Hi Ladies and Gents. My name is Garry and Ive only just started using TR. I absolutely love it, all your podcasts and your knowledge. I’m reasonably new to cycling ( 18 months ) but on off due to personal issues. My question is. I’m a FIFO worker. So I fly out for work to a mine site and I’m there for 8 days and then fly home for 6 days. The gyms at work only have basic spin bikes, so no cadence or power metres, I do take up my own cadence sensor. So what would you recommend how I would train while I’m at work. I start at 5am and get back to camp at 6pm. I don’t mind and prefer going in the morning. I have about 30 - 60 minutes for training in the morning. At home is fine. I have my bike set up on my wahoo core. It’s just at work. I have a few big climbing events early next year. First one is 20th of February which is 100km and 1900 metres of climbing and the second is on the 3rd of April and that’s 140km and 1800 metres of climbing. I know recovery is a big factor. So I guess not training while at work and train every day while home isn’t the best thing to do. I could do the RPE but I’m worried I won’t push myself correctly since I’m new and getting use to my feel of riding. Thank you for your time and keep the awesome work going
My experience from doing a lot of work travel (like 40%+ in 2019 - thankfully stopped since COVID) is when you’re away you basically need to take what you can get. Sounds like you at least have a reasonable idea of what the bike will be like while you’re away - I’ve used some absolutely godawful hotel gym bikes.
I take my heart rate monitor, obviously this isn’t as good as power, but it does mean you can track load after a fashion (both TR and another site I use, Intervals.ICU, estimate TSS from HR so it can be included). If you use the HRM a lot on your regular trainer, this should be enough to give you a good sense check for your RPE (especially in longer intervals). One thing to be aware of is the cooling may be totally different/not as good/completely nonexistent wherever you are, and this can drive your HR up compared to being at home. But you will get used to this over time - there’s definitely no harm in recording it for a while, while you’re at home and away, as you’ll start to get a feel for it. Like I know if I am in a hot gym with no fans my HR is going to be a lot higher than at home with my 3-fan setup.
I usually would do something simple in any case, 30 mins session with a short warm up and cool down with 2x 10 at sweetspot type thing. If you had a head unit you could try and follow TR outdoor workouts based on RPE, I have never tried to do this properly because hotel bikes are too inconsistent for me to bother planning that far ahead. Sometimes you’ll get there and 15 mins easy spinning is the best you can hope for, because the seat is falling off or something…
Could you not take power meter pedals and a spanner with you?
Thank you for your response mate. That was helpful. I actually do take a chest hrm and my Garmin bike computer with me. I will try the RPE from TR and see how I go. The main thing is that I’m spinning the legs and doing something. I’ll do the more intense workouts when I’m home.
How do you calculate TSS though?
Yes but it’s bit of a hassel with the restricted time and I won’t leave them on the bike. Someone will knick them
TraimerRoad calculates TSS for HR activities for you! So long as you record your power activities with HR too, it estimates TSS for non-power activities based on the correlatiom between power and HR in the ones you did record.
It’s got limitations obviously - especially if it’s much hotter etc and your hr is way higher - but better than nothing.
I’d second the power meter pedals if you can afford them. A stripped down bike with just a drive train and no extras ie brakes, etc and Kickr Core could work if you don’t mind traveling heavy. Otherwise, you’re going to have to just do the best you can.