TLDR: I think TR is using ai to respond to support requests (see screenshots below).
I recently reached out to TrainerRoad support via email hoping to get some help and insight about my recent training. I reached out via email because I didn’t want to post my calendar publicly on the forum. In short, my reason for reaching out is that I’m hoping someone can look at my calendar and help me understand why my ftp has only gone since the tr update, despite completing every workout. I’m not that upset about the Ai ftp thing. I understand it’s just a metric. My training has been going well and I’m getting stronger. I was curious about how my recent increase in outdoor riding and demanding training approach for my current plan might be impacting the model. I mentioned that I race enduro and that riding outside is a really important part of my training.
To my surprise, the response I received from a “person” named Tiffany appeared to be completely ai generated (very chat-gpt sounding). The formatting is typical of what an LLM chatbot would respond with: bolded section headers, numbering, and bulleted lists. The content itself was unhelpful with a bunch of general information on enduro and trainerroad that I could easily find on the website or get from asking chat gpt myself. As you can imagine, I was quite disappointed and frustrated with this response and so I wrote a response expressing this. I also included an anecdote that another friend who uses tr recently had a great exchange with support that actually helped with a lot of my questions.
Again, I received a response that was completely unhelpful full of seemingly ai generated slop. The responder claimed to have looked at my calendar extensively but then proceeded to say:
“Have you ever considered completing your structured Workouts outside? Here’s an idea which you can maybe try out: Even without a power meter, you can still complete intervals outside using RPE instructions.”
If they would have looked at all they would have seen all of my recent outdoor rides have power.
I am posting on here because I’m incredibly disappointed and frustrated with this experience. It’s pretty funny to me that TR has said on the podcast how much better their product is than using a LLM for training yet uses an LLM to respond to genuine support requests from customers. Also in that podcast, Nate mentioned that he hoped to incorporate a chat bot into TR at some point that could answer questions about peoples specific calendars and plans. I wonder if this is some version of that they are testing out.
Has anyone else experienced this? Do any staff from TR want to chime in here and defend this?
My account isn’t public but staff are welcome to look at my account and share info about my calendar if they would like to.
