happens. AI FTP Detection doesn’t look at planned work at all, and only has what was actually performed as an input.
The “smart” feature of this is that we will try to work you farther through your PLs in certain phases if your FTP hasn’t changed that much. If it’s a big change we’ll still let you know.
This is because we believe you’ll get greater benefit in your racing if you finish specialty with the harder 7/8/9 progression level workouts rather than raising your FTP and doing the 2/3/4 progression level workouts.
For steady state, this makes perfect sense because you want to be able to hold those longer intervals.
But even for the other specialty phases like crits and cross, those 7/8/9 PLs get you deep into repeatability and the type of stress you’re going to experience on race day.
As we’ve said on the podcast many times, race performance is more than FTP.
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AI FTP DETECTION TAKES INTO ACCOUNT ALL OF YOUR RIDES! Inside and Outside. Structured or Unstructured. TR or Zwift or Garmin or Strava or anything else as long as we get the file.
Even those with just a HR monitor, but it’s best to have a power meter on them.
Outside rides do not impact PLs yet, but we’re working on that and we’re in the validation phase of that project.
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AI FTP DETECTION TAKES INTO ACCOUNT ALL RIDES! INDOOR, OUTDOOR, STRUCTURED WORKOUTS, OR UNSTRUCTURED RIDES!
Having a power meter is best, but it will account for rides that just have a HR monitor.
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After reading this whole thread, I’m really disappointed with the fact that AI-FTP detection only takes structured TrainerRoad workouts into account. I don’t think y’all can really consider this to be a fully functional feature until it looks at outdoor rides, Zwift races, etc. Really, it should be able to work with any ride that has power data associated with it!
J/k. Keep up the good work!
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Can I talk about your rides/calendar on the forum? I’ll dive deeper into this and try to figure out what happened.
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I wish it was done in February, but it’s a hard problem.
We haven’t removed any resources from it and the team is getting closer. I believe they are in the validation phase of the project.
I’ll do a post when we’re really close to early access or private beta.
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Yes, when this is in production for real, we’ll have a 10-ride gate before we’ll give you a prediction.
The team is working on removing this requirement.
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