TSS for outdoor ride - no Power Meter

When I enter data for an outdoor ride on TR Calendar (from Strava) - the software asks if I want TR to calculate the TSS. The dropdown box asks about the “effort” for example - Moderate, Tempo, etc.
Is there a correlation for these efforts and RPE or HR?

Look at your average heart rate for the second half of the ride and see if it is much different than the first half. If not, use the zone of the average HR of the entire ride. If so, use the average HR zone for the second half for the entire ride.

Free TrainingPeaks will estimate TSS based on your heart rate. Before i got a power meter I’d take that number and line TrainerRoad up with it.

3 Likes

+1 for @joshowenmorris on the free training peaks account. This is how I do mountain biking TSS.

+2

I know TR is all power based but the fact that many of use this tool in training peaks shows that we don’t trust our perception of effort and not all of us can have or want a PM on every bike, so they should just put it in.

It’s just ballpark - it might move your weekly TSS from say 250 to 300 if you estimate poorly, but is that the end of the world?

thank you