That worked. Thank you.
Use your previous experience of training rides and gauge how much they hurt:
RPE 1 = easy soft-pedalling
RPE 10 = flat-out sprint to the line
I imagine sweet-spot to be around 6 - 7?
This, unfortunately.
These outside workouts may be doable in rural flat areas, but in the densely populated and hilly region of Germany I live in, it just wonāt work. Stopping for road lights and intersections every few minutes, paying attention to traffic, having a hill in front of me when the workout calls for a recovery interval and vice versa rolling downhill when there should be effort, all this will interfere massively with executing the prescribed workout.
@PhilSJones - if you are on Wahoo, one way is to make a free training peaks account and then use the workout builder in there (on desktop web) to just build a copy of the workout you have planned that day. Search āplanned workouts wahoo boltā and you should find a lot of info.
Can pick the indoor one if you think you can replicate it on the road, or you could do the outdoor one if you think you may not be able to stay on track with indoor one. But again, the Wahoo interface does have nice tools if you need to pause for a minute, go back and restart an interval, delay when you start the workout, etc. so itās pretty easy to manage your regular ones.
Then, drag the workout to today or tomorrow in TP calendar (free account only supports that - canāt do it in advance) and sync your Wahoo after this. Itāll then be an option under āPlanned Workouts.ā Itās a bit messy but there is a lot on the web. You can only store 5 at a time as well, so you end up re-doing / modifying them quite often but you can get quick at it for all but the most complicated ones - which shouldnāt be done outdoors anyway.
What youāll get is that familiar trainer road style plot of power through the workout right on your bolt to follow, with your progress shown against it through time - just not historical power being plotted along it. But you can see things like your lap (interval) average vs. current power, etc. so very easy to make sure youāre staying on track for each interval and adjust as needed. Itās a real shame that this great functionality has been there for 2 years and is only accessible through these crazy methods. Itās also great to learn how to pace on real rides not in ERG mode!
From what I see, the outdoor workouts are basically the same for things like 8-12 min SS intervals. It seems like they avoided scheduling 15+ min outdoor intervals and replaced them with more in the 8-12 min range, maybe assuming itās often hard to find a 15+ min uninterrupted stretch. And endurance level workouts are made longer I guess assuming people arenāt great about pedaling downhill, etc. So you could make your own call about following the one exactly, or modifying. I have done things like Leconte, Palisade pretty spot on, ending ride within 0.01 IF of plan on the road so itās very workable IF you live in a reasonable rural area with open roads and stay disciplined to the planned workout targets on your power meter. In a city/suburb, I wouldnāt try many of these at all though - you need good open roads to do it right. This is why for me, I see this latest update as solving a problem that didnāt need to be solved - while not solving a really big problem that is way overdue for a solution. You can generally write the regular workout on a piece of paper, memorize it if you want, or load it to your bolt via training peaks and execute it just as well.
There are other ways that you can hack the files in from a longer-term library you make that I havenāt tried yet but may if the head unit companies / software companies donāt play together soon. Check www.ergdb.org
One thing Iāve learned is itās way easier if you have an 11-34 (or similar wide range) cassette for when you get caught on a hill in recovery 
It does indeed take a bit of route planning - I often use Strava road builder to plan where the intervals will happen - segment times can help you estimate good areas to do repeatsā¦ and itās a good way to explore some new roads! But you do need to take caution to find quieter low traffic areas without road crossings, etc. no matter what.
This is simply not true!
While outdoor is different than indoors, it is not totally different. In both instances, you are riding a bike and generating the target power for the intervals. The TSS, fatigue, etc., all accumulate the same exact way. The big difference is stopping for traffic lights, coasting downhill, free wheeling, all of which do not exist indoors.
I can easily do2x20@275W indoors and do 2x20@275W outdoors. The training stimulus is identical. How is the outdoor version not as effective?
The problem with some of the indoor workouts such as 2x20 is that not everyone has access to a stretch of road or hill that allows them to do this type of interval. The problem with something like 15s microbursts is that it is just plain hard to do outside. Hence, in both cases TR provides an alternative workout that is doable for most everyone and provides roughly the same training stimulus.
