Hi there,
Sorry it’s taken a while to respond to your initial post. Welcome to TrainerRoad!
I fully appreciate and understand your frustrations in getting to grips with the app. I had the good fortune to have been listening to the podcast for a number of years before I got my first indoor trainer and had a good understanding of the fundamentals of what TrainerRoad are attempting to do.
To some extent understanding this will answer some of the questions that I think you are asking. You will have to go back in time a little if you choose to listen to the podcast to get to the bit where they are explaining the app and its philosophy but it’s an interesting listen and The team are good company and offer literally thousands of good training ideas.
As for accessibility, whilst it is by no means perfect I’m pretty confident that it is significantly better than any of the other apps that are widely available for use with a smart trainer. A recent contributor to this thread took the time and trouble to attempt to use a number of alternatives such as Zwift and Wattbike hub and found them to be dreadful.
In setting the app up in the first place, I am lucky to have a very patient wife who was happy to help me link the app to my equipment and who is also happy to help me set up my training plans in accordance with the deadlines and objectives that I have. Once this is done, I find the app pretty easy to navigate and use.
Again, the later contributor to this thread had a similar problem and he overcame this by contacting support who were happy to help him set up his training plan, including his races and other calendar objectives so that he could then commence using the app and following the adaptive training plan that the product provides.
If you are at the phase where you are only experimenting with the app and you have undertaken a ramp test, you may find the easiest thing to do is to use the “train now” feature.
If you tap the open menu button that appears at the top of the calendar page when you open the app you will find the train now option is there. Tapping on this will bring up an overlay which based upon the result of your ramp test will suggest an appropriate workout for that day. It is intelligent and uses adaptive training to recommend a workout that will either push you a little in the area described as “climbing” or, “attacking” or if you have worked hard on the previous day you may find that it offers you an “endurance” workout which is of lower intensity that may either be to develop your endurance capability or indeed may be a recovery ride.
You should also see that via this overlay you can select the workout duration you desire be it 30, 45, 60 minutes or more. Using this functionality will give you a feeling for how the app progresses the intensity levels of your workouts and how it makes sure that you intersperse lower intensity recovery rides along with higher intensity more stretching rides that will enable you to benefit from all the adaptations that your body undergoes when following the plan.
Once you become familiar with the ‘train now’ functionality, it may then be time for you to set up a training plan. For this you will need to set an overall objective and the plan builder functionality, whilst not terribly accessible, will take you through exactly what information you need to give. Once you have done this, based upon the dates that you have given to the app you will be presented with a training plan which is usually structured along the lines of a base phase, a build phase and then dependent upon the type of event you have entered there will be a speciality phase.
Again, the workouts are structured to give you adequate recovery and they are periodised so that you will have phases of effort with a week of recovery at the appropriate time. The adaptive nature of the training plan will use your responses to the post workout questionnaire to establish whether or not the AI can afford to give you a harder work out or whether in fact it has set the bar a little too high and whether those workouts should be made a little easier. You should find therefore that the app will always be stretching you but should never be stretching you to the point where you snap!
With my wife’s assistance to overcome some of the less accessible functionality on the app, I have to say that I find TrainerRoad very effective and as I say relatively simple to use. I’ve been a subscriber now since late 2019 and I’m very happy indeed with the product.
All the best with your training and I hope that this reply has been of some help.
Martin