Today TrainerRoad announced and released their next set of features to their platform, which edge it closer and closer to a full-fledged training log platform than just a trainer control platform. This transition of course isn’t new. It began in earnest back this past spring when they added a bunch of training analytic pieces to their site. But most of those pieces were about historicals, not the future.
Whereas today’s announcement is as forward-facing as you get. You can now plan and schedule workouts, races, and even training load for the entire season. Heck, a few seasons. You can move around scheduled training plan workouts if you get sick, or if your seagull of a boss changes their mind at the last second and sends you on a trip to Kalamazoo.
Oh, and they’re increasing their pricing.
But, before you yell – know it’s only for new users as of October 8th. The rest of the details on that is down in the sections below. Nuances and all that.
With that, let’s get to said details of the features first.
Calendar and Training Plan Feature:
So this gigantic section of my post is basically divided into a few chunks:
A) The fact that you now have a calendar
B) Ability to add training plans to your calendar
C) A bunch of nuances about said planned workouts (plan or otherwise).
D) What happens when/once you do a workout
Got it?
Good. Let’s move quick, I’m hungry post-run and behind on lunch.
First up is that you’ve now got a legit calendar that shows you what you did and what you’ve got coming down the road. Note that at present (like, for the next few days/weeks/whatevers), it only shows historical cycling workouts/races, and not yet historical runs/swims/jazzercise classes. But more on that in a second.
At the top of the calendar view you’ve got a bit of a chart showing you training load metrics via TSS (in green columns), whereas the purple line is effectively CTL (except, not actually called that). The TSS score matches that used/displayed by other devices/platforms, as it’s licensed from TrainingPeaks.
Now when it comes to forward-looking workouts you can either manually add them in, or choose from their gigantic training plan library. Starting with just a single workout, you’ll pick a day and then add in what you want. If you choose a TrainerRoad workout for that day, then it’ll automatically show that within the app when you turn on the app.
Additionally, it knows the TSS/IF and estimated calories for that workout as well:
Whereas if you manually add a different workout you can put in the workout type (swim/bike/run/other), and then duration and intensity estimate. After which it’ll generate an estimated TSS (Training Stress Score).
Of course, one can quibble about the estimated TSS scores. These are generic across the platform, and aren’t super specific to you as an individual. And when you start talking running, one person’s 45-minute run could be very different than another person’s. In talking to TrainerRoad about this, they get that it’s not a perfect proxy yet. But they feel it is a rough estimate to at least help you envision forward-looking training load. It’s also a reason why at this point planned swims do not generate a TSS score yet.
If you were to select the ‘Race’ option above, it highlights it a bit within the platform and makes it clear in various views.
Next, comes plans. For plans you’ll start by choosing one of the three categories of plans:
There’s plenty of plans depending on what you’re aiming for, including triathlete plans:
You do see some quirks of the platform still though. For example, if you look at that low-volume triathlon base plan above, it specifies 1.9hrs/week. Except, turns out that’s only for the bike portion. It doesn’t seem to count the runs/swims towards that total duration.
It sounds like that’s a bug they’re still working through, and is probably pretty minor in the grand scheme of things.
What’s cool here though is that you can choose which workout days you can do, and even get pretty creative with groupings as well. For example, let’s say I couldn’t workout on Monday or Thursday, but I had lots of time on Wednesday. I simply drag the workout days around as I see fit and then it’ll build the plan around no workouts on Mon/Thurs, but a double on Wednesday.
Of course, we can nitpick a bit on this plan and how they can improve even this scenario a bit more – such as then suggesting that you actually merge the swim/run day together rather than a swim/bike day. But that’s all things for the future (and stuff that nobody else in this landscape really does anyway).
You’ll then choose when you want the workout to start, or if you want it to end by/on a certain date. After which you just hit that add button.
You’ll now see the workouts on the calendar, as well as the purple line up-top showing the expected training load in a forward-looking manner going beyond today.
For trainer workouts, you’ll get specific TrainerRoad workouts as you can see above. Whereas for swim and run workouts you’ll get prescriptive guidance. Keep in mind I selected a base workout, so there’s less focus on intervals from a running standpoint in this particular portion of the plan.
In the event you need to push a week (such as unexpected travel), you can do so via the push/pull week option for any weeks on the training plan.
