Riding trainer vs riding outside. The Differences?

Hi,

I’m on Neo for last 8 months training regularly. I’m a new user of on bike power meter (Assioma Duos).

I see appr 5-10% higher FTP when riding outside - comparing between “fresh” FTP ramp test (done on Monday) vs a race done on Saturday (NP was exactly 5-10% higher than my indoors FTP). I’m not sure how to handle this, perhaps I will have to maintain different FTP in TR and Garmin.

However, definitely, I see that quality of my outdoor workouts is lower. What I mean by that is: it’s much more difficult to force myself for producing constant power when in intervals at higher FTP %. I see I tend to fade during the interval. When notice it, trying to bump up. But eventually, my interval power is not consistent and typically - lower than average I’d like to have.

I was having high hopes when purchasing the power meter but now I’m kinda disappointed:

  • I wanted to get out of home for workouts but now I see my training quality suffers as it’s not consistent and I’m either overshooting or undertraining (in terms of TSS and sometimes duration)
  • I need to spend 10-20 minutes to manually create the workout in my Garmin (this will be addressed when TR → GC sync is done, see Garmin Training API - TrainerRoad outside workouts coming to Garmin Edge headunits - #139 by Adrian_Williams)
  • Even when racing I did not find it significantly increases my chances for win. Was thinking it will be good for pacing but what I see now is you just ride as quick as the pack and if I cannot - I just drop off… Of course, I’m numbers junkie and I love post-ride analyses hence more numbers makes me more happy… But during the ride, the use is limited (BTW: need to explore W’ balance data field).

Perhaps I need more learning curve how to use the PM (it’s just my 2nd week). But as for now it does not look like I will switch all my trainings indoor → outdoor; just 1 maybe max 2 sessions per week.

Best regards,
Jarek