Hi,
Last year I started using the turbo for training - I used Sufferfest videos and gauged my perceived effort in my head.
This year I want to start using stats to make me work harder. I understand I need Ant+ and speed/cadence sensor BUT is that enough to go with the Sufferfest videos? I'm assuming I must need some kind of programme to tell me my power output e.g. Virtual Power on TrainerRoad. Where would I get this from without signing up to TrainerRoad?
Cheers for any help...
The trainer road set up is very good and has the workouts for Sufferfest mapped, give it a go for free for a month and see what you think. I found a couple of open source alternatives but nothing quite worked right.
I use TrainerRoad and have done for 2 years now. Its great.
You could use Zwift which I know a few people are using.
If not, I have a TacxFlow which has a power meter on it, so I assume you would need something similar.
I just use this for my indoor training
The Trainerroad virtual power data is their own work and I doubt it's available anywhere else as it's one of their selling points.
I don't know if anyone else has done similar characterisation of turbo trainers.
You could use Golden Cheetah which has a similar virtual power function and is free.
All it is really doing though is converting wheel speed to an estimated power number. So given a specific resistance setting you could work out your 20 min speed and ranges based on that. You can often get power to speed curves for your trainer from the manufacturers web sites too.
TrainerRoad is very good though, I've used it for a few years now, though with a real power meter.
The numbers that each system comes up with aren't too dissimilar.
I've an old turbo trainer and no power meter so have gone on their (TrainerRoad) estimated/virtual power curves. The last time I did a TrainerRoad FTP test which was probably March of this year I got a value of 226. At the weekend I was riding and one of the guys had a power meter on his bike, whereas I had Strava's estimated power output for post ride analysis. On one climb of just under 30 minutes, this guy said he sat at 230 - 240 Watts. I just about kept up with him but lost about 35 seconds and Strava estimated my power output as an average of 232 Watts.
So it seems that for reasonable road surfaces and benign weather conditions Strava's algorithm for calculating power isn't too far out.
Cheers all for the responses. I reckon I'll take a months free sub to TrainerRoad and go from there. If for any reason it does not work for me I can try the suggested free versions...