WKO5 is here and it looks... different

Training
107

First thing I did was pull up a race (Crit) and create a smart segment. Found this the other day:

One thing I expected to work was comparing segments by selecting two (or more), at the moment trying to compare will immediately crash WKO5. There are some annoyances like all 26 laps from the Crit show as 9 in RHE, but you can rank by power or duration. It helps to have an interval chart open, to see the actual time. A lot of opportunity for improving smart segments.

108

@bobmac,

My confusion is that the directions for creating a smart segment say:

  1. View a workout that contains the segment you want to capture
  2. Select your segment route by click on the lap in the RHE (right-hand explorer) or by dragging a selection on a chart
  3. Right-click on the selection in the RHE and click Create a Smart Segment
  4. Name and save your new smart segment

So if how would you create a Smart Segment after the fact, as a non-existent lap wouldn’t show up in the RHE. So either you cannot create a smart segment after the fact, or TrainingPeaks needs to up the documentation.

109

Use your mouse to create a segment. In my view there is a map. Do you want me to post a screenshot and give workflow steps?

110

here ya go:

  1. Select a workout and select Cycling Interval Review Pack because it has a map.

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  1. Use mouse to select a little more than the segment you intend to create:

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  1. Notice above that “Selection” and “Entire Workout” are both selected. I don’t like that because it makes the next step more difficult, so lets click on “Selection” (thereby deselecting “Entire Workout”). Now right click and save it (I’ll call mine “Lap-01”).

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p.s. from this graph it looks like I pressed start button on Garmin a little early, so I could clean up the beginning too. Yup, at 23 seconds speed is zero and then starts to climb, so I went back and edited the lap so it was from 23 seconds to 3:20 (first lap was two minutes and 57 seconds).

  1. Zoom and pan map to beginning or end of segment. Since this is the first lap at a crit, beginning is going to be 0 seconds so I’ll just focus on fixing the end time. While scrolling thru Interval Zoom Graph, pay attention to the map until you are at end of lap/segment and remember the exact time:

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  1. Using the exact time from above, edit the Range and create or resave the segment:

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  1. Now you can create a Smart Segment:

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Summary:

  • after completing I didn’t get all the laps, unlike the other Crit with a smart segment
  • did two races on this course, and incomplete laps on that on too
  • in Segment view, selecting two segments results in this:
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  • Smart Segments are a work in progress, I’ll be patiently waiting for improvements
3 Likes
111

Yes, the easiest is way is to mark it as a “lap” on your Garmin or Wahoo as you ride it, then just create a smart segment with it.

Use the small question mark top right of the app to access the Quick Start Guide and click on “guides” or use this direct link. https://www.wko5.com/guides

In there, open Workouts and Segments and find “how to create a segment”, here is direct link: https://www.wko5.com/smartsegments. There is a two minute video on bottom.

Tim Cusick

TrainingPeaks WKO4

717.515.5382

112

hi @TimWKO

Is there anyway to export reports in pdf or any other formats in order to send over via email to athletes with a small text box blow it so that a coach can enter his/her previous week’s view and info on upcoming week.

Thanks

113

You can copy and paste a chart into powerpoint or something else.

It was mentioned in the intro webinar - Getting Started with WKO5 - YouTube

114

Yes, we make that easy.

  1. Click the small arrow to the right of the chart name (the one you want to send the image of)

  2. Select copy to clipboard, will be saved to your computer clipboard

  3. Paste in document, email or where ever….

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Tim Cusick

Velocious Cycling Adventures

TrainingPeaks WKO4

717.515.5382

115

Hi Tim,

Thank you for the reply.

I was thinking more of a one button functionally where the system can generate a .pdf report of whole view. Then user can either save it or attach to an email and send to his athlete.

Of course, this one is also doable but then user needs to copy and paste each and every chart that he wants to add.

My opinion is reporting function can be added to whiteboard where a coach can configure it with charts that is most interested by the athlete. Then he can have weekly/monthly reports to his/her client with his comments.

Just a humble suggestion.

Thanks

116

Just some of my thoughts here. I’ve used TP for quite a while, also used WKO3 and WKO4, currently demo-ing WKO5. I’m not a coach, just a cyclist and data geek with a mathematical bent and I like figuring out how things work and how I can improve.

As noted - WKO is a one-time payment. If we assume four years between releases (IIRC, WKO4 came out in the summer of 2015), the ~$170 payment (or $129 for upgrades) works out to $32-42/year. Or less than half a TrainerRoad/ Zwift subscription. Very much worth it IF you use it. Which requires some work; there is a learning curve.

There is some features overlap with TrainingPeaks. The free version of TP is perfectly fine, does just about anything you’d need…HOWEVER - planning is non-existent. You can’t copy/cut/paste workouts, can’t drag-and-drop workouts. Also no PMC chart (CTL/ATL etc). To get that feature, you need the Premium version, which is $120/year (annual payment); usually around the end of the year it’s available for $89/year. I’ve been a TP Premium user because the planning functionality, and because so many other apps connect automatically with it - for example, weight (Tanita scale) diet (MyFitnessPal) sleep and resting HR (Garmin) etc.

Now, TrainerRoad’s calendar function goes a LONG ways towards making TP un-necessary…but not quite. For example, running workouts from my Garmin - can’t sync automatically with the TrainerRoad’s calendar. Other metrics aren’t captured. What’s cool about WKO5 is that all those metrics - sleep, weight, HR etc -are now also automatically synced from TP to WKO.

I would love to save money from TP and just use TR’s calendar function, so hoping some of these features will be added before long.