When it comes to actually doing the workouts, that’s basically the same as before – except that the app will automatically show the planned workout when you open it.
Afterwards, what you’ll notice now is the calendar view will ‘check off’ workouts that were scheduled, as completed. Check out the below view of my calendar taken on Wednesday morning. It shows the Tuesday TrainerRoad workout as having a little checkmark next to it, whereas the Wednesday ride and Thursday runs aren’t yet showing up because those haven’t happened yet.
Fast forward now to Thursday afternoon and here’s how things look:
Now the morning ride shows as checked off (even though it wasn’t on TrainerRoad), but the interval run I just completed with my Garmin watch doesn’t. Why’s that?
Well, at the present only rides are automatically checking off. Both my core workout and interval run I had to manually mark as complete. I suspect that’ll happen eventually, but not quite yet.
Still, for cycle-specific peoples, everything works pretty smoothly – especially if you’ve got device sync setup for outdoor workouts as well from your Garmin device. Then it’s like one cohesive family.
Price Increases Coming:
In addition to the pile of new features, the company is set to raise prices for new users starting October 8th. This does NOT apply to existing users, and no matter what price you pay you’ll continue paying that same price. Even if you signed up the first day TrainerRoad was born and are still paying only $7/month. That’ll stay, and TrainerRoad says they have no plans to change that.
However, for new users that sign-up for the service from October 8th, the price will be $15/month, instead of $12/month. Annual pricing will go from $99/year to $129/year.
From a monthly standpoint this matches what Zwift announced last fall ($15/month), however, there are two key differences. First is that TrainerRoad offers an annual plan (going forward $129/year), whereas 12 months of Zwift would be $180. Additionally, when Zwift adjusted pricing, that goes into effect a little over a month from now for all existing users. Whereas TrainerRoad keeps their existing pricing scheme the same.
Of course, one could debate endlessly which platform is a better value, or which company has done more in terms of development. Frankly, that’s like comparing iOS to Android, or Mac to Windows. It doesn’t really ever end or resultant in a true winner, no matter how hard one cheers for their side.
I’m not sure what more to say about this one. I think this is as much a case of keeping up with the Joneses as anything else, but it’s hard to argue that folks aren’t getting massive piles of training value out of $129/year. That’s far cheaper than any coach will cost you for a season’s worth of training plans, let alone a year’s worth. But again, folks find different values in different products. To each their own.
Wrap-up:
There’s no doubt the training analysis platform and trainer platform/app world is heating up. There seems to be a constant stream of new entrants. But it’s also heating up enough that the lines are starting to blur between the two types of training ‘things’. TrainerRoad is looking more and more like a one-stop solution for training analysis and planning, as well as execution than ever before. In that same ballpark would be Xert as well, who is also blurring the lines equally as much.
This of course raises the question of what are the long-term prospects of something like TrainingPeaks or Today’s Plan. and I think that would be a bit of a stretch to think like that. Certainly those platforms have vastly more analytic capabilities (especially for coaches) than TrainerRoad has today (less so for Xert though). They also support far more sports better than TrainerRoad does today. For coached athletes or teams, those platforms will be where it’s at for at least years into the future.
Still, for individual athletes looking for a budget-friendly solution that’s a one-stop shop – it’s going to be harder and harder to ignore platforms like TrainerRoad and Xert. The idea that you have a single app that takes care of the entire training planning and execution aspect is appealing. And it’s something that I think the training log platforms have to realize is likely the future.
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I think you meant $99/year, not $99/month in the pricing section.
Hey Ivan, it looks like Ray fixed that. I can almost guarantee, barring crazy inflation, that TR will never cost $99/month. 😉
I’m curious how you feel this platform would now compare to Training Peaks. I’m looking at this from a semi-serious triathlete. I did my first Olympic distance this year and used training peaks for planning my workouts (using their workout tool). I use a Fenix 5 and the TP app to upload workouts and get the workouts on my watch. I do also pay attention to my training load through the TP app. I do not use a coach and really don’t have any intention of getting one, I”m in it for fun and health. Do you see Trainer Road as a viable replacement for TP?
He writes about that extensively in the article you just commented on.
