Thanks so much for sharing!
Have you figured out how they expected you to do the workouts when riding indoors? If they don’t go to TP without asking them to move it, how were they expecting you to do the ride? On your cycling computer? Something else? They don’t have their own workout app do they?
Hm, I use Android so I have the app on an iPad I had laying around and can’t check it now. Maybe it has Activity integration with TrainingPeaks? I’m not sure if workouts are coming across directly from Garmin, but I’ll double check all the integrations when I get home.
And @jcolp - hilariously enough, I had Spoked.ai in the mix briefly before Optimize. I think it has a lot of potential but was a little too pricey to mess around woth ($13/month). I basically purged a bunch of streaming service subs I forgot about, so paying for an extra training app feels like free money after cancelling 4-5 subs.
But how do you do the workout?
I looked at Spoked as well but it was back in the “too much information” area for me and I found it hard to use and unfriendly. The price was also ouchy. For me it would be $255/year.
Fascat pushed the 16 Week Sweet Spot plan to my TrainingPeaks account, so I’m doing them out of Zwift. And that’s the rub for now with Optimize - you can’t export workouts directly to any external app or head until as far as I can tell. You can use a free TP account but then you have little/no ability to shuffle workouts around.
Sorry. I’m not sure how, but I’m not asking the question correctly…I’ll try again. Sorry!
If they never intended to send the workout to TP (you have to request it, and in their forums he clearly didn’t want it to be that way when it was designed…they’re trying to eliminate TP)…how DID they expect you to do the workouts? Do they have a workout player?
Yeah. JOIN at $80 or 90/year was a no-brainer considering it’s bona fides. Spoked for almost three times that was just too much.
I think they just assume everyone will use TrainingPeaks and probably spring for Premium. There’s literally no other way to get the workouts to a player. Seems like a pretty shocking gap in functionality (a standalone app that can’t actually stand alone) but maybe it’s a safe bet considering that was the only way you could use Fascat plans before the app anyway?
Ultimately when launching a new app/product, you have to make the call on minimum viable. This app is brand new, and focused on providing some actionable insight to complement how you currently train. I’m expecting the app will grow over time to do more stuff - I have no inside info, just saying as someone that has been in the software industry for 30+ years.
Oh! Interesting. From Frank’s replies, I made the assumption that TP integration was an exception they were allowing, not the intended solution. Definitely odd that they didn’t just build that automatic integration into the tool.
Tr is not pulling the hrv sleep data or any of the gamin health metrics. Seems like this could be a very useful data set to train their ML
As far as I can tell trainer road only knows about metrics from your workouts which to me seems very restrictive for how well it can predict things about you.
Sounds like this new so doesn’t have a way to run the workouts without training peaks so not so useful for me. I prefer the lazy approach of launch tr app and just do what it says when it controls my trainer
Counter example using your words, definitely odd that TR didn’t just build weight tracking into the tool. After all these years and W/kg discussion on podcast. Someday.
See how that works? Someone made the call on initial features to support, and then grow the feature set. Not every user will agree on prioritization of features.
Not sure why you aimed that barb at me since I’ve just been trying to understand how things work as I consider spending the money. I agree about minimum viable product, that’s why I’m trying to understand what the product offers. It’s not at all obvious from their website or FAQ’s. Remember, I was in IT for 25 years too.
But, having said that, your example is not at all the same. FasCat launched a brand new app that completely changes their business model and there is nothing that shows how to do a workout. I’ve even seen Frank say they got rid of TP discounts because you can do everything directly in their app, which is clearly not true if they don’t have a workout player or a way to port the workouts without TP. They also got rid of the ability to buy an individual plan without telling anyone. That’s completely different from not porting a weight field into TR rather than doing a manual entry.
Like I said, I’m interested in the tool and trying to get more info on it from the people who have used it. Trying to get that info in the FasCat forums is difficult since they only answer about half the questions asked and only give minimal info rather than complete and detailed answers, and end users VERY rarely comment or share their experience. Xert has the same weakness. You can get far more info on both of those apps here in these forums.
Absolutely. From a product management perspective, though, it’s actually two separate services (Optimize app and training plan subscription) being sold as one so it makes it feel clunkier than it needs to. Plus, integrations are critical to any new app.
And TP’s API seems to be very easy to develop for, since even the smallest training apps have same-day workout exports.
My concern here is underestimating what the MVP is, underdelivering, then taking too long to meet the actual customer expectations. I’d like the app to succeed, and there have been way too unsuccessful launches for this exact reason.
It’s not a barb. Evaluate anything on what it does and with an air of skepticism, what is promised to come immediately. Anything else might make you regret the decision. Any software. IMHO.
Years ago TP pulled their API and made it difficult to integrate. Try and find a documented API. I literally wrote a small screen scraper to get around that, as contrasted to Strava.
It’s actually pretty well documented on Github. I found it recently as I was wondering if there was an API explanation for why Wahoo pops up a Training Peaks workout you’ve already completed when you turn on your bike computer. The answer being that the API has a completed flag to tell you it’s been completed and I guess they’re just not looking at it.
It’s not an open API though, they’ve closed it to partners only.
I’d be highly surprised if FasCat aren’t building their own workout player. Though a great many of their coaches seem heavily invested in the Zwift system so it might be moot. Maybe they can port directly there?
Join are working on their own player, and they’re not really claiming to be a one stop shop.
TR still seems to be far and away the best workout player. Interesting that something that seems so simple appears difficult to nail.
How do they get the workout into zwift? Why does this seem more complicated then it needs to be
If I’m understanding the answers correctly, I think it’s the same as “before Optimize”. FasCat send the training plan to TrainingPeaks, which then sends the workout to Zwift. The only difference is you have to ask their support team to send it to TP if you’re using Optimize.
haha