TrainerRoad Question (General)
 

I do a fair amount of my cycling on decent quality spinner bike (just one of those things) that has Garmin Vector S (power measurement) pedals and a Garmin 800 Edge as 'the head'.

I am relatively satisfied with my access to various training plans (and/or build my own) where, when I am indoors, I jot down 'the plan' (times/power levels/whatever) and follow it. Then I can down(up?)load to Golden Cheetah and/or WKO+. That seems to work well enough (so far - the power stuff is still new to me).

From what I can tell TrainerRoad can provide me with canned/pre-planned workouts and show my real time progress against that (assuming the proper Ant+ USB device). Plus there is some kind of video library, but I'm not sure exactly what this is and if it is anything more than what you can find on youtube/etc.

Is there something there that (WRT my setup) that I am missing? Other comments?

Thanks.

dave

So TrainerRoad is all about structured, interval training. First, you'll FTP test to find your functional threshold power. Then, each of the 800+ workouts will be scaled to your current fitness level. You can pick and choose from here as you go, build your own workouts, or follow one of the many training plans. As you ride, TR gives you live feedback so that you can get through each workout perfectly, getting the most out of every hour spent on the trainer.

In regards to videos, TR does not make them but it is compatible with them, like the Sufferfest. We actually have special workouts for all of the Sufferfest videos which help with motivation and entertainment.

You are correct, all you'd need to sign up is an ANT+ dongle, so that the app can communicate with your PM.

-Trevor from TrainerRoad

Trevor, thank you for the follow up.

dave

If you're looking for structured training indoors using a trainer and a PM (power meter) or VirtualPower, TrainerRoad is tough to beat for $10/month. Using VirtualPower, as long as your trainer is supported and you are consistent with making your settings repeatable (tire PSI, # turns of roller on rear tire, and resistance level if your trainer has one) then doing an FTP test to use as a guide for your training will work very well, keeping in mind you shouldn't try to compare your VirtualPower numbers to those from a real PM.