I am struggling a bit with the recent AI update on TrainerRoad. I’ve really enjoyed the structure, but recently I’ve found it’s often been changing my workouts and very consistently recommending recovery days. I’m training for the Leadville 100 and if I do a 3 hour ride outside, it ends up changing multiple of my workouts the following week. I am also a shift worker and find myself needing to move some workouts around throughout the week. This also affects the previously prescribed workouts.
Lastly there is a large discrepancy between my outdoor FTP test and AI’s recommended FTP. My current AI FTP is 277. I just completed an outside FTP 20 minute test. I have a fully calibrated dual sided power meter and Garmin pedals. Both are very similar numbers. My 20 minute outside test was 362… I subtract 5 percent from that and it gives me a rough FTP of 344…
If anyone has recommendations to go upon these things it would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.
Just confirming - when you say you have 2 different power meters that are calibrated - are you using a different one indoors and outdoors, and if so, have you tested them against each other on the trainer? (e.g. - Dual Record?)
yeah, that is a big jump from the TR AIFTP. Did you do a 5min. all out before you did your 20min FTP test? Also the outside power should always be higher than the trainer power as you get the cooling effect of the wind. But you are off by 50W. Do you have a dedicated trianer bike? If you have a dedicatd trainer bike and the crank length is not the same as your outdoor test bike then the power will be different.
Hey thanks for the reply. I have used both power meters continuously and constantly compare power numbers between the two and they are both within a very small margin of each other. Garmin Vector pedals and I have a Giant Power Pro crankset on my road bike. I was just using that as a reference to what trainer road AI is suggesting my FTP is.
Certainly not “always”. Most of my power pr’s are indoors. Controlled environment (always under 70F and dry air) and massive fans.
There is a big disconnect somewhere. I haven’t seen TR provide a specific performance-based reference point to compare against, but something must be off with that big of a difference. I guess if that was a “one-off” effort and you haven’t done anything close to that in recent months, maybe it just hasn’t incorporated that ride yet. But I can’t see any justification for a sub 300w FTP if you knocked out a legit 362 for 20 minutes (assuming that ride got loaded into TR). I don’t care how much anerobic contribution you had or whether you did a 5’ blowout first, that wouldn’t be enough to explain that big of a difference. I’d reach out to TR support on this one.
The question to ask is not so much about the AI FTP value but more about if the workouts prescribed a reason reasonable.
The 20min effort should have raised your last 6 week PB curve. So if you look at your next intensity workouts and see the workout power curve compared to last 6 week curve. Do they all fall well below over the complete workout duration or are do the workouts come close or push the 6 week curve?
Agree with that approach to a point, but it really depends on where you are in the season and what else you might be doing on the bike. It’s a cool feature, but it requires some thought/context to understand the comparison. I’m still in base training, so lots of extended “hard-ish” intervals, but certainly no maximal efforts for a given duration. But I’ve also raced a couple times in the last month (with some really hard efforts), so the power curve for any workout I’d be doing right now isn’t going to be anywhere close to many of the power/durations I’ve done racing. If I went out and did a 20’ max effort (like the OP), I’m not sure there is a workout I’ll do all year that would get me within 15-20 watts of that for 20 minutes. I agree that trying to compare AIFTP with a physiological/performance based FTP (whatever flavor an individual is using) is a bit flawed when we are talking about 5-10 watts, but when there is 30+ watts between them, I think that’s worth escalating. What the heck is an over/under workout going to look like under that situation?
I’ve been apparently training too hard and my ai ftp has dropped from 291 to 283 but I rolled 319 for 20 min two days ago. So not as much of a spread as the OP but something. The workouts I have been given seem super tough. My goal is to follow the plan exactly for the next 4 weeks and see what happens. Adding stuff seems to work against me.
Personally I think i would play it safe and take 10% off which would give you around 325w; manually stick that into TrainerRoad and see what level thresold workouts you end up being prescribed.
Your current “too-low” FTP could explain your over-reacting fatigue management because it is based on traditional TSS monitoring - which is affected by FTP setting - the lower the FTP setting the higher the TSS for the same work.
Probably worth seeing what your detection is like in a few days first though - because it might sort itself out.
In terms of possible explainations for the large difference - I believe that AIFTP is specifically an idoor value - so if you have something in the data that indicates you perform much better outdoors than indoors then that could do it.
With the size of the difference you have, I’d sanity check your power meters again too just to be safe. Make sure crank length is set correctly on the pedals. And then dual record a ride - one trainer workout, two or more power meters, one bike. (I record one on a garmin, one through TR, each using a different power source)
Might be nothing there, but the difference you’ve been showing is big enough that I’m still suspicious of something like this. And, calibrated doesn’t always mean accurate in my experience unless you’ve verified.
But, another good point is that the 20 minute test isn’t a great FTP estimation for some people. I’ve heard the actual FTP range mentioned as 88% to 97% of 20 minute power. And, Hunter Allen still maintains you need the 5 minute all-out effort beforehand (Although, I personally don’t think I could even complete a 20 minute test after that)
Some good questions here - how is AIFTP adjusting and are the workouts appropriately hard?
Thank you all for the responses. There is a lot of good information here. I will do some extensive comparison recording different power sources like a few have mention (trainerroad and garmin at the same time). Once this is complete, I will give an update here with that information and my new AI FTP which will come out tomorrow.
I am on a Wahoo Kickr V4 and always run it in ERG mode. Do you guys have any experience here? Also always running it in ERG mode?
Lastly, I don’t care so much as to what my AI FTP is. I just want good trainer workouts on trainerroad and a good reference for pacing during outside races and rides to know where I am at. And right now the two FTP’s are drastically off. It’s hard to set power zones outside when one FTP says it is 277 and the other 344. I appreciate you all and will provide an update shortly. Thanks!
I am running the workouts on the trainerroad app. And I have used the Garmin Vector pedals as a power source on trainerroad with a very similar feel and numbers to the Kickr in ERG mode. I just recently switched back to using the trainer for power because of less “noise” on the graph. (If that makes sense).
This sounds like you have ERG mode power smoothing switched on - if so this means that the power reported from your kickr isn’t the measured power - it’s just reporting the power setpoint.
Is your Kickr power matched to your Garmin pedals?