trainerroad.com

duffyshuffle

Not sure if its been discussed on here before, but used trainer road last night with a sufferfest DVD and power tap, it was class, on screen real time power/cadence/HR with power targets as you pedal. Great training aid for anyone addicted to or forced on to the turbo :-)

El Director

duffyshuffle wrote: »

Not sure if its been discussed on here before, but used trainer road last night with a sufferfest DVD and power tap, it was class, on screen real time power/cadence/HR with power targets as you pedal. Great training aid for anyone addicted to or forced on to the turbo :-)

What turbo do you have duffyshuffle?

tunney

duffyshuffle wrote: »

Not sure if its been discussed on here before, but used trainer road last night with a sufferfest DVD and power tap, it was class, on screen real time power/cadence/HR with power targets as you pedal. Great training aid for anyone addicted to or forced on to the turbo :-)

Or you can just use Golden Cheetah for the same. Been doing that for a while myself (but with a Computrainer GC controls/enforces a specific wattage based on associated Sufferfest ergs. not done it in months, its fun, may do one this week!

El Director

tunney wrote: »

Or you can just use Golden Cheetah for the same. Been doing that for a while myself (but with a Computrainer GC controls/enforces a specific wattage based on associated Sufferfest ergs. not done it in months, its fun, may do one this week!

Could I use the Flow with this? Would it be of any benefit to the likes of me, concentrating on sprint/olympic.

tunney

El Director wrote: »

Could I use the Flow with this? Would it be of any benefit to the likes of me, concentrating on sprint/olympic.

The sufferfest DVDs are fun but not for everyone!

The flow does not broadcast power over ANT+ so won't work with GC or TrainerRoad.

You could still do the videos alright but then its very subjective as to what 8/10 means in terms of effort.

Personally I fvcking hate italians after Fight Club

duffyshuffle

Trainer road can link up to loads of turbo's with computers and create power for what its worth.

I use the ant+ to connect to my power tap and HRM (ANT stuck in the side of computer in USB picks it up wirelessly)

Theres loads of workouts on it anyway so you don't need sufferfest, but on carp weather nights when you've just eaten loads of cake and sat on the couch, its unbelievably easier to train with a sufferfest than get on the turbo and try to do your own set to music, totally takes the thinking out of it and its amazing how much you listen and change effort to on screen instructions.

So, sufferfest is a DVD you buy and download online thesufferfest.com and there are a few that would suit different distances differently but you can pick which ones you like (e.g. A very dark place has 4min hard intervals vs angels with 10min @ LT and 3 x 8min climbing after)

And trainerroad.com is a website that you can use to see all your live watts/HR/cadence on screen with a garmin unit or ant+ device or compatible turbo. It also sync's with sufferfest workouts so you can play a sufferfest DVD and the trainer road will tailor power or HR targets specifically for that workout.

I've been using sufferfests a good bit, but 1st time using trainer road with it last night, found it class, trainer road has a little intro vid on their site that explains it

duffyshuffle

El Director wrote: »

What turbo do you have duffyshuffle?

Its the power tap I sync to, but theres a big list of compatible turbos on the site. I had to contact them about my ANT not working and they replied straight away, they seem very high on customer care so maybe shoot them an e-mail and see if your's works?

Reidweber

El Director wrote: »

tunney wrote: »

Or you can just use Golden Cheetah for the same. Been doing that for a while myself (but with a Computrainer GC controls/enforces a specific wattage based on associated Sufferfest ergs. not done it in months, its fun, may do one this week!

Could I use the Flow with this? Would it be of any benefit to the likes of me, concentrating on sprint/olympic.

Yes. We support virtual power for the Tacx Flow. We don't read the power from the flow. Instead we convert speed to power base on the power curves for the different resistance levels. You can read more about how it works here: http://www.trainerroad.com/virtual-power

And thanks to Mark at Golden Cheetah, we also support the CompuTrainer.
I'm excited that you guys find it useful. I'll try to answer any other questions you have.

Reid from TrainerRoad

tunney

Reidweber wrote: »

El Director wrote: »

tunney wrote: »

Or you can just use Golden Cheetah for the same. Been doing that for a while myself (but with a Computrainer GC controls/enforces a specific wattage based on associated Sufferfest ergs. not done it in months, its fun, may do one this week!

