Can only see two “hard” workouts there. 2 x 15 min tempo isn’t hard, it’s more medium intensity, just a bit harder than Z2.
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At this point, I believe TR is willing to die on that hill. I know they will say you don’t need long rides other than for equipment and nutrition things. And I know they say they have data and science backing them on their approach but for me if I have any race 5+ hours I’ll be doing some number of rides of 3+ hours minimum.
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I think this is a byproduct of TR’s primary target demographic (ie - time crunched) and their hyper focus on avoiding burn out and prescribing safe/conservative training. You can absolutely get fit enough to complete long events with shorter training sessions and low volume, lots of people go into these events with minimal training. Even though the data is clear that more volume and longer training sessions will drive better performance (when done progressively and consistently), the higher volume approach can also contribute to poor adherence to the plan when a person doesn’t have the time or energy to keep on top of it. Consistently following a progressive plan w/ shorter rides is likely to produce better results compared to throwing super long rides in without building up to them. From a pure fitness perspective, a time crunched athlete with only 5-6 hours a week to train should probably be sticking with shorter intense workouts rather than burning 4+ of those precious hours each week on a long ride. But I do think TR could do a better job of optimizing plans/options for folks targeting longer events who have the time/desire for more training volume. I know you can specify your available time to train in the plan builder setup, so maybe there is a good path to get there these days. I honestly haven’t played with it in a while. My preferred approach is to leverage TR to help manage my interval/intensity progression while I manage my endurance work through other tools and without the TR workout library. I’ve found it to be a simple and effective approach.
And +1 on the prior comments in this thread about setting reasonable expectations for a inexpensive online training tool. TR is the best on the market from what I’ve seen, but people are extremely misguided if they think the platform is some magic bullet that gives perfect training plans and accounts for every variable (not even the best human coaches do that). I’d argue that TR is better than many human coaches (for a fraction of the cost), but it’s far from perfect and not the right approach for everyone. Some people just want a plan to follow, while others need to understand the “why” for every workout and adjustment. A good human coach can do a much better job of the “why” in many cases.
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Spot on. TR’s largest demographic is the time crunched cyclist. If you are riding 6-8 hours per week, you need three tougher workouts to get anywhere. The platform is also pretty careful to not start you off too hard, probably BECAUSE of all the flack they have taken about it being too hard and also to keep people around. It isn’t TR’s fault that most people lack the patience to wait for the results of the training or the discipline to stick to the plans. No coach is going to magically make you fast quickly either, but they will cost a whole lot more.
I mean you can also build up to longer rides not just jump into them. But yes, certainly TR has shown you can get good results with low volume training. If I’m doing a longer event like Unbound I definitely need longer rides to work on nutrition and bike fit issues. For me, that means at minimum a 4 hour ride that I build up to. But yeah, that’s not everybody
I’ve had a coach for awhile. Not because I’m some top level athlete but it’s been nice to not think about a plan and have somebody who really knows what works for me and especially things like how much recovery I need. At some point I will go back to self coached and using TR but with a ton of lessons learned from years of being coached.
My experience with TR has been different. I’ve used TR for my 200 mile road race and switched to Masters plan, balanced, experienced rider and let AI do its thing. Last year I used Volume checker and it added a long Sunday ride to my plan (2 to 3 hour ride). First year on the plan got me sub 14 hours (improvement of 1 hour), second year on the plan got me sub 12 hours. Hoping for another good year with trying to get to a 10 hour goal.
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If you think you’re able to put more volume in, then do it and ignore the warning. Just use the check volume button after a few weeks of the extra volume and it will adjust future phases.
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I’ve seen plenty of posts by the TR personnel supporting this sort of training as well. Basically standing by this sort of training that you don’t need the long rides to properly prep for big races.
