Dear Trainerroad, I hope this post will fall on attentive ears. I tried to think how to go about writing this and decided to just be blunt but with good intentions – You need to reinvent yourself and quickly or you will lose the market that you yourself invented and sooner than you think. You could say that I lost my indoor-cycling-training virginity on Trainerroad back in 2014 and I absolutely loved it. The structured workouts, the plans, the instructions and above all the simplicity of using it – have all been great and improved my cycling abilities tremendously over the years. However – 5 years have passed and….nothing changed. True there were some features updates, additional plans, workouts, calendar, analysis tool, more heterogeneous capabilities… but that’s it. It is almost as time stood still. You need a super huge magnifying glass to search the internet in order to read and find some interesting new features or updates to the SW (and no I don’t consider News pods as features). I understand that Trainerroad is not Zwift nor should it be – each training SW has it’s own niche which is the core that defines it and with Trainerroad it’s the structured workouts and training plans, but even with structured workouts there is so much you can do… Look at Sufferfest for example, which plays on the same niche more or less (without going into an argument about which is better) – They have so much less ‘material’ to offer, however they are brilliant in the way they do it using the social media to the maximum in attracting more and more active users. Look at what Zwift is doing with their workouts and plans – and there are more examples. A successful product in this century can’t exists without harnessing ‘virtual resources’ whether users, functionality, social and other. Such as – Ongoing Challenges, Periodic Tours (x days doing consecutive detailed workouts), Multi rider functionally which will allow virtual friends to do a workout together, Tools for coaches to use this platform for real time training sessions. UI and UX makeover. Active Facebook (and other) communities. Etc. I’m sure that the common wisdom of all of Trainerroad’s users can greatly improve this list. Unfortunately time is scarce. Anyway this is just my 2 cents (as they say)… Shay Vansover Edited to add link to Nate’s response to this post and subsequent discussion.

This is the box that I have found myself in. 3 years of SSB > SPB > Century and forever stuck around 275/290W - 3.9/4.1W/Kg despite weeks of suffering and being consistant with not missing workouts. Funnily enough this year I am doing Short Power > Criterium just to see what happens.

Oh I agree, I don’t think that you can base what “best” by if the pro’s use it … they are pro’s after all and the definition of that is that they are paid The only point I was making (as I have already stated) is that a pro do their training specific to the workout prescribed by their couch, which would probably just as likely be Zwift as TR (see my original post) or something similar (such as tacx) that can link to trainingpeaks, but being pro’s, I would probably more expect that to be in a training camp in the Mediterranean … and I really don’t think they would care what software they are using, just the training plan they are using … which wouldn’t be a TR one

I thought I would add my grain of salt. I’m using both TR and Zwift after spending about a month on zwift alone. Here’s what happenned… In september I was looking for a way to train during the long and cold winter here in Quebec. At first I chose zwift. There was a couple of people in there I knew. A was seduced by the idea of their training plan. So I strarted doig the build me up plan. Did it for 5 weeks and it worked wonders. Week after week my performance would go up and up and up. From 121 FTP to 154 in just a couple of week. And one day I couldn’t do the intervals. Not even one at vo2max. I thought I was just too tired took a couple of days of break. Retried. Not one interval AGAIN. I retested my FTP it was even below what I had started with 120 watts. I knew something very wrong was going on but could not get answer from zwift. The more I trained the more my FTP went down. Down to 107. I started looking for training plans with more sensible progression. I checked SF and was seduced by the 4DP concept, but not the culture and not the vids and not the on screen messages saying hammer time when I started a 75 watts interval. I checked TR too. Looked into the whole plans and thought ok these guy know what they are doing. I still use both TR and Zwift when I train. I hate riding 2+ hours facing a screen so I figured out I might as well make those ride more social. I get friends on Discord and we chat while we ride. I did the low volume traditional base. And it’s going good. in 3 months I went from 107 FTP to 134. And now I think I’m good for doing a full cycle of SSB, build and specialty. Now my two cents is this. The crowd interested in TR vs SF vs Zwift vs Fulgaz is not the same. OP is right in a sense. You guys have an amazing model for training. and to me the way to go in the way of development should be in customization of training. It’s the SF promise. But they fail to deliver in my sense. But nowaday with technology development I absolutely see no reasons you guys can’t develop an AI that would taylor each training plan and workout to an individual. And answer for non trainers the stuff we need to know. For an exemple, how many TSS should I do now? After recovering with a full tradional base plan how should I go about progressing? Directly to build low or medium volume or an SSB if so low volume, medium volume. And how do I integrate my other activies, occasionnal Race, weekly martial art training. And what happens if I train to my failure point. Why wouldn’t the next workout take that into account next time? And in my progression looks much faster/slower than expected why not build that into the system? Example: From week 1 to week 3 my average HR workout to workout dropped by 3 beats per minutes. So the Mount Fields was noticeably easier than Slide Mountain even while I manually increased my FTP by 7 watts because I didn’t feel the was much work being done. All this could be handled by a personnal coach. And going this direction for TR seems to me the right direction especially with all the user data TR already have. The alternative for the guy who either can’t or won’t hire a personnal coach is spending hours upon hours of research to figure out what you guy already know in order to make the small decisions TR could make for the users. Didier Bonneville-Roussy

I’ve seen quite a few and notice that a lot of the stronger Cat 1/2 in the north east seem to do A LOT of Zwift miles as well. Not an endorsement, just observation.

I’ve been training the same way (not with TR) for years. With no races on the plan this year, I’m flip flopping between whether I do Short, General, or Sustained. Sustained is definitely the right choice for my normal races, but I kind of want to play around with short. I may split the difference.

[image] clyda: Yes, that, and a way to compare workouts side by side. In other words be able to see the details of Baxter and Colosseum on the same page as you would comparing products online. Feature Request - Ride Comparison

What he said +1. I’m Very new to TrainerRoad, but it’s definitely a training tool not a game. No product can afford not to develop in this global economy but I believe TR is about the best all-around online training subscription (cycling/Tri before someone points it out) that you can get before you go and take on a physical coach. The only thing I’d like to see at the moment is some way to understand the analysis of my rides so I can better tailor my training plan to suit.

No! TR is a serious training platform, not a game-like social tool. I like TR how it is, the analytics, calendar, podcast, and forum are superb.

If you are looking to compare workouts or even the entire training plans I open TR in two different browsers (Firefox and Chrome), then have one on left side of screen and one on the right. I know that’s not the same as analyzing finished workouts but works well when planning your schedule.

The Xert model, if it is ever figured out, will be where the real $$$ is.

Wake Up Trainerroad!

TrainerRoad Software

mcneese.chad February 9, 2019, 10:23pm 279

Feature Request - Ride Comparison

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