Hi - a feature request which I think would benefit a lot of working, cycling folk. When creating a plan it asks about your events a, b, c etc and when to do workouts. Can it though specifically ask about cycling commutes. Which days (both ways? i.e. separate rides) and how far/long. This would build in some realistic volume and allow the plan indoor sessions to tinker with the high end stuff.
Currently my Masters plan has 3x 3hours endurance which is what my commute usually totals. However they are split into 6x 1.5 hour commutes.
What I am doing currently is adding planned solo rides to the calendar on commute days. They’re time based calculations of TSS and I think TR takes into account planned TSS.
Sounds like a solo ride to me. I’ve just summed the commute time, instead of plotting a distinct each way. I’m not sure there is much planning benefit in splitting.
I’ve tried this and the problem is that it adapts out the planned indoor interval rides, which I only do 2 during the warm months. I also don’t think it adequately captures the fitness gains from commutes. My AI FTP detection is lowest in the summer and I feel the strongest on the bike. I’m sure they’d respond about too much training stress, blah blah blah, but I’ve been doing it for years and know how my body responds better than AI.
I forget what I done but I think you’re right and it adapted out my then Endurance workout. As you say it won’t capture any AI FTP gains (particularly IMC, I don’t commute with a Power Meter) just TSS and all TSS isn’t equal :-/
This is mine - High Volume Masters, so I swapped the midweek endurance for solo ride, weekend one for the club spin. Added a recurring workout on commuter days. Leaves me with the 2 hard workouts a week.
I hate to bring up an old topic, but do you both have rides on your commute days built into the plan, or are those manually added to the calendar after the plan is built?
Here’s what I have done with some success:
Commute on the bike as often as possible/motivated. Reduce the scheduled workout that day by 15 or 30 minutes, particularly if its a hard VO2 or threshold day. If its just an endurance day, or a riding recovery day, skip the trainer entirely. This is where workout levels was a bigger benefit to me, than to any other AI / machine learning update. I could find the workout of the same pattern of intervals, usually 1 set or a couple of reps per set, short of the scheduled workout. I found that leaving the originally scheduled workout on the calendar until the last minute was a good plan, because some days I really felt (and had the free time to do the full 75 minute planned workout).
Its not dedicated pro racing stuff, but if I ride an extra hour that day, that hour or hour 10, (and consistency) is probably better long term than extra 5x30 on-offs or turning the 2x20 at threshold into a 2x15 with a little less recovery…
It worked really well when I was teleworking a couple of days a week, it has gotten really weak (like the rest of my riding) when I started working 60 and 70 hours a week, in office.
I don’t build commutes into the plan, but I do carve some time out of the recommended plan volume to accommodate them. Plan Builder wanted me on the bike six days a week, but I cut it down to five days a week to allow for commutes & the occasional group ride. I lost one 2h Z2 workout. With commuting I can be a little inconsistent (weather or calendar-dependent), so for that reason I chose not to schedule them. But my commutes are all Z1½ anyway, .5-.55 IF.
Another user that would definitely use this feature.
I have a perfect 60 minute bike commute so I do intervals on the way in (typically sweet spot or VO2) and then low Z2 on the way home. I usually just add 2 separate workouts and let RLGL/AI FTP do it’s thing. No idea if it’s optimal or not but 2 hours of training on a work from the office day is hard to pass up volume wise.
I don’t think of my commutes in my training plan at all. I just do my rides to and from work, then do whatever extra riding (including workouts) after that and on the weekends.
FWIW It’s been a while since I was able to squeeze in a commute, but in the past I’ve treated them as additional endurance miles, kept the power low, and not changed or modified whatever other rides that were planned.
Yeah. This would be good , and it’ll be interesting to see how the “big new” imminent revision handles this. I used to have a commute that was 25 miles/1:20 one way, so significant.
I don’t do anything to account for my commutes. I don’t even have a power meter on my commuter. If I ride more on my commutes than normal, and I’d sometimes get a yellow day. That seems good enough for me.