I don’t think TR is quite there as a replacement for Triathletes, all though a couple of the key missing features are on their priority list for development. Here’s a link to their planned features: link to forum.trainerroad.com
The big one is that they don’t currently support importing your Running/Swimming workouts. Right now you can just tick off those workouts as completed and input a Completed TSS value. They’re also missing the ability to separate out the TSS charts for each discipline. Both of these feature however are on their priority roadmap.
The one thing I haven’t seen them mention, that I think is really important to ditching Training Peaks, is support for their PR Charts for Running/Swimming.
Yowzers, these pictures made me realize how bad “Legacy” TR looks and how much I’m missing out. I have got to get a newer smart trainer. I think Legacy was replaced in 2014?
Hi Patrick,
Which smart trainer do you have? I’m guessing you didn’t upgrade because of compatibility issues with your device on the new app? If it’s time to get a new one, Ray has a ton of useful articles on how to pick your new trainer. 😉
As for when we replaced the old Adobe Air “Legacy” apps, I think that was in 2015? Something like that… time flies.
I wonder what some users are paying monthly for all their sport subscriptions.
I am not very serious about it, but I already have Strava, MyFitnessPal and VeloViewer. In the winter sometimes also a trainer platform (probably Swift this year).
More serious users probably have TrainerRoad, Swift, BestBikeSplit, Xert, …
This stuff adds up.
I’m agree, there are way to many apps/services I want to use. It is getting way too expensive!
I have been rotating through a bunch of platforms and services to see which ones I like the best. Hopefully the TrainerRoad platform gets fully baked for triathletes and I can just settle on TrainerRoad for everything.
I think choice is great though – without choice we all pay way too much. The more choice, the better.
Ultimately, I suspect some are probably dual-paying for Zwift and TrainerRoad, but not most. I suspect there’s not too many people that pay for all the platforms (except, as The Girl doing the accounting for me the last few days is realizing…me).
I do think there’s room for some consolidation as well. I’ve long said that I actually think Xert and TrainerRoad would be an amazing blend together as one and fill each others gaps better than any pair out there. Obviously, I don’t think they feel the same.
I think bits like Strava and Overview are natural fits as well for an acquisition/etc.
I am definitely not complaining about the choices. I think competition is great for quality of apps/services and prices. My problem is I am always looking at the new/updated app and wondering if it is better than the one I am using (thus end up spending too much money!).
I know people who pay for both, and use TR to control their trainer/workout and then enjoy the display part of Zwift. I think Zwift is pretty neat and might use it again someday but myself I pay for TR and for streaming services that I use to watch soccer etc while I’m on the KICKR.
I don’t thik I’m serious at all and to look at me I wold probably even be judged couch potato long before I would be athlete, yet I found i was paying for my fitness pal, trainer road, zwift, rouvy, sport tracks, ride with gps, strava, HRV4, and tapirrik and on beta for someone else but zwift like. I looked at that outlay and then myself and I thought….man what i could do with that money. (also had in the past TP and TP2(todays plan)
Then I started thinking I just want a one stop shop. what is with all these apps and all this syncing? I just want to be able ride, occasionally have a plan, and track ALL my metrics that I want to track.
That has become my new problem, metrics that I want to track and report…..I want my weight to be tracked, i want my food to be tracked, I want my HRV to be tracked, I want my blood pressure to be tracked, and my resting HR. AND MY EQUIPMENT Why is there not just ONE site already? Its 2018! I can’t take my fit file and add some used defined categories somewhere? anywhere?
Sport tracks will do most, TP will do most…ugh…ALL….I want ALL…..oh and did I mention just let my device upload also?
so I have given up. I either cancelled or didn’t renew….Strava, ride with GPS, Rouvy, sporttracks, TP, TP2,
I purchased Velohero and while I like that, whether through language translation problems or just lack of giving a shit, email responses to questions have been less than stellar. I like everything about it except for his training stress analysis graph which is really cluttered and cannot be time frame modified. He doesn’t track HRV and doesn’t want to, Wahoo doesn’t upload to it (but can use tapirrik). However….its inexpensive…does a lot well …but its just one more site which doesn’t do it all.
I’ll probably in the next few weeks even though I already paid for velohero move back to sporttracks. It is the closest I guess. (but doesn’t track food….even calories…ugh….no user defined fields but does do HRV4 and my weight)
I wish I could write code
So I have cut back. Trainer road, velohero, Zwift, and HRV4 training that is enough.
oh and one more complaint I guess. Windows….remember them….still to this day the number one or number two operating system in the world (1 for pc, 2 for devices android number 1) STOP FORCING ME TO USE MY SMARTPHONE!!!!!!!
