I’ve now had time to fiddle with the new Calendar and to see how it might work for me. I’m an ex-Developer with high standards and don’t dish out compliments readily, but I have to say I think TR have done a really good job. Sure, improvements are possible (with many in the pipeline), but for an initial release, this is impressive.
Since my post last week I’ve signed up to ride a coast-to-coast across France (Channel to Mediterranean) next summer, meaning I could benefit from a level of training planning I’ve not previously required. I’m already seeing benefits from being able to lay out a 9 month preparation programme.
@Nate_Pearson I’m not as upset as you made it sound. Only irritated. I found a work around that will work for now I think. I do plan to follow a better schedule as winter gets going more. I really think the calendar is going to be a great tool, and I admit that when I first got on TR a year ago it was something I really wanted and was dumbfounded that it wasn’t already built in as it just made so much sense to have that ability, but it just needs some additional functionality at this point. Like being able to tick a box that automatically shifts plan ahead for “skipped” or postponed rides, as opposed to automatically skipping them or something. Like selectable training modes or something. Then I have the ability to manually skip if thats what I intended to do, or to pickup where I left off. I’m happy to see things are developing and I can still do the rides which is the important thing. Just an extra pain for now as others have expressed. I’m not angry and I’m sticking around. Keep up the good work and sorry if you felt like I was hatin on ya.
@Nate_Pearson
I can certainly understand how some TR users can have transition challenges and find flaws the new format. This is to be expected given the myriad of ways people organize their lives. However, I’d like to voice my approval of the the calendar and based on how the TR system has evolved over the last 4 approaching 5 years from my first TR workout (Warren) on Nov 28, 2013 as quickly found by the calendar, I fully expect that the Calendar will become a “How did I live without it feature”.
Previously when I planned a year of training it involved screen scraping the bingo cards and parsing out the workout names and TSS and putting that into a spreadsheet, getting the formulas for weeks and block periods correct and tracking the the TSS planned and updating the actual TSS manually. So for me the calendar is a huge time saver.
I think you did the right thing in ripping off the bandage. Sometime progress requires a step change and I think it was the case here.
first post and sucks to have it be negative but here it goes .
the new calendar feature blows chunks.
i have now missed 3 training sessions , as a result of the new calendar feature being rushed to production. no advance warning that a change was evident and no grace period for all users to ‘beta’ the new mandatory calendar.
page fails to load smoothly and freezes.
customer service doesnt provide solutions and so far all i have received is a ‘sorry’
when i double click on the workout of the day the entire page freezes, no resolution so far to fix the issue.
bluetooth is now dropping off more frequently and sometimes doesnt even show up at all and i suspect this is with the integration of the new feature sets.
now seriously considering moving to zwift as none of my concerns and issues have been addressed so far through the help desk
Even if the feedback is negative, we appreciate your candor.
I wanted to jump in here because you mentioned you’ve reached out to Support, and you’ve not received the responses you’re after.
That’s certainly not something that sits well with me, so I’ve dug up the conversation you’ve been having with one of our agents and I’ve assigned an agent currently working to get back to you ASAP.
I see that your last message to us mirrors some of the technical issues you mention above in this thread, and we definitely want to get those addressed. The dropouts, the poor page loading, and especially the freezing/crashing is all stuff we take quite seriously.
I’ll let our agent, Evan take it from here, but I believe the freezing is due to a bug in the Windows application we’re aware of and working really, really hard to fix. (In fact, it’s a couple of our Developers’ current top priority.)
Keep an eye out for an email from Evan, Brew_Dawg. He’s working on a response as we speak!
@Alex so far talk is cheap . i havent been contacted by anyone yet. Tried to load trainnerroad on Friday and now saturday with still no resolution. ive now missed 5 days of training with a century ride coming up and this was a major part of my prep for that ride.
very dissappointed.
OK so an update. i was able to get a trainer workout done today but not without 30 min of troubleshooting. i really needed to get Deerhorn in for 60 min, but everytime i tried to load that workout i either received a screen freeze or an error message. additionally bluetooth kept failing upon initial initiation with my kickr. i was able to load eclipse which is a 90 min workout and i just stopped at 65min to get in at least something .
Oh, no! Hmmm, I’m not sure why you didn’t receive Evan’s email to you. It was sent on Thursday at 5:12PM Pacific time.
I wonder if your email client filtered it into your junk folder…?
Either way, I’m going to copy and paste what he said into a direct message to you here.
I’m glad that you were able to get in at least a portion of a workout today, but I’ll go ahead and keep the conversation going with you over that direct message I’m about to send.
I am in the erratic schedule boat too and just want to do the next workout in the plan when I can. The old version of the Android app was perfect. Has this been fixed? I can’t find a setting adjustment to get away from the candler option. The current way is really really annoying.
Not sure about Android, but in the Apple app on my phone it shows all the workouts in list order. So you could just scroll back until you see a green check mark (you’ve completed that workout). Just do the workout after that and ignore dates and days. You can always go back and do passed workouts and the order never changes.
”The old version was perfect”. What you mean was the old version was convenient. If you are regularly missing multiple days or a week, you shouldn’t just pick up your plan where you left off. That is not the best for your training based on what you did with your time off the bike. Were those off days resting or stressful? If you had 4 days off the bike and sat in unstressful meetings, but your TR plan called for a recovery week, you probably shouldn’t pick up the plan where you left off. You sorta already had your recovery week. In that instance maybe you just skip that recovery week in the plan (or chose 1 or 2 days) then jump into the next week in the plan.
Conversely, if your days off the bike consisted of heavy stress and/or you were on your feet for 8 hours a day, but you are in week 7 of a Build Plan, you also shouldn’t pick up the plan where you left off. You need some rest days and/or light rides. This is where the calendar shines because you can easily “push” weeks and adjust your schedule.
I think people are mixing convenience with what is the actual best way to “get faster”. If your goal is to be the fastest and fittest you can be, blindly following a plan without considering your life interruptions will not get you there.
Not trying to stifle discussion, but it seems like we are on a merry-go-round.
Some like the new calendar.
Some don’t like the calendar and were happy with the old system.
Use cases for both old and new have been explained in great detail, several times. Recommended use of the calendar approximate the old method are stated.
Nate acknowledged that there are plans to make some solution for those that liked the old system. We don’t know what it will be or when it will be presented.
Completely agree - but attempting to stop the discussion is probably fruitless. Not only will we have new folks discovering the forum and wanting to raise this issue but having place to vent frustrations can feel cathartic
I am not one of those who has been complaining but I think everyone agrees %age progress was a useful and motivational indicator when doing a plan. To have to wait 3.5 months plus for it to be reinstated is not ideal.
AldridgePrior hit it right on the button. I don’t like Nate’s response to this. He says there’s a group of people who don’t want to plan, they want to train. No. We want to plan and train, we just prefer the simple way that TR was able to mesh into our busy, erratic, and changing schedules. We’re not just mindlessly training.
(you’ve completed that workout). Just do the workout after that and ignore dates and days. You can always go back and do passed workouts and the order never changes.