Perfectly feasible, I too sometimes rde RGT courses with TR on my Garmin. You’ll lose a little TR/AT analysis/ fettling, as just now it will be treated as an outside ride in the analysis. Outside rides are processed in AT at the moment on your survey response. There are also sometimes differences from indoor to outdoor workouts. Sometimes the outdoors workouts will give a more general warm up (say 15mins building gradually from 150-300w, where as indoor work out will have 5 different steps). Outdoors workouts often need you to press the lap key to progress, whereas indoor automatically progress.
I use TR & Zwift concurrently, and dual record with my Edge 530. In Garmin connect I use the info from my 530, in Strava I use the Zwift info for mileage and elevation tracking (I know, not apples-apples). On the social side, I have Strava mileage and elevation goals that I compete with my friends for fun, and I like to compare estimated VO2 max, and FTP from the different services as well.
Is it worth it? It doesn’t cost anything extra, so I guess so, even if just for S&Gs.
How much are those worth? Lol
Lol, I packed my Garmin away but dug it out for tonight’s workout so I guess I think its worth it. Its faster than my slow laptop for calibration anyway; that another reason why its worth it ![]()
Random question/aside
If you’re dual recording, and you perform a spin down calibration on TR, is that sufficient for the Garmin too?
i.e. does the calibration “correct” the data from the trainer at the trainer end, or only in TR?
Should you calibrate both devices, even though only recording one source?
Zero offset calibration only happens inside the trainer.
Cool, thanks!
So, a calibration on TR should net the same power data everywhere? Perfect
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I dual record TR workouts on my Garmin and make sure the Garmin file is saved after the TR workout syncs to Strava. Both recordings sync to Garmin Connect and TrainingPeaks. I delete the TR workout from Garmin and the Garmin workout from TrainingPeaks. Fortunately, Strava ignores the Garmin workout.
I really hate doing all this, but I can’t stand the thought of throwing away the data that is captured by my Garmin head unit, particularly the L/R Balance, L/R Torque Effectiveness, and L/R Pedal Smoothness metrics. That said, it makes my Garmin feed look very boring (not that a feed with TR workouts would look any less boring).
Also, my mileage in the Garmin file is always 0, because the SB20 does not send speed/distance data. So, my badges are only earned by riding outdoors. ![]()
Also, during the summer of last year, I experimented with not dual recording my Zwift rides, and I didn’t like it because although training status metrics (load, recovery, etc.) were captured, intensity minutes were not calculated, causing my “Fitness Age” to go up! (Yes, I know… vanity!)
ETA: Question: Would there be any downside to NOT deleting the TR workout from Garmin? I.e., would Garmin Connect recognize that it’s the same and only include one of the workouts in its training status metrics?
I always record on the garmin regardless of what else I’m connected to. Lately, that means I’m doing a TR workout while doing a group ride in Zwift, and running the garmin as well. The only downside is that all sync to strava afterwards, so I clean up the dups periodically. TR is smart enough not to duplicate when strava pushes duplicates to it, so Strava is the only one that requires manual cleanup.
I do the garmin for backup and I also used to review metrics using golden cheetah quite a bit, but haven’t really used it much in the last year. I just like having the raw workouts available if I ever need them for anything. I think I have every ride going back ~13 years when I started riding with power.
Not scientific but I haven’t bothered to delete the TR workout that sent to TR and in essence duplicates the Edge recorded one for the last 6months an it doesn’t seem to have altered any of my training status metrics.
I found another reason to dual record. I didn’t last night and whilst my TR ride synced to GC, GC doesn’t sync externally recorded rides to the likes of intervals.icu; it syncs Garmin Edge recorded rides to Intervals.icu just fine.
I don’t dual record but I just record all my workouts through my Edge. The recovery and training effect metrics are never more actionable than just a “huh 50hrs of recovery time. Yeah that was a hard ride.” Then I go about my day. It does absolutely nothing to affect my decision making.
With a free Dropbox account you can have TR rides automatically uploaded to intervals.icu.
I couldn’t get it to work for some reason. Hopefully now its set up it’ll do it in future.
For what its worth I started dual recording on my Garmin and have some thoughts.
#1 - yesterday for some reason my recording within the trainer road app got completely FUBAR’d and wouldn’t save. Luckily I was able to download the file from Garmin Connect and load to trainer road and associate with the workout. If nothing else there is value in this.
#2 - I’m not sure how useful the training status information is in Garmin Connect, but that might change if I get a new watch with the training readiness (really interested in the 965 that released yesterday).
#3 - Stupid Garmin, the 830 does not record intensity minutes. Not the end of the world, but that metric feeds into a number of other metrics. The device has all the heart rate data, so I have no idea why they can’t adjust the code to support this.
FWIW several months later I’m still dual-recording. I don’t also try to Zwift any more (it got boring after a while and once my workouts got harder I just wanted the graphs and some jams). But I save TrainerRoad so it sends to Strava, sometimes I have to delete the Garmin copy in Strava (is Strava even worth it sometimes?!) and then I setup the TrainerRoad-Garmin connection so Garmin rides sync to TrainerRoad but not the other way around. The only thing that’s missing in Garmin Connect by using my Edge’s upload instead of TrainerRoad is the name of the workout and the (dozens of) laps, I get more actual data and it’s from the single “source of truth.” Plus I like having my big Edge 1040 screen in front of me too. I actually find the stamina screen useful when doing a workout to check my RPE against my “actual” effort. So I don’t know, maybe it is worth it. It hasn’t bothered my through two base blocks.
I’ve the slightly smaller 1030 and similarly I like the Garmin Screen in front of me; especially when I am head down in a TT position and I also process for some reason a HR displayed in %Max as I’ve got set up on the Garmin.
I’m not sure how I have got thing set up but if I wait a minute until TR uploads to Strava/GC and then save the edge file strava/TR usually only have one file (Strava is set to up load private anyway so on the rare occasion I have to delete a Garmin workout in Strava I do that before making the TR Strava file public. GC isnt as clever though it always uploads both edge and TR files.
You can fine tune the Garmin Connect link with TrainerRoad so it sends rides but doesn’t receive them: https://support.trainerroad.com/hc/en-us/articles/202031490-Garmin-Connect
That’s what I did and it’s been working great!
Sorry for the newbie question. But for those who dual record, when starting the workout on your Edge/Fenix with the “indoor ride” activity profile, are you recording it as a free ride? Or are you exporting the planned TR workouts to Garmin Connect as outside rides, but riding them inside (is that even possible?). Right now, I’m only recording on TR but feel I’m missing out on certain Garmin metrics that I liked having when I used to dual record on Zwift (which I also recorded as a free ride). I also like seeing the auto-laps from the TR file on GC.