I want to look at my stuff on my windows computer and use my computer to control my trainer.
ok ranting over 🙂 I feel better now!
Choice is great, (and I think the work the TR boys have done on the platform in the last 12 months is truly stellar), but it feels like some market consolidation is due.
Last month I realised that I was paying for TR, Zwift, Strava, TP, Xert, Sufferfest and Tacx desktop. I’ve rationalised sufferfest and tacx down, I need to ditch some others. With the latest TR releases I can see that I could probably now go down to TR, Zwift and Xert. The only functionality I lose then is strava live segments, which to be honest I use very infrequently, it’s getting interesting out there….
One merge that I would like to see would be between FulGaz and TR. Both really complement each other. If not a merge, at least a joint partnership.
I’ve been using TrainerRoad for a couple of years, but the main thing that’s always bothered me is it’s lack of intelligence. I recently started using Xert and really like how it adapts to workload (even within a workout); however, TrainerRoad has it beat on UI and polish.
At this point I’m leaning toward sticking with Xert, but it would be awesome if TrainerRoad and Xert would somehow work together. I do wish Xert handled running data too (though there is a hack using Stryd I’ve read about).
We are feeding so many programs data (often real-time), and it seems to me that they should do more than just record it. Adaptive training (perhaps with the help of machine-learning and other technologies) seems like the future to me.
So many choices, so easy to sign up, and therefore it makes sense to stop and think about value received and then make decisions. I’m a techie and love all the choice, but it starts to add up to real money…
Earlier this year I stopped paying for Zwift and went with TrainerRoad. Great decision, not missing Zwift I prefer my own entertainment and found that TR had better structured plans for me.
Also stopped paying for Xert last month, I really like Xert ride analysis (seeing MPA drop to threshold when I’m at my limit), but it isn’t practical/actionable and I prefer the TR base/build/speciality structured plan approach. The other issue with Xert – it assumes maximal efforts and by default will show ftp dropping during sweet spot base work.
Once the TR calendar beta was announced, I cancelled the upcoming TrainingPeaks renewal. I don’t run or swim, and not planning to pay for a coach so this was an easy decision.
Also earlier this year I stopped paying for Strava Premium, and didn’t look twice at the new Strava Summit (is that what its called?). Best decision ever.
I like to dig around for power PRs, and correlate to training and other factors. Unfortunately Garmin dumbed down activity searching, so I’m paying for VeloViewer as its far more powerful and very easy to use. For example its super simple to show all my Strava segments over 1 mile and greater than 5% grade. VeloViewer is what Strava analytics should be, in my humble opinion.
Garmin Connect is free, and I mostly use it to track tire mileage and sync to other platforms.
Happy TR and Zwift user for 3 years. I don’t see any likely merging from the TR side. They seem to have a very deep road map in place and are content on building everything they want and need from the inside.
I highly doubt they will connect with any outside groups like FulGaz as the split with The Sufferfest shows those types of connections are tenuous at best.
I think it will likely be survival of the fittest (sorry for the pun) and the only combination that will happen at this point would be the result of one downfall leading to a purchase to capitalize on anything the other had that is still worthwhile.
Seems we are seeing each of these apps trying to widen their reach and while a blend might make sense from the outside, I don’t see the perfect mix happening with any of the big to mid size players.
I’m not disagreeing with you, but even premium membership on Strava, TrainerRoad & Zwift combined is the cost of two spin classes a month, and annually it’s about a third the cost of the wheelsets people always seem to be buying that are not making them any faster.
Hi Bsquared. Thanks for your comment on Xert. Xert’s Adaptive Training Advisor is, at its core, all about actionable information in the context of your current training, fitness level and goals. We also added the ability to have the system track improvements without having to do maximal efforts you describe. It is ideally suited for use during base training so that you don’t need to do any FTP or maximal effort testing and still see your FTP and other fitness variables go up and down with training.
Training programs are also periodized with Base/Build/Peak, with the advisor recommending workouts based on the phase you’re in addition to the other important contextual information needed to identify the appropriate training you should do on a given day in your Training Program.