- Here are the RPE values according to Dr. Coggan.
The thing I find frustrating about outdoor rides where I am is being able to find somewhere to ride at steady power, thereās too much undulation so itās kind of frustrating (and maybe a sign I need to work on riding with power outdoors). Thereās a nice loop near my parentsā home where steady power is a lot more doable, I was able to do a 3x20 sweet spot session there a couple of times and it was pretty awesome.
But for me, having a downhill where Iām doing, say 200w, and an uphill having to do 400w or whatever to get a 280w average just seems like a different training stimulus, which is kind of why I got so much into indoor stuff. But I trained indoors this past weekend through some awesome nearly 70degree weather (wife was out of town, couldnāt leave a 7 year old unsupervised lol) and Iām realizing I gotta get out and enjoy the weather when I can and try and get better at outdoor power
I think about RPE a bit, especially from a newer personās perspective. If someone is pretty unfamiliar with their full RPE spectrum I can see how sweet spot could feel like a 10 for a newbie who has never experienced that sustained level of effort. I wonder if thereās any sort of study about RPE self assessment and how it might shift over time.
@hvvelo Thanks, that is useful.
I havenāt tried to load a workout into my elemnt.
Personally I am happy at the moment just doing an outside ride, with a purpose, as perhaps
- a 2x20m using a flattish stretch of road out and back,(It is actually 2x6miles but close enough) and do it both ways to factor in wind etc.
- If I want to do intervals outside I choose a similar road or hill and repeat, (or multiple different hills)
- or simply doing an endurance ride and choosing to how I pace the hills (do I push them , keep power steady, or even be silly and ride them at a really low cadence, or ride every hill twice.).
I think I agree with you. Even though I live in a nice rural area with the choice of flattish rides or hills, I donāt see this as a wonderfully useful enhancement.
Maybe I will come to appreciate it later.
Thanks for the tips on how to do it and other workout sources (as if TR did not have enough).
Like any system, it may seem arbitrary, but can be learned. People can use the TR workouts as a guide and try to associate the RPE with the work, then take that learned info outside with them.
I have no idea about a study like you mention.
Yikes ā I was quite a bit out there.
I wonder if there might be advantages to doing a structured workout in a grassy field? The constant resistance would mean that you donāt need as much space and there would be no timing issues like you have with hills. Anyone do their outdoor workouts on grass?
Iāve done the usual indoor workouts outside using the app and ant+ connection via android. It works very well if you can find an appropriate section of road/trail and a workout that fits (Iām looking at you, sweet spot).
If I can hit indoor targets consistently in the right conditions outdoors, is it better to stick to the indoor ride or is the intent here to always use the alternative outdoor workout?
My first thought would be that the uneven surface of a grassy field would making holding power much more difficult than pavement. If youāve got a bike with nice wide tires though thereās probably no harm in trying it.
Like a CX bike or a hardtail!
You know, I would love a sticky thread or wiki or whatever where people can exchange stretches of road to do these workouts on. Even with Strava route builder itās kind of a pain to find uninterrupted roads (that donāt turn into dirt unexpectedly) and in many places we race and train there must be a wealth of local knowledge to tap into.
Itās not perfect but there is the Strava global heatmap:
Using it, Iāve found a few places that might be interesting. YMMV. The key is to look for bright loops because that might mean that people are using it to train.
I love this chart but I donāt think it really solves the problem of having to calibrate RPE for quite a while before you can be confident about it. The problem with the chart is that the whole point of training with power is that those three metrics donāt consistently correspond. Tuesday of adaptation week here after two crits on Sunday and boy does zone 2 feel hard. 
Yes, this is what I ended up doing last year a lot when I didnāt have time/access to laptop to set it up and you can definitely do things by memory, use lap screen, etc. But if youāve never tried it, itās worth doing at least once just to see how nicely it works - and then join the frustration of us who want to see better integration!
My absolute favorite feature if you use the planned workout - when itās time to hammer - you get 4 beeps like the old Pole Position car racing video game - beep beep beep BEEEEEEP and GO! 