Using Trainerroad - Technical elements, how to connect etc

daniel_b

Hi guys,

this is probably really stupid questions, but I thought as plenty of you hopefully use it, I might get some quick answers.

A friend of mine has sent me a link to a free months trial onto Trainerroad.

I plan to use it with a fairly old, but still quite beefy Toshiba laptop, running Windows 7 32 bit, and with 4gb of ram.
My turbo bike has Garmin Vector 2 pedals fitted, plus a speed sensor on the rear wheel.

I bought ages ago, but never used it, one of these Sunnto Movestik mini's:


At the time I think I was looking to use trainerroad, but never got around to it, and I didn't have a power meter at that time either.

So, is that everything I need in theory?

My thinking is that I need to install the Tranerroad software on my laptop, plug this stick in, and then wake up my pedals, and scan for them?
That will then feed through to TR somehow, and away I go?

Am I missing anything?

Thanks

Dan

buckmulligan

That's correct, that should be all you need to get going. If you have an ANT+ HR and/or cadence monitor, it would be good to feed that data in too, but power is the core metric that all of the workouts are based on.

I don't know how long your trial is, but my advice would be to sign up for one of their training plans rather than just faff around with individual workouts here. Even if you only complete a few weeks, it'll give you a good taste of the structured approach that they're renowned for.

daniel_b

BuckMulligan wrote:

That's correct, that should be all you need to get going. If you have an ANT+ HR and/or cadence monitor, it would be good to feed that data in too, but power is the core metric that all of the workouts are based on.

I don't know how long your trial is, but my advice would be to sign up for one of their training plans rather than just faff around with individual workouts here. Even if you only complete a few weeks, it'll give you a good taste of the structured approach that they're renowned for.

Thanks Buck - appreciate the reply, and that's great news.

The Vectors give cadence as well, so that should be fine, and I have a couple of Garmin HR straps, so that should also work fine.

Do people still record rides on their Garmin, or just stick to the TR software?

It's only a 1 month trial, and in all likelihood I will take out a years subscrition afterwards, as £68 for a year seems pretty good value, if it is as good as it's meant to be, so I will try one of the plans, with a mind to continuing beyond the trial.

buckmulligan

Ahh yes, of course the Vectors give cadence! The new TrainerRoad software is great compared to the older versions, so it should be a breeze to set all that up. If you have an ergo-trainer then you might want to set up their PowerMatch feature to use the data from the vectors to control the trainer resistance.

As for recording your data, I still use my Garmin as well. The TrainerRoad workout screen is good, but one annoyance for me is that the data fields aren't customisable at all. I use my Garmin as a secondary screen and have a page set up that shows a bunch of other useful stats, such as lap avg power, previous lap avg power, interval time elapsed, interval time remaining, total TSS, etc etc. Also, when you're halfway through a set of VO2 max intervals, I find staring downwards is marginally less demanding than staring straight ahead at the laptop so it's nice to have the Garmin there to keep an eye on my power output and time remaining!

Finally TR will auto-sync activities to TrainingPeaks, Strava and some others, but not to Garmin Connect; if you use GC as a training log you'll have to manually download each ride file from TR and upload to GC. As such, I just upload the file from my Garmin to keep a record of it.

daniel_b

Hi Buck,

that sounds like it should be abreeze in that case - famous last words!

I likely will not get to have a go at this until the weekend, but might try this evening ig i get a spare few minutes - hopefully it shouldn't take long.

I don't have a fancy trainer, just a reliable Elite Fluid gel one, which is enough for me at the moment, but good to know the facility is there.

That's a bit of an omission that you can't customise the display though.
Am I correct in thinking you can play a video behind the data as it were, and watch something whilst doing a work out?

Pretty excited to try this now, think it might well up my motivation for the rest of this year, and specifically in 7 months tie or so.

Do you use it pretty much all year round and do training plans the majority of the time?

Presumably they come in different lengths and are tailored to what you want to achieve, ie TT, hill climbing, racing, centuries etc etc

Guess I will find out in due course!

Thanks again.

markp80

Daniel B wrote:

Am I correct in thinking you can play a video behind the data as it were, and watch something whilst doing a work out

That's right. When you open a workout there's a button at the top of the window which says vertical, horizontal or video. You need to select horizontal, and the workout display will switch to a long thin format across the bottom of your display. Any film you're watching in vlc or mediaplayer will sit in the free display area above.
I run it on a laptop that's a good 8-10 years old and it all works fine. That includes a session this evening with an HD Sufferfests video, all was nice and smooth.

Cheers,
MarkP

daniel_b

Awesome, thankyou Mark. Hoping to get it setup at the weekend, and maybe even carry out an ftp test (I assume that's a blatantly clear workout?) So I can have a proper go Monday night.

Do you guys carry out an ftp test semi regularly to see how you are progressing?

markhewitt1978

Daniel B wrote:

Awesome, thankyou Mark. Hoping to get it setup at the weekend, and maybe even carry out an ftp test (I assume that's a blatantly clear workout?) So I can have a proper go Monday night.

Do you guys carry out an ftp test semi regularly to see how you are progressing?

It's pretty important to do one in the beginning then every few weeks after - just because doing an FTP test is a skill in itself. But you can decrease the frequency markedly after that as you will pretty much know where you are.

markp80

markhewitt1978 wrote:

Daniel B wrote:

Awesome, thankyou Mark. Hoping to get it setup at the weekend, and maybe even carry out an ftp test (I assume that's a blatantly clear workout?) So I can have a proper go Monday night.

Do you guys carry out an ftp test semi regularly to see how you are progressing?

It's pretty important to do one in the beginning then every few weeks after - just because doing an FTP test is a skill in itself. But you can decrease the frequency markedly after that as you will pretty much know where you are.

- and they're not very pleasant to do!

daniel_b

MarkP80 wrote:

markhewitt1978 wrote:

Daniel B wrote:

Awesome, thankyou Mark. Hoping to get it setup at the weekend, and maybe even carry out an ftp test (I assume that's a blatantly clear workout?) So I can have a proper go Monday night.

Do you guys carry out an ftp test semi regularly to see how you are progressing?

It's pretty important to do one in the beginning then every few weeks after - just because doing an FTP test is a skill in itself. But you can decrease the frequency markedly after that as you will pretty much know where you are.

- and they're not very pleasant to do!

But they are very useful.

I have done a couple before for the Time crunched training program, and one of the FTP options appears, at first glance, to be identical to that.

markhewitt1978

MarkP80 wrote:

- and they're not very pleasant to do!

I have such a fear of them I've never done one. There's always an excuse that my knee is hurting or my back is hurting so I can't go all out anyway

daniel_b

Signed up over the weekend, installed the software, and paired it with my hr strap and the Vectors, all seems to be reading correctly.

Will start with the Base layer Mid volume I - going to compress two of those days into one, as I have a longer period I can be on the bike on a Monday night, and then carry out two of the next three on Tuesday and Wednesday - I will also ditch what would be the weekend ride, and replace that with a 50 mile ride in the real world!

FTP tonight, looking forward to it, but know the result will be rubbish, still something to build on.