Iv was doing Pettit today and noticed that it is labeled as a 3.2 endurance. I feel like this is not up to par with the other zones. It’s way too easy. So I looked at the workouts in that area and it feels like the whole thing there is wrong. You have Whorl that’s exactly Pettit only 15 min longer at 3.1 and carter is 15 min shorter and it’s a 3.3. And Boarstone-2 at 2 hrs is the same at 3.3
By comparison, here are the 3.2’s in other zones and they are not easy at all.
TR have said from the start that the levels won’t compare between zones so I wouldn’t worry about that.
With regards to how pettit compares with other endurance rides - I agree that it’s odd that it is scored higher that whorl - but it is just 0.1 
Still doesn’t work within the endurance zone. There is no way Pettit is harder than whorl and easier than carter which is the same as Boarstone -2
first of all, the classifications are prob fine and likely not worth the energy to try and nitpick at fractions of a progression level
there’s probably more to determining progression levels than you think. I’d imagine it’s overall IF for workout, combined with length. Whorl may be 1:15, but 15mins are warm-up/cool down, while Pettit has 9mins warm-up/cool down and the progression level may focus more on the work periods. Of course Boarstone -2 is longer duration but less intensity.
Anyhow, this really isn’t worth sweating over at the end of the day and prob isn’t super productive to try and parse out the logic, it’s all kind of a wash.
Nobody is sweating. But it’s off and needs to be looked at.
It’s best to email these issues directly to support@trainerroad.com so they can review it and get back to you quicker.
on a slight tangent to that, if I see a workout at level 4, would it be a level 4 for everyone across the trainerroad board, or is that 4 in relation to where I am currently? One thing I’ve never quite understood
Again, I disagree that anything is off, I’ve laid out some evidence, so personally I think it’s wasting time of Tr folks to look into something which is probably good enough as is.
This is how I see how it works, say my threshold progression level is 6 and yours is 3. If we both picked a work out level 4 in the threshold zone, it would most likely be easier for me but harder for you. Progression levels are all individual and therefore each workout will be harder or easier compared to your progression level on the chart.
I think, and I may be wrong here, the issue here is time at % of ftp.
in the totality whorl spend less time than pettite at 70ftp while the lower valleys are lower than what pettite has.
Pettite gives you a .63 in 60 minutes while whorl gives .63 at 75 minutes.
carter gives you .67 in 45 minutes.
Not sure if it make sense…
Here’s the full article on Workout Levels and why they aren’t comparable between zones. 
but to answer a different way, workout levels are the same for everyone. Like this topic, Pettit is a 3.2 Endurance for everyone. it’s not affected by your progression levels which are unique to you.
Just to add there’s the nuance how high and below the % of FTP besides the overall IF characterization.
I actually think they’ve got it right on. Would love to also see an overall difficulty level that one can use to compare across all zones. I think the big thing that can make levels not be consistent from rider to rider is how much the time factor alters the difficulty. For me the effect is less than the progression level suggests. Maybe this is something that can be incorporated in the future.
I still wonder who gets a new FTP and a reset to 1.0 for PLs and cant do Pettit?
So if I showed you guys Carter or Pettit or whorl or Boarstone-2 and you are tired but want to do something, which workout would you pick to do. I probably would pick carter as the easiest of the 4. I would least likely pick Boarstone-2. That’s how I see it.
I really don’t see any difference between a 0.63 IF or 0.67 for an hour-ish workout. It’s a 10W difference at a low zone at 250FTP. I feel that endurance is time dependent since if you raise the intensity, it goes into tempo.
I think those endurance workouts you mentioned are pretty much identical difficulty and that’s why they are all within 0.1 of 3.2
