That podcast with Keegan was probably one of the most informative ones they’ve done recently. Certainly shaping my off season.
I do really like the podcast’s they’ve had with Keegan, Sophia, Hannah Otto, Tobin, etc but do agree that I miss the round table sort of discussion.
Hell I think Tobin might be my favorite guest as he seems the most relatable to the everyday rider that they’ve had on.
Same. My rides upload private by default and I usually only make outdoor rides visible to followers, and not even all of those. I will sometimes make a TR ride visible if I have something to say about it.
I don’t even auto sync my rides from Connect to Strava any more. I’ll turn on auto sync now and again if I’m doing a ride / event I think others might be interested in. Then turn off afterwards. But the default is not to auto sync them to Strava.
I actually love to see people’s training ride graphs so I can look at the workout structure.
Can you elaborate on this a bit. How has training changed in the past 5 years?
I agree.
The podcast was really at its peak when it was Jon, Nate, and Chad shooting the shit about their own personal experiences as amateurs and how science could help them improve.
The more it becomes just Jon talking to pros, the less relatable it becomes and more importantly the more it becomes just another cycling podcast.
I’d also argue that the whole AI FTP and Progession levels thing makes the whole platform feel less involved. Like I used to look forward to a ftp test, but now it just makes it for me and then the workouts are not even really based on ftp. So it’s so incredibly easy to just kind of mentally check out now.
What I would love to see is a return to actual ftp tests that bring a sense of accomplishment and also workouts that are based on said tests.
Additionally, we really need plans that incorporate running and swimming. I get it that it’s primarily a cycling platform, but how hard would it be to build some running into the mix for those of us that do both
The Wattage Forum folks could and did argue about anything and everything. 
I messaged one of them once, sincerely thanking them for something they’d posted that honestly had helped me. Somehow they found a way to be argumentative about my thank you. Apparently they felt I didn’t really understand the concept, that seemed a bit much to draw from “thanks that was helpful” but I just let it go.
I agree They really need to bring Chad back ever since he left the whole thing has seriously gone downhill
A couple of my observations.
I’ve used the platform since 2018, but my FTP has been pretty flat for the last 18-20 months. I think the red light/green light has only allowed me to maintain my fitness. I started working with a coach about 4 months ago and my FTP increased 10% in that short period of time. This was primarily due to more training volume, not intesity. The platform is build around increasing intesity even if you have not provided time restrictions.
Second I email TR support and asked them for an training plan review to see what I could have done differently in the platform instead of having a personal coach. That was a week ago and have not received a response. I’m sure they will but still a little disappointed.
Maybe its user error on behalf. If anyone want to take a look and let me know, I would welcome the feedback.
It would be cool during plan creation if we got a question whether we want higher intensity, or longer duration workouts as our PL’s increase.
I’ve heard many times here that people want longer workouts, rather than higher intensity workouts. At least for endurance rides.
My experience on TR is kind of a combo of things that have been mentioned here, but I would take it further. Through a couple winters of training, I was able to get gains AND learn about training as a newer cyclist. And as mentioned, I like having a plan but not having to do all the work to create it. But, and here’s the thing….you should mold it to what you really want once you know more about training and yourself. For instance, last winter I was doing 12-14 hour weeks on TR. As we all know, if you just have it create a plan for you, there’s no chance it will give you that volume. But it does let you do whatever you want and then once you do some weeks like that, and if you really can handle it and recover to ride again and again, it will adapt to you and your abilities. So I took the familiar structure TR uses (rest day monday, harder rides Tue/Thu/Sat, everything else easy) and I kind of crafted my own four week block that progressed in both hours and TSS. Like week 1 would have Mon as a rest day and use my progression levels to schedule workouts adding up to 12 hours. Week 2, I would ride on Monday easy to add time to the total for the week and progress a little on the 3 hard rides. Week 3, ride a little longer Monday and Sunday. That makes this the longest week and the PL’s go up slightly again. Then a recovery week.
I was basically doing a combination of self-coaching but using their platform, structure, red light/green light, workout library, PL’s, AI FTP detection, etc. that I wouldn’t have as a true self coach. I’ve considered getting a coach to see if I’m leaving anything on the table, but honestly as a 50 y/o, it’s not like I’m going to go pro or anything anyway. For the money and knowing what I now know about my body and training, I think TR is the best money I spend when it comes to marginal or maximal gains in my cycling.
