Noonievut

Thought I would share my thought process. I'm guessing I'm the minority here, as Zwift continues to gain popularity.

Background (indoor cycling): I use a 10-year old fluid trainer while watching movies, 3-4 times a week for an hour, alternating between 2 one hour workouts. I found this un-motivating, and every winter I would gain about 10 pounds and find myself really slow in the spring.

Goals: I'm going to buy a smart trainer and want to follow a structured plan that maintains/increases my FTP. I don't have a goal event, rather I'm looking to get faster, maintaining/improving my fitness, so I can ride (outside) in the spring with a really good base. I live close to Toronto, and ride outside as much as I can, so I would use the trainer close to 90-95% mid-Dec to mid-Mar, and maybe when we have long periods of rain / bad weather at other times of the year. I've been on my trainer 3 times since the end of March, and I ride 4 times a week outside.

Why I'm choosing TR / avoiding Zwift (for now):
- Technology: simply put, I don't want (lack of) technology to get in the way of riding indoors. I like that TR can be used on a basic smart phone, and should work close to 100% of the time without issues. I have an iPhone 6, Apple TV, and that's about it. I don't want to get into a 'cycle' where either I have technology performance issues/bugs that get in the way of riding, or I need to upgrade my hardware. I played video games when I was younger, but I'm not a gamer. I would play multiplayer games with friends who were true gamers, they would spend $ to buy the latest computers and graphic cards...while I was turned off by having to do this, and my lack of upgraded technology would prohibit me from continuing to play games. I don't play games at all anymore.

- Schedule: I don't have flexibility with the time of the day that I ride. It's pretty much weekday mornings before work / when my kid wakes up, for 1-1.5 hours. On the weekends I have a bit more wiggle room, but not too different from weekdays. Therefore, I don't see myself joining races or group rides (that have a start time). I know people who do this, but they schedule their time around these events. If I had a more flexible schedule that may work, but I don't.

- Movies/Shows: riding the bike indoors is when I catch up on Netflix and movies. I love this time as I love movies, documentaries and good series. I'm planning to watch all the Game of Thrones this winter, after missing the last couple seasons (that's 50+ hours of viewing!). I don't get a lot of other times to watch movies, or binge on Netflix series. I built a stand recently that is similar in function to the wahoo standing desk. My TV/DVD player is set-up on it and ready to go (at a much better eye-level than previous set-up), and my iPhone sits perfectly under the TV to view the TR workout. I'm hoping this adds to the motivation. With Zwift, if I'm simply joining a map and riding around, I'm not sure I would continue to be motivated by riding around, even if following a workout (I've read a bit about them). It's the movies that I look forward to. Seeing the avatar on the screen, with the landscape and all is certainly cool from a video game perspective, but to me this does not compare to riding outside...so I'm not looking to re-create the feeling.

- Keeping it simple: when I'm ready to ride, I want to get on the bike and go. I figure with a TR plan, I would simply call up the current day's workout, and hit 'start'. DVD/Netflix would take less than a minute to fire up. I don't want anything more complicated...this is the critical thing for me.

gregf83 

I keep it simple also on the trainer. I do the same workout every time, 2x20 with a warmup and warmdown. I listen to the same music which roughly matches the intensity I need. I usually have zwift on a laptop as well just for something to watch.

I think you just need to maintain over the winter not build your FTP. That's what spring is for.

I only ride the trainer if the weather is poor on the weekend so maybe 10-15 times/yr. I can usually ride outside through the winter.

TimothyH

Nothing simpler than a fixed gear bike on rollers.

I play music in my head, or solve the world's problems, or just pray.

Sportscrafters Overdrive rollers give realistic progressive resistance for good interval or threshold workouts.


-Tim-

Noonievut

I've going the Smart trainer route because I want to make sure that on my indoor rides the intervals are at the right intensity. I also do 2 x 20min often, and I have no idea if my 20min intervals are 'enough'. I go to a harder gear, and I'm sweating pretty good, but after alternating this workout with one that has a higher number of shorter intervals, I always come out of the winter feeling heavy and slow. I'm not a bike gadget nut at all, but I thought with winter training it would help.

I hear you about rollers...I had some and stupidly gave them away years ago. They would have helped with variety of indoor workouts.