But as noted, WKO is analytics. TP can also do analytics, but IMHO it’s used more for planning purposes (YMMV).

GoldenCheetah is another powerful analytics program similar to WKO. It’s not quite as polished, not quite as intuitive, but it’s very powerful - can basically do most everything WKO can do…and it’s free. It’s lacking some of the auto-upload functionality so I ultimately stopped using it, but it’s not -that- hard to learn, and hey, you can’t beat the price. No planning function last time I checked.

WKO4 (and, one would presume, WKO5) is -very- powerful. As noted, there’s a bit of a learning curve - not just with the software, but about cycling analytics and what everything means and how it all fits together and how it all applies to -you- as an individual athlete. Given the amount of analytics involved, if it’s something that you’re interested in educating yourself about and investing the time, $40/year is ultimately quite cheap - again, IF you’re going to put the work in (much like your TrainerRoad subscription…) The expressions used to build your own charts etc aren’t exactly intuitive at first, but the Facebook Group (soon to be off FB?) is quite helpful.

Today’s Plan and Final Surge are two new training plan options that look quite interesting. Not sure if they’re good enough to pull me out of my current WKO/TP eco-system, but they do look quite good.

Anyway, my $0.02.

10 Likes
117

I am a data person and really love digging deep into it and analysing.

I am curious why should I switch over to WKO5 from Golden Cheetah? GC has quite steep learning curve but I am already very familiar with that software.

What are the selling points of wko5?

118

I went ahead and paid for WKO5 (but obviously kept my WKO4 installation too). They spent a lot of time and energy on the new version, and I’m willing to bet there’s some good stuff coming down the line that’ll necessitate that interface.

However…

I’m really struggling to understand the interface and use it properly. I’ll figure it out, and I can understand the long-term benefit of the new dashboards, but it’s not intuitive. WKO4 wasn’t intuitive either, but after a while I kinda got used to it. I’m sure the same will happen with WKO5.

2 Likes
119

I feel exactly the same about WKO5. I will probably pay the upgrade but it does seem to be a steep learning curve for just an upgrade.

120

So how much faster is it? I run GC 3.4 and WKO4 side-by-side for over two years and haven’t switched completely to WKO4 because it really painful to use especially if I want to analyze my ride in detail. Glad they finally incorporated save segments and W’ bal (is there a user input for CP or is it derived?). Still no compare mode? Full calendar for planning (love to dump my spreadsheet/TP)?

Why the move to tabloid based interface (GC 3.5 and WKO5)? Call me a Luddite but I hate the look and there’s no way I can run either software on a mobile device (and a laptop doesn’t count).

121

Its odd to me that usa cycling has a deal (or had) for TP—now expired. But not WKO. Seems like a missed opportunity for TP.

122

Having used it for the past few weeks, I probably won’t be upgrading.

Despite what the WKO team says, WKO5 runs slower, even on a clean install with no swap back and forth. I already learned the previous UX and just don’t feel like re-learning all of the workflows when I’m perfectly comfortable with the ones I have in WKO4.

There are some other thoughts I have about cloud versus on-device, but I haven’t had enough coffee yet to go on that rant.

1 Like
123

I’m rethinking an upgrade to WKO5. The segment feature isn’t fully working, no dark UI on Mac, and having to rebuild workflows isn’t worth it if I can’t reliably define segments and compare them. Had better luck with segments on GC, although I haven’t done a real bake-off between the two. The other marque new features are a don’t care. Minor improvements in workflow are nice but refreshing chart data is maddeningly slow.

1 Like
124

For me, it was a no brainer to upgrade now . . .

Sure, there are workflow adjustments and there is additional learning to be done over WKO4. And sure, there will be bugs and initial performance issues. And the benefits/robustness of the new WKO5 features are TBD. However, Tim has made it clear that there will be no future investment in WKO4. WKO5 is TP’s future for an analytics platform.

Within analytics, [IMO] TP/WKO5 is the clear leader. For those on a strict budget, Golden Cheetah is a viable option. But GC is the operating system world’s version of Linux as it originally existed before it was made a commercially robust product by RedHat (I was a GC user prior to jumping to WKO4 back in early 2016).

So the only question for me became as to whether to bite the bullet now and progress at my own pace (with WKO4 on the side) or wait until some future date. And with the support of the the very active FB WKO power user group, for me the decision was to move forward now.

125

I won’t be upgrading any time soon. I have a work flow in WKO4 that I’m happy with and at this stage can’t see any benefit from the new features.

Mike

126

After a week of usage, here are my impressions of the marque WKO5 features at this time:

  • New UI/UX. Synchronized cursor tracking is welcome. Decreased visibility on my Mac (no dark UI). Training calendar appears to require TP Premium, at an additional cost per year ($119.04/year if paying annually, $239.40/year if paying monthly). Somewhat inflexible TP training calendar - the 4+ month coaching plan I purchased requires drag&dropping every single future workout (seriously?!) if work interferes or I get sick. Can’t edit some of the WKO5 charts/views, still a bit lost after a couple of trips to self-help resources. Must I attend the webinar for orientation? Facebook user group, seriously?
  • Improved Performance. Not seeing any real performance increase at this time.
  • New Functions. I’m not seeing any benefits yet.
  • New Features. Wanted smart segments to work, but it has fallen short so far.
  • New Science. TIS and dFRC are vaguely interesting, having used Xert’s version of dFRC I’m not seeing any real benefit at this time (not enough to pay $129 for an upgrade). Feels a bit weak on the science.

WKO5 feels rushed. First impressions only reinforced the more I use it.

6 Likes