Well, say something other than it’s going to be great and coming soon (for varying amounts of soon).
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I could be wrong but if they go the beta program route it seems like it’ll be invite only, but if they go the early access route it’ll be opt in. My hunch at the moment its a beta program, but as you say
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I’m sure Nate said on a podcast a while back that they intended to go into a closed Beta. With the original AT this started this with staff, then it was expanded by invitation. I’m guessing the invitations weren’t random, but based on people’s training history and consistency etc - possibly even w/kg as well, unless my memory is playing tricks on me. I got my Beta invitation a whole week before it switched to early access!
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The people that may get the early invite could be people doing mostly outside workouts. Would be easier to check compliance, and that V2 scoring correctly if comparing to a known value (the prescribed workout) before doing more unstructured rides. Obviously pure speculation.
I do mostly outside workouts, so this is what I keep telling myself…
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Agreed. I noticed TR had a post circulating recently essentially telling people to ride inside and not do group rides because…science.
Perhaps a 3 hour hard group ride does not give 3X the benefit of a 60 minute trainer ride, but I would be very surprised if someone could conclusively show that it did not give MORE than the trainer ride.
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The difference in benefit between your two scenarios isn’t inside Vs outside but structured intervals Vs non structured
Not to say this isn’t the whole point of this missing functionality…but the hour long ride could be outside and more productive than a three hour group ride if it has similar intervals to the hour long trainer session
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IS that the case though…a 1 hour structured ride could be more productive than a hard 3 hour unstructured on? For example…I just did a 2.5hr group ride on Wed, 208 tss. Is that really less productive than a 70 tss workout?
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There’s too many variables at play for there to be any universal answer to that question
It depends on your goals for the day, the week, the month, the season. Of course it also depends on how you’re spending the time in the group ride
From a fitness perspective you’re frequently best served with shorter more focused interval sessions over hard group rides, but as above this isn’t universal
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Yea I mean obviously the specific ride matters. If It’s just noodling around for 3 hours, maybe 20 minutes of zone 2 here, a sprint or 2, lots of hanging out in zone 1, I could see the structured workout being more beneficial.
This particular one in question was HARD though. Zone 2 out of the city, then fast the next 35 miles, with 28 minutes spread across VO2, anaerobic, and neuromuscular zones.
I bring this up as an example of what people are talking about above with unstructured rides not being accounted for…the work done in a ride like this is far and away more than is encountered in the vast majority of TR workouts.
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Doesn’t necessarily make it more productive…of course it might though 
What about the impact of the stress and fatigue?
I don’t think one should really compare 3-4 hours outside to single hours inside. Pound for pound then inside will likely be more productive in very narrow terms but what about fun and enjoyment etc?
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Right for sure. I dont think many people would argue the individual points…an hour structured workout is better than an hour of random riding.
But that ISNT typically the choice for a lot of people I think. The unstructured rides WILL be longer normally…so it really is offen a choice of 60 minutes of structure, or hopping on the 50 mile group ride and seeing what happens.
The way you describe your ride the structure would likely gather better fitness gains
But the fun and skills from the outside ride are vital so keep on doing them
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Nice problem to have 
Contrarily, in my case, I generally have an hour to ride in most cases. So its an hour inside or an hour outside. My outside Sunday rides are over and above my LV plan.
Wow really? I’m not trying to be obtuse…but how can 60 minute ride with 1/3 the tss and with less time in virtually any zone than a 2.5- 3hr ride give more benefit? I’m just curious what I’m missing.
without fully reading the context, it depends on one’s plan, a 60min z2 ride may be what an athlete needs compared to a 2.5-3hr ride if they need to back off a bit. I throw in 60-90min rides on Fridays after 3 days of workouts as a buffer before longer weekend work
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Yes 
Yes really. But, as I said above numerous times, it depends
It’s highly unlikely you’re getting the same time at threshold or vo2 on a group ride as you’d get in a structured ride
Additionally the extra tss you’re picking up is likely in zones you aren’t training and simply increasing fatigue and thus reducing your capabilities to hit intervals moving forward
But again, it depends on a ton of things and if you’re having fun out there go for it
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I think that when TR first brought this topic up years ago, the point was to say that doing an hour of 5x8s at 104% indoors is more efficient than doing the same workout outside (Caveat: MOST OF THE TIME).
Over time, that has evolved into “riding inside is more valuable to your cycling than riding outside”, which I don’t think was ever the intended point. It’s more EFFICIENT for doing workouts, but not necessarily more VALUABLE. They just wanted us to know that doing a 2 hour group ride where you spend 15 minutes rolling out slow and then spend 80 minutes drafting and only taking a few hard pulls isn’t nearly as efficient or specific to certain zones as doing those 5x8 in an hour. They were trying to set us up for the indoor hour maybe having the same (or far more) TiZ as the outdoor 2 hours.
It also has a lot to do with the gray area and even Erg mode. If you were supposed to do 5x8 at 104%, but went outside and you ended up doing 4 minutes within the margin of error, 2 minutes 1% below that margin and 2 minutes 1% above that margin, then Garmin (and probably TR) will tell you you only spent 4 minutes in the intended zone. I would argue that the +/- 2 watts doesn’t really matter since our bodies are not highly calibrated machines, but strictly speaking, you were outside the intended zone.
I think that was the intended point and we’ve just taken it down many rabbit holes over the months and years because that’s what we do.
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Right I agree. I mean if say I have a Vo2 workout scheduled with…oh 12-18 minutes time in vo2, but I skip that, and do my wed group ride which was:
2.5 hrs
9 min in VO2
9 min in anaerobic
9 min in neuromuscular
10 min threshold
15 minutes tempo
22 minutes endurance
Can that really offer less training benefit than 12-18 minutes of VO2 and the rest soft pedaling? I just cant believe that. If we chop down and scale my 2.5 hr group ride to 60 minutes, then absolutely I think the TR company line applies.
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Well, depending on your specific training goals, that MIGHT offer less benefit to your training plan for many reasons (example - it could leave you too worn out to complete your next Z4 workout), but it also MIGHT be better for your overall fitness too. You just have to look at the big picture.