RL7836

You're almost describing my past few off seasons, with a few exceptions:
- I'm still on a fluid trainer but use the power from my Powertap rear wheel to provide power info for workouts (much better than the simulated power). This way, the money I spend on power is useful during outside riding also.
- I use TR on the laptop, where in horizontal mode, it fits below the screen for shows/movies. All the info I need is on one screen.
- I use shows like GoT, Walking Dead, Dexter to lure me into the basement for my workouts. I don't get to watch any shows unless I'm training.
- Two & three years ago, I cherry-picked workouts in TR (typically hard ones). Last winter, I chose one of their structured plans and came into spring stronger than the other years.

cvskates

I'n not going to debate you, as I agree with everything you've written.

Two things I would add, though:
1. If you look at the Zwift racing/group ride schedule, they start frequently, like every 15 minutes, so that's not so much an issue.
2. One thing Zwift does offer that TrainerRoad doesn't is the ability to just ride around at your leisure outside a work out. Sometimes it's fun to just free ride and hit it hard on segments to see how high up the leader board you can get.

Having said that, I'm a TrainerRoad user who has been blown away by the gains I've seen. But I do subscribe to Zwift as well.

But for getting fast on the bike, my recipe is the same as yours: TrainerRoad + Smart Trainer + Netflix

Noonievut

I'm definitely going to try Zwift, and maybe even subscribe for a few months in the middle of winter when I'm riding indoors most often. For variety if nothing else. If it's in addition to the TR plan I'm going to follow it will be a bonus. Cheers!

cvskates

To be honest, I'm usually riding a TrainerRoad workout while using Zwift. I have 2 ANT+ keys in my laptop, and TrainerRoad reads my power meter and controls the Kickr, while Zwift just reads the power meter.

Like I said, TrainerRoad is awesome.

Noonievut

Does anyone use TR and Zwift, not at the same time, but maybe alternating between them in a week / month? I didn't think this would work well if I'm following a TR plan (weekly). But I've now tried both apps and like them both, for different reasons.

ericy

For Zwift I am using an old laptop. Technically it is under the minimum specs (Intel 3000) - not a gamer machine by any stretch of the imagination. The minimum specs are actually for an Intel 4000.

I have tried playing other simulation games on this laptop, and it is horrible - the graphics performance just can't cut it. With Zwift, it is good enough, so for the time being I am going to stick with it. I ran the Zwiftalyzer thing on the logfiles, and it seems to run about 10fps most of the time. I wouldn't want to go much below this as there would be visible jerkiness.

I get where you are coming from about not wanting to fix weird IT problems before starting a ride. It reminds me of an old bike computer that had lots of bluetooth problems, and I finally got tired of screwing with it.

There were a few glitches when I first set the thing up - now when I ride I plug in the laptop, launch Zwift, and while I am waiting for it to start up, I put on my cleats, turn on the fan, put on the HRM strap, fill the water bottle - that sort of thing. By the time I am done with that, Zwift is checking for sensors - I give the crank a spin to wake up the cadence sensor. Once that wakes up, it automatically goes on to the next window where I select which route, click "go" or whatever the button is, and I can start riding. Really not very painful at all.

It is only slightly more complicated if I want to ride a course other than what is on the schedule - I have a little hack cmd script that lets me force it to Watopia or London if I am in the mood.

I intentionally spent the extra $$ to get a wheel-off trainer (a Kickr, in my case). The reasoning was that I didn't want to have to spend time futzing with a pump too make sure the rear tire is properly inflated, and I didn't want to have to bother with a spindown on every ride. But I get that you have to pay a lot extra for this convenience, and not everyone will want to do this.

ksryder

I know there's a way to load TR workouts into Zwift, would probably take minimal googling, if that helps.

Noonievut

But I love the simple and effective interface in TR, plus I watch Netflix at the same time. I wouldn't do a workout in Zwift and look at the game, because it's not the same as sim mode. I like Zwift for the interaction with other riders and the resistance changed based on grade.

salad_goat

I've been riding zwift since they started beta testing and this is going to be the first year w/o it since then. II want to ride outdoors more. However, I structured it around 2 sessions of 2x20. A recov ride, endurance ride, and usually the McCarthy special.

Noonievut

If it wasn’t for snow, icy roads and sub-zero temps I would never ride indoors. I don’t care about effective training, I just love riding my bike. Thankfully the new apps make indoor riding more interesting.