Hello,
I often read that the Trainerroad training is mainly designed for indoor training.
When i see the workouts on the Trainerroad website, i agree with this, there are often lots of different intensities during a workout, i think very hard to pace at outside rides.
In winter there’s no problem the ride the most time inside except longer endurance rides, but in summer i ride outside every day. Has someone experience with training outside with Trainerroad?
TrainerRoad has outdoor versions for every workout that are typically much simpler and give power ranges instead of strict power targets. All you need to do is mark a workout as outdoor and that’s it.
With Training Plans you can tell TR that you will do e. g. every Saturday workout outdoors and the rest indoors.
I only train outdoors now and have gotten much better at fitting the workouts to the terrain. A few things that work for me on the variable, hilly, off road terrain and narrow roads are
identify anywhere where you can hold a steady effort. That maybe a long climb or a safe long stretch of road with no junctions or traffic lights. You’ll need it for longer sweetspot and threshold work.
get used to riding up and down hills/stretches of road if they work well for you. I have one unclassified road (unsurfaced and little used by traffic) where I do the majority of my efforts on mountainbike. It is varied with some steeper sections and some flatter bits which is good as it is teaching me to hold power on the flat as well as the climbs. I have some particular stretches of road is use for sprinting where the visibility is good and the gradient steady (slightly uphill to allow speed control and make sure I don’t run out of visibility when riding flat out - our lanes are very very narrow and I can’t risk being in a flat out sprint around a blind corner, there is often not enough room for a bike to get past if a van or tractor is coming the other direction). I have various long road rides that try and minimise climbing for z2 work.
I find doing higher z2/z3 work easier on the mountainbike on the road - it allows me to hold the power targets easier, especially when pedalling downhill, and slows the overall pace down, again meaning I am not riding into blind corners or descending at a pace that I won’t be able to control if traffic is coming the other way around a blind bend. It’s hard to do z2 on the mtb off road around here as the hills are pretty steep. I do most of my long z2/z3 focusing on heart rate not power.
I find I need 30 seconds to get a decent turnaround but even that is a pain so I don’t do long blocks of 30s30s outside - I normally change them to solid traditional intervals. I did do 15 sec on 45 sec off anaerobic repeats yesterday which were fun and easily manageable as the 45 seconds gives enough time to make the turn and pedal back to the start of the next rep. The other alternative for these is to do them on a long stretch of main road so you dont need a turnaround but in the dark I would rather be on empty lanes than dodging traffic.
Use the tech - the outside versions of the workouts have this thing where you do the rep/interval/warm up and then it will tell you to ‘hit lap button to start’ so essentially if the warm up is say 10 minutes, but it’s 12 minutes to get to a safe stretch of road, then you just wait until you are there and hit the lap button when you are ready to start the interval. It’s a great way of doing it. I love this feature if I decide to take the threshold work off road as I can do, say, a 10 minute threshold effort up, then ride a descent or trail somewhere else and start the next threshold effort when I am ready - sure the rest periods may be eversoslightly longer, but I get a lot more out of the workout that way with descending and variability. The only time it is a bit annoying is on a proper sprint workout (not V02 back to back efforts but single sprints separated by a block of 4 minutes or something) - then you have to press the lap button at the start of the sprint which means taking your hand off the bars and returning it to the bars whilst trying to put out max power. I have asked for a countdown on these but it hasn’t happened.
If I am doing zone 2 and there is an unavoidable descent where I can’t safely hold power I get the descent over as safely, but quickly, as possible and then brake, scrub speed and put the power back on to bring my HR back up to z2 as quickly as possible. It is amazing how often you can dip into z1 if you aren’t concentrating on endurance rides
I change out overly complicated workouts (like float sets) to simpler efforts of the same PL and type. I have found out you can ‘favourite’ workouts and then they are there to select from in future and plan to go through the library and dig out ones that look like they will work well outside. I like a traditional interval, I find it easier to pace and more rewarding to see good pacing throughout, but that’s probably just me.
Really, really solid advice from @JoPage. To add to three points:
Prioritize safety over everything else. Especially on some really hard efforts (think long VO2max workouts or all-out sprints), you may get tunnel vision. And then the probability for something to happen is much larger if there is a lot of traffic.
Route choice: It may happen that where you live you won’t be able to do certain efforts as prescribed outdoors, at least not safely. I’d always err on the side of safety. In my case I simply cannot do any efforts longer than ~10 minutes outdoors. I live in an area now that is as flat as a pancake and villages line the roads like pearls on a string, spaced our roughly equally. In another place, I had to cycle 30 minutes one way to get to suitable roads for longer intervals.
I personally don’t like to e. g. scrub brakes on descents in order to keep pedaling and put out Z2 power. It ingrains bad technique and makes things less safe overall. Instead, I try to practice good technique and after the descent, I continue.
Awesome advice here so far!
There’s not much for me to add, but I’ll drop a few TR resources just in case they become handy for someone. 
I do 75-80% of my training outside. There is a bit of an art to finding the right stretch of road to avoid having an intersection, traffic, or other disruption, but once you find the right location, its just a matter of glancing at the computer from time to time to be sure you’re in the desired zone.
This is easiest in a rural area but even in the city, there are a couple of options to consider. If there is a public velodrome available, that’s a great place to focus on your workout without interruption. Check out local time trial courses - they’re typically 5-10 mile stretches of low traffic roads with limited intersections. Rail trails frequently have lower traffic sections suitable for long workouts, etc..
I’m fortunate to do most of my riding near my farm in the Delta - lots of long, straight, flat miles. But with just a little work, I make workout work in the city as well.
The issue I have with training outside is that I can always put out more power. I assume TR AI will then look at these rides and give me workouts that are then too hard for indoors?
I understand what you are saying, but putting out more power means you are getting a better workout (all other things being equal). So I would think in your case, you would want to train outside as much as possible. But you should also being looking at your indoor training environment and see if you can make adjustments to be able to put out equal power indoor and out.
Why would you assume that? Just gain experience with Adaptive Training and see what it actually does. And it is not as if the TR team hasn’t come across this claim/fact, it has been addressed multiple times on the podcast.
Moreover, for outdoor workouts you have generous ranges, and you decide whether to aim for the bottom, middle or top is up to you. If you think your outdoor FTP is higher than your indoor FTP, you could simply aim for the top of the range.
Not sure how to improve my indoor environment. I have 2 good fans. I think it must be something like flywheel inertia.
I use outdoor workouts year round.
The key is picking durations which make sense. 30:30 outdoors isn’t going to work. But 1-5mins blocks work really well. Similarly, long threshold blocks work well.
And sprint sessions are much easier outdoors - the exact timing of the interval doesn’t matter, so wait until you have a safe stretch of road.
Pick routes which suit the workout.
Here are my tips: