Help us improve TrainerRoad! (Survey)

When you told them they should use TrainerRoad, what was your “pitch”? Why should they use TR?

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No questions on what you don’t like about Trainerroad, what could be better etc.

I think one of the objections people might have is you’re not as engaged when doing a workout as you are when riding the likes of Zwift. Yeah I know you can minimize the gui and run a video on the screen but I’ve seen people say this about TR.

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In this case, i was selling to hard-core bikers. Almost all were aware of it already and it was a conversation between Zwift and Sufferfest videos. They were all pretty avid cyclists who were training for something big, like a bucket list item. We’re in MN, so they were all predisposed to some sort of indoor training in the long winters. Most were considering a trainer (i.e. CTS, or a local coach) to keep them accountable and provide some structure/expertise. Most were already doing some spin/indoor classes.

My pitch went something like this:

  • make the indoor training suck less
  • Get most of the benefits of a good coach
  • Lots of workout variety, tons of flexibility and choice (better than Zwift)
  • Keep yourself accountable
  • track all your workouts; integrates well with Strava
  • You can watch yourself getting stronger
  • Decent price
  • Good community

to your point above about “not doing all your rides inside”, i do think that’s an important thing to focus on. Your analytics are getting better all the time, and the ability to get a kinda “normalized” take on your workouts across bikes (gravel, road, MTB, cross) is cool. I really like estimating my TSS from my road and gravel rides.

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This is great! I’ve shared this with our marketing team.

If anyone else can let us know how they convinced someone else to use TR that would also be helpful.

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Filled it in, hope it helps!

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A handful of things to clarify:

  1. This survey is looking for very specific insights, so while the questions may seem oddly specific or vague, and while we could have thousands of questions to ask, we value your time and know what takeaways we need most; hence the focused nature of the survey. :slight_smile:

  2. The questions vary based on your usage of TrainerRoad, so if you only get a handful of questions, please know it is still a ton of help!

  3. If you know of somebody who is familiar with TrainerRoad but has chosen not to sign up, please forward this to them. That’s a tougher group to wrangle around here.

  4. I’ll pick a survey responder at random to get a swag package. Just know that I’ll catch duplicates, so no funny business! :wink:

Thanks y’all!

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Done!

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  1. get faster
  2. do 3 hard days a week w/o overcooking like I was doing outside using Strava/CTS plans
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:heavy_check_mark:

That’s easy, kicked my friends ass all last season then sent him a referral :rofl:

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My personal experience… I was using the British Cycling turbo workouts (pyramids, intervals etc.) and finding them beneficial. My mate raved about TR and explained roughly how it worked, but at the time I didn’t think it’d give me much more than what I was already doing, so I carried on as I was. A few months later another mate raved about TR. I still didn’t think it’d be much of an improvement on what I was already doing, but he mentioned there was an Android app, so thought I’d give it a try. After the first workout (a very poorly paced 20 min FTP test!) I was absolutely hooked; it was way more engaging than I expected it to be.

I’ve found the same with another couple of mates… they’ve not been blown away by the description of it, but have absolutely loved it when they’ve tried it. I think it’s difficult to do the software justice by just speaking about it. It’s when they try it that it sells itself (I see why the referral links are so important). I’d probably even let people try a couple of workouts without putting their card details in. I’m sure the large majority would end up signing up.

Now Dave Brailsford has started smashing out the TR workouts it makes the sales pitch a bit easier though… “the choice of Team Sky” :wink:

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Well, that didn’t take long… I don’t know if my answers are any help though…

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Done :white_check_mark:

My trainerroad “pitch” that convinced a few friends:

  • TR does not only make you faster, it teaches you how to suffer. Then I use an Eddy Merckx quotes; “When it’s hurting you, that’s when you can make a difference”

  • TR is not only a workout app but also a great analyzing tool and season planner

  • Good community

  • For me, TR made self-coaching possible and saved me a lot of money

@Nate_Pearson,

If you are looking to attract non-hardcore, more enthusiasts, then I think you need a pitch more along the lines of “Finish your goal event stronger” or something similar. If I’m a relatively new cyclist, not hardcore, then getting faster might not resonate with me, if my goal is to complete my first century, or break XX hours for a century.

Plus having a “wizard” for plan selection would help cyclists just getting into structured training. That is, you could enter the event date you are targeting, the event type, and the wizard would recommend a complete series of training blocks to get you to your event. This should add / subtract weeks as necessary. If my goal event is 24 weeks away, then they wizard should appropriately remove 4 weeks from a full base - build - specialty.

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Done

Done.

I’m quite new here (8 weeks) but I notice the drive to improve things and application - this is great guys.

I would like to stress though the fact that the product is already very, very good. I cannot actualy see things I would like to improve. So while I understand your will to improve, please don’t over-engineer this !

I think TR inherently feels like a very nerdy platform. Which is fine by me (CS/IT guy) but can make it a difficult pitch to a lot of people. And I do think the enthusiast/“serious cyclists who do very little or no racing” and fitness crowd could find TrainerRoad valuable. Winters are harsh over here and people want to be in shape come summer. Even for basic cardio, TR is a lot more engaging and beneficial than just riding a gym bike aimlessly.

After some (a lot of…) persuasion I got my partner signed up a couple of months ago to get some training in from home after the birth of our second child. She does not care one bit about FTP or any other fancy metrics. Also, the initial setup was not to her liking. A plan/season setup wizard, like @AlphaDogCycling suggested, would work wonders there. Still, from the very first workout, she is loving it. The benefit to her fitness is immediately obvious to her.

As an additional point: I’m unsure if putting VirtualPower as a central stepping stone to the TR experience is the right move in 2018. Smart Trainers have gotten a lot cheaper and the power meters in them a lot more precise during the last 2-3 years. Most of my peers that could be persuaded to buy a trainer would not need to depend on VirtualPower.

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Done!

Done. A great product, but lots of opportunities also!

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