Using a Peloton for workouts question

So I often use a pelaton at my gym to complete the endurance workouts. It’s convenient and I’m able to sleep in that day because I do the insurance workouts at lunch. However, at the gym the pelotons have toe cages so I’m using running shoes instead of clipping in (which severely effects power) and it’s well documented that peloton’s Watts are not accurate so I can’t go by what the watts on the pelaton and have to use rpe and/or hr. What I’ve done in the past is marked the trainer road workout as outdoor and then when I complete the peloton workout, It associates the trainer road workout with the peloton workout and I thought all was well. However, what I notice is that the TSS on the completed workouts are incredibly low. For instance, when I finish a endurance workout on the pelaton, keeping my heart rate where it would be with similar workouts that I’ve completed on my trainer, the TSS might be a 20 whereas on my trainer using power meter pedals, it would be 45. Here’s my question, should I not have the peloton workout sync to trainer road at all and just mark the trainer road work out as outdoor and completed? It seems like when the peloton workout shows up in Trainor road, it shows Way too easy then what it actually was. I hope this makes sense

Depending on the age of the Peloton bike, the ‘power’ can be way off, as much as 20% for the gen 1 we had. The Peloton was a great training bike in the beginning, but the amount of cheating on their ‘leaderboard’ was discouraging, but if you ignore all that and ride for the effort, you are still hobbled by what the bike reports. The gen 2 (3?) bike is supposed to recalibrate every time it’s started so it should be more realistic but I haven’t tried it.

Their Peloton bike doesn’t have flip-flop pedals with SPD on the other side? That’s odd. Having to use cages would be a deal breaker for me. Maybe suggest buying them flip-flops and donating them to the bike? Training away from home on strange equipment is always an interesting venture.

What got me to dump the Peloton was the whole idea that nothing was actually measured. I had no way of knowing what the bike was reporting, and the number of people that were putting out superhuman efforts was ridiculous. The Peloton is a great idea, and it has gotten people to train and lose weight, improve their lives, but it’s not a professional grade training device. Even the gen 2 doesn’t have a true power meter. It’s better than nothing though for many people…

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It’s true that it’s not a great training device for someone wanted to stick to a strict program. What I did with my peloton at my house that is what I refer to as my “trainer” is add power meter pedals to it. The peloton itself is a beast and is super well-built. With power meter pedals, it is a great trainer which syncs to my phone of course so when I’m training at home on it, my power is correct and I’m able to clip in and all. It’s great. However, I’m not always able to train at the house.

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I would probably chalk it up as a good workout, but not compliant with the TR Plan. I would likely upload the Peloton workout to TR as if I did an unstructured outdoor ride, and then just allow the scheduled TR workout to be “skipped.” It’s not perfect, but in my mind is a good balance.

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As the saying goes with data: “Garbage In, Garbage Out

If you know the data from the Peloton is suspect (which is a safe bet) it will cause problems just like you describe. Linking it into TR workouts and related data (TSS, AI FTP Detection, etc.) will skew any aspect of your TR Career and data history which is not a good thing.

I’d leave them disconnected and simply check the workouts as done. I don’t see any benefit to putting in bad data.

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Just ride easy endurance on the peloton. You can’t get that wrong while riding on RPE. Just make up the wattage if you want to upload it as a ride

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But you can improve the data on a Peloton bike you own/control. It is a solid built bike that Peloton knows would be a hit for people to sideload other riding apps on. People did hack their bikes to allow streaming video and book reader apps, but they eventually stopped that. There might still be a way to do it as they are Android tablets. I don’t know if it is at all possible, but wouldn’t be surprised if it is to some extent. Ride on!

Fine to use that option for those where it applies, but I was specifically replying to the context of the OP, that is using one at a gym. Likely little to no control so they are subject to the unknowns.

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There’s the info I’m looking for! I wanted to be sure that if I left it unlinked and just had the workouts checked as completed, that it would still factor in with adaptive training and contribute to FTP detection. Thank you sir!

‘Better than nothing, but barely’. Donating some dual sided pedals would help, but obviously wouldn’t address the telemetry issues. (Asking about using power pedals, installing them yourself, or having someone there do it, would help make it more usable, but that depends on the gym (they might say yes, but it’s perhaps unlikely))

  • That is NOT what I said at all.

  • My reply suggested excluding the connection because bad data is likely worse than no data. The actual nuts & bolts about what is/is not impacted in TR without that power data was not a focus of my initial reply.

Per TR’s support article, only rides & workouts with actual power data factor into AIFTPD.

What AI FTP Detection Needs to Detect Your FTP
In order for AI FTP Detection to have enough data to accurately detect your FTP, you need a minimum of 10 completed TrainerRoad indoor workouts. If you haven’t completed enough workouts, don’t stress—you’ll see how many more you need when you click the button to use the feature. Once you’ve completed these 10 workouts, AI FTP Detection will analyze and incorporate all indoor and outdoor rides with power data, whether or not they’re TrainerRoad workouts.

For Adaptive Training, I am not totally certain how it considers the simple “checked & done” workouts. That may require some digging into the support articles or a direct question to TR support, since I don’t know the exact answer or how to find that one quickly.

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I was going to recommend recording your HR data but not the Peloton data and was thinking about how to explain why, when i saw this post. I think this answer may be helpful. Is there any point in continuing subscription if I’m now only cycling outside? - #33