Ray,
I totally agree. Xert needs to figure out how to license its analytic capability to other platforms. I love the analytic capability of Xert, but the adaptive workouts never worked for me. Way too hard at the start – cooked me within about 15 minutes.
dan, I love your post! I feel just the same!
I use free Strava for the social network and for a simple log and calendar. I use Styrd’s Powercentre for power analysis. I’d like a lot more… but I’d be spending an amount of money across a range of platforms I can’t justify, nor want to deal with frankly.
I wish I could code too! Strava spends 90% of its engineered budget on keeping the site going as Segments and Leaderboards are so computationally expensive — they’re pushing boundaries to keep the site economically viable. They can’t afford to add features. There is a big gap in the market!
I was just getting ready to make an excel calendar with next years training plan, thanks trainer road for saving me the time
I had already used Google Calendar to make some plans to get me to the spring but at least it will be easy enough to add it to TR now.
And you will eventually get the integration with Google Calendar at some point down the road (same for iCal).
Not sure what that will look like, but it is planned and headed us in the near future.
Chader is right on the money! We still have a handful of features we plan to add to Calendar, including syncing your training calendar to an external calendar (Google, iCal, and Exchange). Building better integration with your day-to-day Calendar from TrainerRoad is a huge goal of ours.
So the training plan only allows flexibility at the beginning when you set your workout days and doesn’t vary based on the history of what you’ve done? Is Xert the only option that just picks the best workout for you based on your past? (assuming I don’t have a coach to modify my workouts)
Say I like doing group rides on weekends where the rides vary. (could be short and easy, could be long and hard, etc) so how worn out I am on the weekend could be very different which should impact what structured workout I do. Or say I don’t have time one day for the planned workout.
You can see your TSS so you could calculate this. Xert is using that also to calculate what workout you can do.
In your case the TSS will be lower when doing a short and easy in the weekend leaving room for a another workout.
Eli, I don’t want to give too much away but we’re looking into the possibilities. For now, you can track your TSS and make your own decisions based on your judgment of how you’re feeling, too. For example, after a tough few days of training, I’ll use the TR app’s “Workout Variants” feature to find a gentler alternative, either with a lower intensity level or duration.
Ray- you state “especially if you’ve got device sync setup for outdoor workouts as well from your Garmin device.”
Is it possible to have outdoor workouts sync from Garmin to TR, but not have TR push indoor workouts to Garmin? I record everything on my fenix (indoors and outdoors), so I end up with duplicates in Garmin Connect when I do a TR workout with the sync turned on.
Hey Joe,
Unfortunately, once we enable sync with Garmin it’s a two-way street. The only way to keep TR workouts from pushing automatically to Garmin would be to manually export from Garmin>TR. However, the easiest alternative would be to not record your indoor (TR) workouts with the Fenix, and just let those get pushed from the TR app into Garmin. I’m curious why you record the TR workouts on your watch, are there certain pieces of data that you find valuable that you can’t get in TR?
Is TR recording dual leg power (from my Vector3s)? I don’t always care about it, but I always want it recorded. Thus I generally will run my Edge along with TR and then keep TR on Strava and keep the Edge version on TrainingPeaks (for upload to WKO4).
i also record my TR workouts with my garmin + vector3 to get cycling dynamics info (i have a pretty substantial left / right imbalance).
@Larry
Not Joe, but I‘m forced to do that too. Reasons for that are… left-right balance (L/R) incl. Torque Effectiveness (TE) and Pedal Smoothness (PS). Then temperature (with tempe) and HRV (from HR strap).
Would be great if TR could record this data and give users the choice what to display during a workout.?
E.g. I‘m absolutely not interested in seeing/knowing my HR (right upper corner) during a workout, as I have no use for it – afterwards it can be interesting. But… during a workout I *need* to see and know about my balance (including PS and TE) as I‘m constantly working on this topic.
Larry,
Thanks for the response and clarification. Besides the reasons listed above, I also like to take full advantage of the training load and recovery metrics that the fenix offers. When I push from TR>Garmin, the indoor workout doesn’t get included in those and my fenix thinks I’m being lazy 🙁
I have a forerunner 935 and Garmin Vector 2 power meter but same answer as Joe. If I don’t record it on my watch then Garmin and Garmin connect don’t accurately keep track of my training load. Unfortunately, I have to remember to go into Garmin Connect and erase the workouts that TR sends to Garmin so they don’t get counted twice. In my experience, Garmin hasn’t been able to tell if the same workout is counted twice despite the time of day and duration of the workout being exactly the same. The whole thing is kind of stupid and appears to be a Garmin issue and nothing to do with Trainer Road.
