Just passed a free trial code to a local rider I met who does not have a power meter, but was interested in trying some more structured work, and thought TR could be a nice solution for base phases where you mainly just want to dial in riding longer blocks at Z2 vs. SS vs. threshold (for O/U).
I’ve since learned that TR does not support giving you HR targets. In my opinion, this is a big miss, as many younger folks can’t afford power meters right away. Personally, I found HR to be an incredibly valuable and affordable stepping stone to later getting a power meter. I know TR disagrees - but clearly the market for HR-based training has not gone away as power meters remain a minimum of 6x the price - if you can even find one - so not going to debate that point if they don’t want those potential customers.
But this also got me wondering what I’d do if my power meter died and/or I get a second bike without a PM for a while as so many meters are sold out. Frankly, I’d want to train on my very well understood HR zones rather than an absolutely archaic RPE system.
The only option I can see is that you just have to memorize HR zones as they relate to a RPE target (assuming that is exported as part of a workout structure) or relate it to whatever power targets that get exported if you make up an arbitrary FTP. OK, I could do that after riding for many years… but is that really the only option? Such a solution would be ironic given all the podcast discussion about managing cognitive load - but spend some mental energy relating targets to HR from memory, rather than use the built in field on your head unit ![]()
Is there any other way to configure the Bolt and/or something in TR to allow you to get a HR target on screen with outside workouts if you choose to do so?
If no solution within TR/Bolt - I see that Training Peaks supports this field - but the workout builder is pretty limited on the free platform. Does anyone know if other sites like ERG DB or other solutions open a door to specifying a target HR range for each workout interval, ideally in some way that automatically translates the RPE or power target to HR using a table of reference zones that you setup?