Things like durability and repeatability and how they’re incorporated into interval sessions. Burning 1500kj’s before doing your intervals. Mixing systems in the same training session. You look at most pro’s and their workouts will include vo2 and threshold in the same workout. Or vo2 of different lengths and intensities in the same session. Lots more variability.
If you’re not evolving you’re dying. And IMO TR’s workouts or training plans have not evolved in quite some time.
Yeah I’d like this feature.
For a lot of people the current situation where the hours per week becomes a cap works because they are time limited not volume related fatigue limited.
It would be nice to be able to tell the system you have more time to fill if the AI thinks it would be productive.
I dream of a situation where I have enough time in my week that too much TrainerRoad volume would be an issue however 
IMO this has a lot to do with how they started and their initial training philosophy. There was a heavy reliance on SS and on time crunch.
You see it most with their ‘High Volume’ plans. It’s only like 9 hours a week but they still don’t recommend it for almost anyone because it’s just too much intensity. Which is silly because given enough availability, anyone should be able to effectively ride 10 hours a week after they’ve ridden for a bit.
Maybe I’m not their target audience but for my higher level amateur racing crowd 9 hours is about the minimum. But the way they laid out that plan in the past (TBH it’s been a while since I’ve seen the plans) would burn out tons of even pretty fit riders.
But it also has to do with trying to get your average rider to stick to the plan. This was something that was discusses a lot in the early days of the podcast. They used to have 3 hour endurance rides and stuff but they saw that people didn’t do them so they dropped it to 2 hour SS. Probably the same for getting most people to do a 3 hour ride with a 20min threshold interval at the end. Most people just won’t do it.
I kept my TR subscription while having a coach for the past 8 years. Having a coach has really shed light on my recovery time from various races and workouts. I’m in my 50s and certainly no grand goals for podium race results. When I go back to self coaching I’ll just just TR and let the AI detection do its thing. For my needs if it’s a little low or a little high it’s not critical for me. If I follow a plan I’ll just add volume as needed or tweak as I go along. I like keeping fit and keeping up with friends on group rides so TR will work fine for my needs
I agree and thought that was the point of workouts with higher PL but it seems like that’s not the case.
TR has the Polarized Plan but I think they have to give you the option to integrate this into Plan Builder.
Be it an option you can turn on or if after a certain amount of time you can dedicate to training it switches automatically.
No it hasn’t dropped the ball.
I definitely learned a lot from the early podcast days where they also seemed to be learning from a similar situation to me.
I definitely improved my ftp following the plans that I was given, and the AI ftp has really helped me.
I just think that a lot of us made the easy early gains, reached our approximate level and now wonder what to do next. Whilst I think I could possibly improve my current ftp by 10% if I could have unlimited sleep and no work stress and perfect diet etc, I don’t think it’s possible for me to make 20% gains. So thanks to TR I’ve got very close to my genetic potential, but there isn’t much else they can do now.
I agree with the comment about listening to normal TR users with jobs on the podcast, rather than always hearing from awesome athletes with unlimited time to train.
So overall I’m happy with TR 
In short , No.
The program and workoutplayer just works. The calender works. When i doubt instant alternates or recommended workouts.
And the big one for me. A bootstrap-company, so no tied commercial mailings and so on, from third parties. Yes, this comes with a price
A management team that’s pretty close to the sport and that is vocal or at least as vocal as possible, about what they think is good or important for you as a cyclist.
Podcast and youtube channel with subject that make sense for every part of the population of people doing anything with a bike.
So the ball hasn’t been dropped.
When you’ve done it for a few year, you absolutely can do it yourself. If you should, is up to you.
Are there better options out there? Absolutely without a doubt. For $22/month, are there better options, not that I have ever seen.
An annual membership to TR is less than the cost of 1 month with a personal trainer, and the actual training prescribed is very similar and includes an indoor training sim.
Are you getting TR confused with TPV, or do you think a TR subscription gives free access to Zwift? (As far as I know they now import workouts into Zwift and play nice together, but you need both subscriptions)