Thank you all SO MUCH for getting back to me on this! We love, and need, to hear from you on things like this, it’s the most valuable feedback for us since we can see what our users find most important. Currently, despite separate power readings, the Vectors pair to TR as a single ANT+ power meter. This means that readings from both sides are coupled together and sent to TR in a single power package. Because of user feedback, we’re looking into expanding the amount and types of data we can record, so you can get a broader view of your training.
Larry,
There are a few reasons I use a separate head unit to record rides. Firstly I end up with all my workouts in one place, swim, bike and run. Currently TR isn’t a one stop shop for that although I know that’s something you are working towards.
Secondly, I often stack TR workouts and until you have a way of merging consecutive sessions this again means that the TR power duration curve isn’t ever going to be an accurate measure of my abilities and I need the whole session recorded as one file which I currently import into Golden Cheetah.
Thirdly, on longer TR rides (I have occasionally done six hour rides in Ironman or 12hr TT training) and may stop, walk from my shed to the house to use the toilet a few times during the ride. The TR file pauses during the stops and again doesn’t reflect the true nature of the power duration curve. It’s like having zeros not included in a power file to inflate the average numbers. I know I could turn off the auto pause but it doesn’t quite seem right to do a 5 hour ride that ends up being 4hrs 50mins!!
I appreciate that this may not be typical TR use but in my use case it’s why I use TR to control the trainer and session and the head unit data for analysis.
I’m not meaning to be too critical I hope, I’ve been a TR user continuously since being on the original free beta however many years ago that was and it’s a fantastic tool but I thought I’d answer your question as to why people may still use another head unit as well as the TR generated file.
Larry,
I for one record my TR activites on my 935 as
TR has a bug where the interval data does not pull over to GC when it is sent over. This means if I want all of the data in the GC interval tab I need to do this. This is a known issue that I have a ticket on and is in the TR podcast facebook forum. Even Nate Pearsons GC data is like this if you look at his GC rides that came over via TR.
Looks like Xert and Trainerroad are really getting in the same ballpark. If they only could work together that would be perfect. Xert for analyzing and Trainerroad for workouts.
Perfect match!
Did my first workout tonight after updating the app with the new calendar functionality. I generally use an iPad for all things trainer road. Couple of quick questions: do you have to log into the tr website in order to add workouts and set up the calendar, or you can you do this directly from within the iOS app? Also, the calendar view from within the app doesn’t look at all like the screenshots in this post. I assume those were taken on a laptop/desktop? Would be nice to have different view options in the iPad.
With that, I see this feature as more than just keeping up with the jones’s. I see it being a very useful organizational and analytical tool that will hopefully allow me to replace bouncing from the TR app to 3rd party software for analysis. The efficiency of a one stop shop has value…at least for me…
Hi Jason! For now, most of the Calendar functionality is built into the website, but we’re working to bring it into the app so you could do everything from your iOS device. 😉 Are you on the latest version of our app? Thanks for the feedback, and we’re elated to hear you’re enjoying the new features!
If your boss does decide to send you to Kalamazoo, that’s not such a bad thing actually.
There are a great deal of places to bike, and the town has 5-foot passing law (most of Michigan has 3-foot passing law)
I have a feature request: ability to upload/sync workouts to Wahoo Elemnt (or Garmin). That would make it a lot easier for me to untether from the indoor trainer when spring comes around. I know it’s possible to ride outside using the app on the phone attached to the handlebars, but I don’t like using my phone for this (battery life, aesthetics, functionality, etc).
Unfortunately, exporting TR workouts to head units like the Wahoo or Garmin is not currently on our roadmap. There are some other projects we want to work on first to improve our own offerings before branching out to more platforms.
This all well and good but they need to fix their mobile app first. It constantly hides itself when I try to use it and when you bring it back to the front, it relaunches. I was told by support that it was a known issue related to having WiFi turned on. I tried with and without wifi on, same problem. Still no news. Zwift here I come.