Could I use the Flow with this? Would it be of any benefit to the likes of me, concentrating on sprint/olympic.

Yes. We support virtual power for the Tacx Flow. We don't read the power from the flow. Instead we convert speed to power base on the power curves for the different resistance levels. You can read more about how it works here: http://www.trainerroad.com/virtual-power

And thanks to Mark at Golden Cheetah, we also support the CompuTrainer.
I'm excited that you guys find it useful. I'll try to answer any other questions you have.

Reid from TrainerRoad

Great stuff, I didn't realise that the flow hooked up to computers. Excellent stuff, very useful for alot on here.

hf4z6sqo7vjngi

Genuine question do people find this along with the sufferfest videos help drive you on that bit further during those tough turbo sessions.

duffyshuffle

Adonis Better Lamp wrote: »

Genuine question do people find this along with the sufferfest videos help drive you on that bit further during those tough turbo sessions.

completely

Reidweber

tunney wrote: »

Great stuff, I didn't realise that the flow hooked up to computers. Excellent stuff, very useful for alot on here.

It doesn't. We just read your speed from an ANT+ speed sensor on your bike (like the Garmin GSC-10). We have power data from Tacx that allows us to figure out your power based on your current speed and resistance setting. It probably won't exactly match the readings on the Flow handlebar unit or a powertap, but with a consistent setup (tire pressure and tension on tire), the power data we show is accurate enough to train with.

Reidweber

Adonis Better Lamp wrote: »

Genuine question do people find this along with the sufferfest videos help drive you on that bit further during those tough turbo sessions.

Obviously I'm biased but you can find a bunch of unsolicited feedback from members on our Facebook page, Slowtwitch.com or BeginnerTriathlete.com.

tunney

Adonis Better Lamp wrote: »

Genuine question do people find this along with the sufferfest videos help drive you on that bit further during those tough turbo sessions.

Sufferfest are fun. You can do one next time you are up in mine.

However they are wholely inappropriate for alot of the year and I would not like to be basing an IM bike off them.

tunney

Reidweber wrote: »

Obviously I'm biased but you can find a bunch of unsolicited feedback from members on our Facebook page, Slowtwitch.com or BeginnerTriathlete.com.

They are good. I do have all of them. I got abused from the wife for doing the "Hell hath no fury one" though. "Fecking womens cycling, yeah I know why........." I had to explain that Vicky pendelton did not ride on the road.

tunney

Not trainer road but Golden Cheetah with sufferfest

(Computrainer or ANT+ PM only, no extrapolation from speed like trainer road)

Nwm2

tunney wrote: »

They are good. I do have all of them. I got abused from the wife for doing the "Hell hath no fury one" though. "Fecking womens cycling, yeah I know why........." I had to explain that Vicky pendelton did not ride on the road.

I must confess that "Hell Hath no Fury" is also my go-to Sufferfest vid (I also have them all). These days I rarely follow the instructions, but have it on anyway.

Last night I did my 2 x 20 at 95% FTP, with TrainerRoad tracking my power and "Hell Hath no Fury" in front of me. Clearly, the target power I was being asked for bore not much resemblance to the 20 min constant power interval I was doing.

But it's much easier to suffer while looking at hot women in cycling shorts.

I'm really waiting for TrainerRoad to come out with the ability to create your own workouts. That would be a game changer.

tunney

Nwm2 wrote: »

I must confess that "Hell Hath no Fury" is also my go-to Sufferfest vid (I also have them all). These days I rarely follow the instructions, but have it on anyway.

Last night I did my 2 x 20 at 95% FTP, with TrainerRoad tracking my power and "Hell Hath no Fury" in front of me. Clearly, the target power I was being asked for bore not much resemblance to the 20 min constant power interval I was doing.

But it's much easier to suffer while looking at hot women in cycling shorts.

I'm really waiting for TrainerRoad to come out with the ability to create your own workouts. That would be a game changer.

Golden Cheetah allows you to load ERG files (Computrainers format for workouts)

Nwm2

tunney wrote: »

Golden Cheetah allows you to load ERG files (Computrainers format for workouts)

I have Golden Cheetah on my list of things to look at alright - but actually didn't realise it could do this.

