TR seems to massively over-egg how hard my (sans-power meter) e-bike rides are?

TrainerRoad Software
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I did two e-mtb rides on Friday. 1hr45 & 1hr03 moving time. Average HR of ~110bpm. Sadly I have no power meter on the bike (and being a Shimano EP8 nothing is reported by the bike), so that’s all we have to go off.

Strava has given them a relative effort of 25 & 18, 791 & 485 calories. Low effort.

Intervals.icu has calculated my average HR as even lower, ~105bpm, and reports a load of 38 & 21.

Both Strava and Intervals.icu sound “about right” to me.

TR?

Agrees with intervals.icu’s HR 105bpm estimation, yet has given me TSS of 93 & 61, and a prescribed red day the day after.

That doesn’t sound at all right to me. I’ve clicked into both to mark them as RPE “easy”, but that’s made no difference. I know I could exclude the TSS from my career calculation, but I don’t want 0…

Anyone else having this issue? Or do you think I’m underestimating how hard my efforts are, and TR is the one that has it right?

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What’s the issue? That you got a red light? It’s just a suggestion as you are ultimately the coach.

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I try not to worry about it and rarely use it, but yes it’s always scored significantly higher than power based TSS on easy rides.

https://support.trainerroad.com/hc/en-us/articles/360016461652-Can-I-Use-Heart-Rate-Data-to-Estimate-Training-Stress-with-TrainerRoad

Check you’re set up right with that article, and note that TRs ML takes into account speed and elevation data also. E-bike speed could be an issue.

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I don’t think their ML would take speed and elevation data into account on an e-assisted ride. It certainly shouldn’t, given that the level of assist is unknown. The only metric they can infer anything from here is heart rate, everything else should be ignored, surely?

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Check out the faq on the linked article

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I think that what’s likely causing the red day in this situation is the total 3 hours of accumulated ride time.

Even though it was an e-bike ride, RLGL still sees three hours in the saddle as enough cause to take a rest day based on your recent training/riding history.

I will still bring this up to the team to take a closer look, but that’s my first guess. :thinking:

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I commute by e-Bike 5 days a week and TR is constantly “adapting” my workouts. I too don’t have a power meter but do ride with a HR strap, and can only select 1 out of 5 since I want to keep the machine fed with relevant information however it seems that TR doesn’t account for the low HR of the ride and keeps adjusting my workouts. Bike commute days with a TR workout are less than 14 miles total, days without a TR workout are between 15-18 miles total. For what it’s worth this is my first year doing a Masters plan, however I’ve been bike commuting for over 5 years and have all those rides logged into TR. Last year on a regular plan and not on an e-bike TR rarely adjusted my workouts.

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I agree that my recent volume has been low (ACL injury), but those e-bike rides absolutely do not deserve the high TSS being assigned to them, imho.

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