Hey Paul, after reading the ticket you had with Support it looks like here’s what was going on:
Your iOS device may be running low on available storage space. When we examined your app logs, there were low memory warnings scattered throughout. It seems like the syncing is killing the app every time it tries, which is why we had recommended turning off your WiFi so the app couldn’t attempt to pull down more data. Do you have any other devices aside from your iPhone 6 that you could use?
The elephant in the room is that Calendar is not available on the OSX version of TR, but they did remove the “old” training plan interface. So now you have to go to the web interface, see which workout is planned then search for that workout in the OSX app before you can ride.
And am I the only one who misses the “training plan progress” bar?
One of the items that they plan to add (according to a post from Nate on the newly launched TrainerRoad Forum) is a progress bar showing how far you are through a training plan. My understanding is that they wanted to launch the calendar once it was operational, but not necessarily complete, so that they could get feedback from users and beta testers as to which features would be useful, and then roll out these features as upgrades. It seems the progress bar was one of these features.
My understanding based on what Nate said during the live stream yesterday, and what he has posted to the beta testing group, is that the issue with the calendar in Mac OSX is a known bug that is currently, and that they have 2 engineers working on that specific problem.
You’re right Paul, we made a mistake removing functionality without adding in the new Calendar functionality to the Mac app. We misjudged and made a bad decision by launching the Mac app without the same level of Calendar or Training Plan support that Windows got, and we don’t do that again.
Like Nate mentioned here: link to forum.trainerroad.com, getting the Mac training plan functionality back up and running is our HIGHEST priority right now.
But TrainingPeaks does offer training plans, but is more focused on pairing you with a coach than on “automatic” training plans (although you can create your own TrainingPlans).
Tacx desktop app is pretty good. You can ride using the videos, you can ride their training plans and soon to be released is the ability to ride against others. There is so much choice. I subscribed to Zwift for a few months and enjoyed it and made improvements but felt that the increase in price was fueled by greed. I mean who has a 50% pay increase? So what does it mean, others will follow suit and up their prices in doing so makes Zwift look like a good deal again. With more subscribers prices should drop not increase. And the worst part is we just follow along with it and pay up. Some of you on 3 plus platforms to me doesn’t make a lot of sense as when you subscribe to a plan you can’t just create more days to a week to ride another. 3-4 hard sessions a week is it and the weekends are left for social rides outdoors.
@ Larry @ TrainerRoad
Family Pricing Please. Just can’t justify multiple subscriptions to the same platform.
Hi Ray,
Is it in your plan to do a virtual cycling training platform show down or features comparisons for trainnerroad, sufferfest, zwift, perfpro,…? Ex: where there are best and there weakness compare to others platform, training plan available and the usability of those plan (ex: training peak enable you to download the workout to your device.), how are there targeted cyclists, details about 4dp focus training plan vs base, build,…
Yup, I’ll be doing that here later this month likely as part of a semi-annual (every 2 years, is that the right term?) run-through of platforms.
Unlike last time I probably won’t try and cover all 20 apps again, but rather I’m going to cover the top 5-7ish apps in relative detail, and then just sorta list out the others with quick one-line style tidbits and links for folks to dig deeper.
Hi,
Great news. You have a great plan dig/test only the 5-7 top app’s and the rest with a one liner with an link.
Bet it took you a lots of time to test the 20 app’s…
Thanks and looking forward to read your run-through of the platforms.
Yanick
Have to say, as someone who works anti-social/non-typical hours, the reconfigurable calendar has been a real bonus. The “match” facility for outdoor/unscheduled rides is also very handy.
My only minor gripe is that maybe some guidance on sequencing/scheduling for maximum effect would be nice. At present I’m using Stravistix/Elevate’s fitness trend to try and keep myself “between the lines”, but as someone with minimal knowledge of such things, any advice would be helpful.
Hola, excelente artículo. He usado TrainingPeaks, TrainerRoad, Zwift, Strava, Tacx Training, Wahoo Fitness y Rouvy Mobile. Estuve un tiempo con entrenador federado. La verdad es que TrainerRoad se asemeja mucho a las pautas de entrenamiento que yo tenía con mi entrenador, pero el costo ha sido mucho menor y se agradece. Actualmente estoy con TrainerRoad + TrainingPeaks. He leído todo el artículo y los post, y me parece que TrainerRoad debe ser actualmente la mejor plataforma de entrenamientos estructurados para ciclistas. Saludos desde Chile.
Great analysis.