Terrible advice and planning IMO
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The part that is missing is that TR, me, and anyone who will listen knows I’m a amateur with a life full of other things. For me and probably a good number of TR users I need time and practice holding my carcas up on the bike for 7+ hours. I did struggle and suffer on my first 100 mile MTB race, not because I didn’t put in the time and work to be physically able to pedal. It was my arms, back, contact points, and managing nutrition that long. The following year I had a lower FTP, but had a blast at the race and got a better time. I had even less time to train and did TR low volume. But I rode for 4+ hours multiple times in the months leading up to the race and outside of my plan. The TR defenders will be along to mansplain how I need to use my noggign and take responsibility for my training, and I did. The point isn’t that I can’t figure this out, it’s that TR’s plans and logic aren’t laid out so I know what is going on. It isn’t all bad, and is certainly better than nothing. But I still completely understand where the Bike Station lady is coming from. You just can’t have it both ways. It’s trust the plan, trust the AI, or question everything and try to figure out what TR isn’t giving you and supplement.
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I did die on that hill with them. Almost literally. Your plan is exactly like mine. You need some long days and miles to properly prepare. I don’t at all doubt the science TR talks about in their podcasts. I just think it misses a critical point. It’s not about FTP, or zones, or progressions, power curves, or any other quantifiable cycling metic. It’s about the durability to hang on to a vibrating oscillating bike for 100+ miles without just being entirely miserable.
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Yeah just simple little one sentence explainers at each step, could work well.
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The big issue about she following blindly what AI TR says is that this is exactly what TR marketing says you should do and that AI is gonna take care of evwrything for you!
while I agree there is a blatant conflict of interest in the video I wouldn’t say they are trying to sabotage TR they are doing exactly what TR marketing says you should!
They dont say talk to customer service for training advice or spend time on the forum, they say the AI coach is gonna take care of everythinf for you and you just dollow the recommended workouts
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Yeh, I am sure that if you were crit racing, nothing more than 45 mins, and you said that four Z2 rides of 1 hour was enough, others would be all over it. I ride ultra distance and you absolutely lose that durability if you haven’t been including those longer rides.
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Asking for a friend. Is it still mansplaing if you don’t know the sex of the person you are speaking to?
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The TR tagline is Eliminate guesswork and get faster, not.. learn how to fuel on a long ride, prevent saddle pain or get a core strong enough for that 100 mile gran fondo.
It’s quite a leap from sorting out your schedule, progression and helping keep on track/not overload to everything, which reading the forum, a lot of people manage to do - so maybe there is room for improvement?!
I’ve not really engaged with this thread because it’s been a long time since I on-boarded so don’t really feel qualified to talk about the current process but this is what I think I know….
TR will happily prescribe long rides. Maybe not at first but after a few weeks of structure press that “check volume” button and you will start to see the length of the endurance rides increase.
You decide how long you want to ride your bike and TR will fill the space.
TR will (sensibly) give you some over-training warnings in the form of yellow days - just like a real coach would - but you can train on yellow days - red days are the days TR thinks it would be detrimental to train.
Intensity is a short cut to volume. If you are only doing 3.5hrs a week then expect it to be intense.
I think the tool is good but clearly there are many users who dont know how to use it. This is not a criticism of the users - it’s TRs job to educate.
There is clearly a gap in the onboarding process explaining how to fit long rides into a plan.
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Agree with everything said. I went digging to see what is there and the resources do exist, maybe there is(?) or needs to be a step that points out their existence.
It took less than a minute to find the blog and then this.. but if you don’t know the resources pop out is down there..
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This. And adjust your calendar to increase the hours you are able to put in on whatever days. I don’t see the problem so much as TR not giving you the tools you need, but more an issue of them not doing a good enough job of communicating the options and alternatives you have available to you when on-boarding. They happily tell you that some long rides will help you prepare for the ride, and how best to put them in your schedule, when you ask. It’s very obvious, with the number of posts like this one we see, that there are a lot of boxes you can check, and they could clearly do a better job of surveying where you are and what you expect, and then giving appropriate guidance. The software clearly isn’t as intuitive for everyone as TR wants to believe. Then again, the forum posts also indicate that many people clearly don’t do the necessary homework to fully formulate the plan they want…it’s easier to expect the software to do it, and complain when those expectations aren’t met.
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“If you are riding 6-8 hours per week, you need three tougher workouts to get anywhere.”
This is completely incorrect, despite what TR would have you believe. It’s pretty much universally accepted for years now that the “standard” sweet spot plans have too much intensity
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Hmm…. I think that depends on how you are defining “tough”
I don’t think you need 3 high intensity workouts - but I think 3 hard (as in intensity for a given duration) is doable and beneficial.
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