The reason I was going to play around with it was because I think it lets you estimate Cda using a powermeter (AKA Chung's method) ... apart from that I was clueless about it.

tunney

Nwm2 wrote: »

I have Golden Cheetah on my list of things to look at alright - but actually didn't realise it could do this.

The reason I was going to play around with it was because I think it lets you estimate Cda using a powermeter (AKA Chung's method) ... apart from that I was clueless about it.

Just make sure to get the dev build (3.x) rather than the 2.x one.

Yeah the aerolabs plugin is nice.

hf4z6sqo7vjngi

Nwm2 wrote: »

I'm really waiting for TrainerRoad to come out with the ability to create your own workouts. That would be a game changer.

I will be going with GC for now but i would look seriously at TrainerRoad if it had that capability. One for Reid perhaps to see if it's in the pipeline?

Nwm2

Adonis Better Lamp wrote: »

I will be going with GC for now but i would look seriously at TrainerRoad if it had that capability. One for Reid perhaps to see if it's in the pipeline?

People have been bugging them for this on Slowtwitch, believe me. It has been promised...

couerdelion

Anyone here using Trainer Road with Virtual Power?

Looks interesting enough. ANT+ Speed sensor on the wheel, ANT+ Receiver on the laptop and away you go. Power is calculated from known power curves. Already have the speed sensor so just ordered a receiver.

Not expecting it to be completely accurate but the feedback seems to be that if you keep your set-up consistent (Tyre pressure, turbo flywheel tightness etc) then any increases in virtual power will be increases in real world power.

I'll post up a review after the receiver turns up.

slayer91

Hi,

I have used it since it was launched as a free beta. Now it is around $7 a month.

TR reminds me of some of the discussions I had here some months ago about buying a Trac Flow with power measurement. The general view was that it was an bit out regarding power measurement but its errors were constant so that if you kept your setup on the turbo the same, the power reading could served as an good indicator of progress.
It is the same idea, I think, with TR. Their calculation of virtual power is slighly suspect but it is constant. The idea of having your hr, speed and power tracked against a training curve is a great help when facing into a 1hr turbo sesssion. They founders seemed to be very active on slowbitch and are constantly adding features.
Most people will already have a garmin speed/cadence sensor on their bike, so another €20-30 will get you a ANT USB stick. You can join up a month to see what it like. Overall, it is good training aid and for the gadget freaks it is a great way to torture yourself.

Regs

Liam

couerdelion

Links in with Training Peaks too which is a bonus.

Reidweber

Nwm2 wrote: »

Adonis Better Lamp wrote: »

I will be going with GC for now but i would look seriously at TrainerRoad if it had that capability. One for Reid perhaps to see if it's in the pipeline?

People have been bugging them for this on Slowtwitch, believe me. It has been promised...

Keep bugging us. . Nate is actually working on redoing the way the workouts are stored now, which is the first step in that direction.

couerdelion

Finally got round to setting my bike up and using virtual power within TrainerRoad so here's a quick review.

The way it works is that TrainerRoad knows the power curve for certain turbo trainers (I have a Cycleops Magneto) and by using cadence and speed from the sensors it can determine your power from where it believes you are on the curve. Now, I realise the figures it will produce cannot be relied on to be 100% accurate or as close as a power meter would be but as long as the tyre pressure and wheel tightness are consistent then the power numbers produced can be used to compare across my workouts. So any increase in virtual power would compare to an increase in actual power and that's what is most important to me.

First of all was the set up of the sensors. I bought a Garmin ANT+ speed and cadence sensor a while ago to go with my Timex Global Trainer (which in works well with). Fitting is pretty simple:



I then had to fit a garmin stick to the laptop:



There's a little bit of tweaking to be done pairing devices but it's pretty quick and once done it's kept the settings so far for me.

There are a number of different training plans you can choose to follow and I decided to start with "Intermediate Base I". The first ride on this plan is an 2 x 8 minute test to determine FTP and LTHR. I fitted my heart rate monitor (Timex Ant+) to my chest and I was ready to go.



