Creating a course?

Is it possible in TR to create a 4% steady uphill course for 20+ miles. I am seeking a long uphill grade with no undulations in order to do intervals and doing so in free-ride mode (I don’t like erg)?
Bill Black

Yeah, depending on your trainer it’s called level mode or resistance mode.

Sounds like you want a sweet spot workout with a long single interval. Of course the needed duration for you to “ascend” at 4% for 20mi will depend entirely on you.

If you know what power you want to ride at and the duration, it might easiest to just use the named freeride workout variants where you’re in charge. You can use
http://www.bikecalculator.com/ to figure out the duration for you at desired grade, power and distance.

Wahoo trainers will do that: you feed it a Strava file and then you can re-ride the course. I reckon other trainers can do that, too.

But the question is what you want to do: TR is not starting from terrain and adjusts your resistance according to that. With TR you set power targets and you need to stick to those.

I don’t like setting watt targets for quality sessions because they end up being caps and further erg messes with my pedal stroke at higher power/exertion levels.

Bill Black

I think you need separate several disparate issues: if you don’t like erg mode, you should disable it and ride your trainer in resistance or progressive mode. That’s what I do whenever the workout asks for something higher than Z2.

The second thing is about how you structure your training. Going off terrain makes little sense, because you need to train according to your power zones. Simulating terrain would just force you shift so that you stay in your power zones.

You could pair your trainer to Zwift and TR to your trainer’s or your bike’s power meter and use both simultaneously. Then you’d have to shift to hit TR’s power targets. Some people do that. Personally, I have no interest in Zwift, though, so I don’t know how that works out in practice.

Thanks – I’ve been at this awhile. See page 6 of the attached USAC newsletter for an article I wrote and a brief bio.

Bill Black

USACnewsletter0413.pdf (1.67 MB)