TrainerRoad on the cheap (Rollers)
m14eyd
Posts: 23
2 months back into cycling after a 23 year 'break' and I'm amazed at all the training aids available - I love gadgets, but don't have masses of spare cash for power meters and the like so TrainerRoad really caught my eye for its virtual power feature.
I spent the max £1000 of my cyclescheme voucher on my bike and have been slowly building up the other bits, clothing, helmets and the like.
Anyway onto the bits I'm using to enable virtual power training in TrainerRoad;
Elite Ghibli Parabolic Rollers from wiggle - £70
Abody/CooSpo BT 4.0 HRM from Amazon - £24
Abody BT 4.0 Speed/Cadence from Amazon - £22
Bluegiga Technologies Bluetooth Dongle BLED112 from RS Components - £18
All the above including VAT and delivery, so £134 all in, with £46 of that benefiting riding the bike on the road (HRM and Speed/Cadence sensor)
I spoke to TR prior to purchase, the Elite Ghibli arent listed on TR, but selecting Elite Arion provides a comparable curve and the BT dongle listed above is the only one that will work on Windows - £3 efforts from Amazon/Ebay wont.
Had my first shot last night and I'm very impressed - the power figure may not be correct, but it will be consistent with the main variable being tyre pressure.
Jumped straight into to doing the 20 minute FTP test last night, in hindsight this was a bit daft and I should have had some practice on the rollers first as I faceplanted the sofa 15 minutes into the 20 minute effort!
Upload to Strava was really easy and gives some nice graphs and the like of power etc - https://www.strava.com/activities/313063363
So just a quick post if anyone is thinking of training 'with power' but wants to do it on a budget :-)
I spent the max £1000 of my cyclescheme voucher on my bike and have been slowly building up the other bits, clothing, helmets and the like.
Anyway onto the bits I'm using to enable virtual power training in TrainerRoad;
Elite Ghibli Parabolic Rollers from wiggle - £70
Abody/CooSpo BT 4.0 HRM from Amazon - £24
Abody BT 4.0 Speed/Cadence from Amazon - £22
Bluegiga Technologies Bluetooth Dongle BLED112 from RS Components - £18
All the above including VAT and delivery, so £134 all in, with £46 of that benefiting riding the bike on the road (HRM and Speed/Cadence sensor)
I spoke to TR prior to purchase, the Elite Ghibli arent listed on TR, but selecting Elite Arion provides a comparable curve and the BT dongle listed above is the only one that will work on Windows - £3 efforts from Amazon/Ebay wont.
Had my first shot last night and I'm very impressed - the power figure may not be correct, but it will be consistent with the main variable being tyre pressure.
Jumped straight into to doing the 20 minute FTP test last night, in hindsight this was a bit daft and I should have had some practice on the rollers first as I faceplanted the sofa 15 minutes into the 20 minute effort!
Upload to Strava was really easy and gives some nice graphs and the like of power etc - https://www.strava.com/activities/313063363
So just a quick post if anyone is thinking of training 'with power' but wants to do it on a budget :-)
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Comments
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Fantastic, I love the setup. I ran a similar one for a long time and it's amazing what training with a consistent power reading can do for you. If you ever have any questions, feel free to reach out!
-Trevor from TrainerRoad0 -
It's worth keeping in mind that TR's virtual power is wildly inaccurate, the numbers you saw were probably a lot higher than they would be in reality, but what the numbers often are is consistent, so the FTP you set on TR while not a real world FTP is still absolutely bob on for the purpose of TR's workouts!0
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dilatory wrote:It's worth keeping in mind that TR's virtual power is wildly inaccurate, the numbers you saw were probably a lot higher than they would be in reality, but what the numbers often are is consistent, so the FTP you set on TR while not a real world FTP is still absolutely bob on for the purpose of TR's workouts!
Yeah I had that conversation with TR support before ordering the rollers and BT dongle - consistent is totally fine with me :-) I just need to finish a FTP test without falling off the rollers now!0
