Pairing a Smart Trainer to TrainerRoad as just a power meter

So this might a simple setting I’m missing, but is there any way to assign a smart trainer device to Trainer road as JUST a power meter. ie reading the power data but not trying to control the trainer.

The reason I’m trying to do this is I often use Zwift and trainer road at the same time. Most often I do it when doing my TR workouts by having trainerroad control the trainer, and then I just don’t pair it as “controllable” on the Zwift side of things. That way I can do my workouts and still tool around Zwift.

What I’m trying to do now is the opposite, and have Zwift control my trainer so I can get all the feedback and incline affect from Zwift ( Kickr Bike ), but I’d still like to record my workout in TR using a “free ride” workout so it takes my Zwift ride into account in adaptive training.

The problem I’m having is that there doesn’t appear to be a way to set my Kickr Bike as “power meter” instead of “smart trainer” so when I have hooked up to both things, they sorta fight with eachother and I get weird drop outs in resistance and stuff.

Is there a hidden setting I’m missing, or am I just SOL?

AFAIK, there is not a parallel method to Zwift that treats a smart-controlled trainer as power meter only within TR. TR defaults to full power data AND control.

I have recognized & considered the same limitation but never submitted a Feature Request. I will convert this to that direction for discussion and TR to review. It could be a similar option that exist for power meters that allows them to be used “For cadence only”.

This suggestion would be for smart trainers along the lines of “For power data only / not controlled” or something along those lines.

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Ah cool, so I’m not crazy…well not about this :).

My hack solution was to use one of those CABLE devices to read the ANT+ signal from the trainer and covert it to a bluetooth signal for trainer road to read as a power meter, but seems silly since the Trainer can kick out two bluetooth connections on it’s own.

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The Kickr bike should have an ANT+ power profile for connecting to watches and bike computers. But if you’re using a device that does not have ANT connectivity to run TR, this would not be visible to you. Does not look like it has a Bluetooth power profile.

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I don’t think it will. Adaptive training requires starting with a planned workout that is given a level, and then seeing how you do compared to that workout. When progression levels V2 comes out it would, but it would do the same with a file from Zwift. So I don’t think there’s any point in doing what you want to do (dual record on TR when Zwift is in control).

Yeah, the problem is I’m connecting to my AppleTV for Zwift and an old iPhone for trainer road, so I’m stuck with bluetooth if I don’t want to incorporate something like the CABLE to convert from Ant+.

I’ll keep using that hack for now, and hopefully it’ll turn into a checkbox or something on the device settings in the future.

Short of that, anything more elegant would require much more $$$. Such as getting some power pedals or a laptop with bluetooth and an ANT+ USB device.

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It doesn’t just take into account planned workouts.

If I set it to resistance mode and then do a Zwift race without letting Zwift control and have it record the ride on “free ride” it’ll then prompt me for training adaptations after that workout. I think it’s more clever than you think it is.

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Right now that requires marking as outside workout in TrainerRoad, connecting only Zwift (and possible bike computer), and using bike computer to prompt you on the intervals. From a TR point-of-view, its an outside workout, that you do on Zwift. Then TR should associate the Zwift/BikeComputer workout with the one on TR calendar, and if not you can do that manually on the calendar. And with current AT, it is processed as outside workout and you rate pass/fail (on the honor system).

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Interesting and good to know. I think my solution in that case would be to run TR on a device that can use an ANT dongle. Do you have a laptop? Sorry if you already answered this.

Yeah, I have the hacky solution for using the CABLE to read the ant+ signal from the kickr and convert it into a generic bluetooth power meter signal to be read by trainer road, I was confirming that TR didn’t just have a “controllable” switch I was missing like Zwift does.

I really like the simplicity of having an appleTV and an old iPhone to control everything, I like to keep my laptop away from the waterfall of sweat that is a TR workout :).

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