The initial FTP is set to 200 as a target to work against for the 2x 8 minute blocks. Once you start pedaling the workout begins and the idea is to keep your power at an equal amount to the target power as shown by the blue blocks. At the end of the hour my graph looked like this:



The yellow line is my power, the red line my heart rate. I managed to keep the power pretty well in line with the guides (the downward spikes are where I stopped pedalling to fiddle with my music or grab a drink).

The two larger blocks were all out efforts in which I was able to exceed the target. The first test I left some in reserve so when it told me to put it all out for the last 30 seconds I was able to get the power to shoot up.
The second test I built a little to quickly and had to back of a little but I managed to build it back up towards the end.

After the test had finished it gave me a suggestion to set the FTP of 232 to work against and calculated my LTHR as 126. No idea what these figures mean yet so still have a good bit of reading to do.

Overall I'm pretty impressed and really enjoyed the real time feedback that is displayed during the session. I also think its good to have a way to measure where I am right now as I start training again so I can see how I progress throughout the year. For around €70 for the sensors and ANT+ stick (+ €6 a month subscription) I think it's good value especially as I couldn't justify a power meter to the better half yet.

Earlier in the thread people were asking about designing their own workouts. From Facebook / Twitter updates it seems the beta is imminent.

El Director

DC Rainmaker better watch out! Thanks for that Couerdelion, looks pretty good.

couerdelion

Just got round to downloading the workout onto TrainingPeaks and this is what it looks like:




Much better for analysing and comparison than just adding in 1hr Turbo as a workout!

Reidweber

Great post, couerdelion. I usually mount the GSC-10 with the speed sensor arm angled down. I think that lessens the chance of it getting sucked into the wheel if it gets bumped.
Looking at your test I'd say the targets with a 200 FTP were probably too low. It is unfortunate that there are any targets on the first test you do since those two 8 minutes efforts are supposed to be all out sustained efforts. But you'll get better at pacing and knowing what numbers you can hit the more rides you do.
Check out this page to understand more about what FTP and LTHR mean:
http://support.trainerroad.com/entries/20644037-what-do-ftp-np-if-and-tss-mean

Briando

slayer91 wrote: »

Hi,

I have used it since it was launched as a free beta. Now it is around $7 a month.

TR reminds me of some of the discussions I had here some months ago about buying a Trac Flow with power measurement. The general view was that it was an bit out regarding power measurement but its errors were constant so that if you kept your setup on the turbo the same, the power reading could served as an good indicator of progress.
It is the same idea, I think, with TR. Their calculation of virtual power is slighly suspect but it is constant. The idea of having your hr, speed and power tracked against a training curve is a great help when facing into a 1hr turbo sesssion. They founders seemed to be very active on slowbitch and are constantly adding features.
Most people will already have a garmin speed/cadence sensor on their bike, so another €20-30 will get you a ANT USB stick. You can join up a month to see what it like. Overall, it is good training aid and for the gadget freaks it is a great way to torture yourself.

Regs

Liam

Using a Trcx Flow and Power2Max at the same time, they are within 2 watts of each other. I warm up for 10mins on turbo then calibrate it(like the books explains to do) it so the reading is accurate.

tunney

"The important thing is not where they are the same but where, and why, they are different".

couerdelion

Reidweber wrote: »

I usually mount the GSC-10 with the speed sensor arm angled down. I think that lessens the chance of it getting sucked into the wheel if it gets bumped.

Looking at some pictures it seems that is how it's meant to be mounted (sensor angled down). I suppose I should read instructions!

Looking at your test I'd say the targets with a 200 FTP were probably too low. It is unfortunate that there are any targets on the first test you do since those two 8 minutes efforts are supposed to be all out sustained efforts. But you'll get better at pacing and knowing what numbers you can hit the more rides you do.
Check out this page to understand more about what FTP and LTHR mean:
http://support.trainerroad.com/entries/20644037-what-do-ftp-np-if-and-tss-mean

Thanks, good reading.

couerdelion

Got a few sufferfest videos to make winter training in the kitchen a little less boring. Really impressed with the built in programs in TR which take the guess work out of exactly what effort to put in.

(I need to get them to pay me commision!)

slayer91

Their work out creator was launched last week. Still in beta but works pretty well. Now you can create (or follow your coaches) cutom workouts.