Garmin WTF – Tacx Cloud gone?

Turbo training season has just started. I’ve got a Tacx trainer and use the Tacx Training app, which had any accompanying website called “Tacx Cloud” which is used to build your own workouts – and it had a really nice, fast graphical interface to do this. I had a “library” of loads of workouts I’d created which I could browse in the Tacx training app and call up really quickly.

I’ve just discovered Garmin (who bought Tacx a few years ago) killed Tacx Cloud about six months ago without notifying users in advance AND deleted all their data. No email and no announcements that I am aware of. It probably wasn’t a coincidence that it was timed for the end of the turbo training season for most users….

Anyway, Garmin’s “solution” is a crappy UI in Connect to create workouts which you have to add to your Connect calendar to sync with Tacx Training.

Whilst that in itself is less slick, my main issue is that the workouts are based on absolute power numbers now, rather than as percentages of FTP (eg I prefer workouts based a percentage of my FTP so that I don’t have to “re-build” the workout when my FTP improves [or plummets!])

So:

(a) I’m pissed off at Garmin at HOW they went about this without giving users a chance to export their data first

(b) I’m pissed off with the inferior solution they’ve foisted on users

But

(c) Does anyone know of a method to get .zwo files into Tacx Training? (I’d be quite happy to use ZWO Creator to create/maintain a library of workouts)

I’ve just discovered Garmin (who bought Tacx a few years ago) killed Tacx Cloud about six months ago without notifying users in advance AND deleted all their data. No email and no announcements that I am aware of. It probably wasn’t a coincidence that it was timed for the end of the turbo training season for most users….

I had probably half a dozen emails over the space of 6 months with various levels of urgency and doom and gloom about the death of tacx cloud (and a couple of other tacx facilities that i wasn’t using anyway). That was probably 2 years ago? I guess they stopped after i did all the stuff they asked…

You’ve either unsubscribed at some point (as i have now with zwift, the mails they send me are getting beyond a joke!) or they are buried 2000 mails ago in your junk mail folder/deleted items.

The removal of training plans/Tacx cloud was repeatedly made to anyone actually using Tacx.

You can create workouts using % of FTP in Garmin Connect and these will appear in Tacx.

Nope – I’ve just checked my emails. Nothing in my inbox about terminating Tacx Cloud (and I don’t routinely delete emails).

Nearest I got is an email telling me to use my Garmin ID and password to log into Tacx. Maybe I was somehow un-subscribed or wasn’t actively using Tacx during this notification window (I only use the trainer when the weather is truely shite and if this was two years ago, I may have been using Zwift at the time??)

Anyway, what’s done is done, I guess.

@scotroutes – I missed that Connect can use %FTP so that’s helpful but it’s still laborious to create workouts compared to ZWO Creators more visual methodology…

I found this https://whatsonzwift.com/convert/workouts which would allow me to use ZWO Creator to design the workout as a .ZWO file and then convert it to a .fit file – but the power values would be absolute rather than %FTP. Grrrr

Ultimately, I’m torn between IndieVelo and Tacx Training for this winter.

IndieVelo allows .ZWO files to be imported with %FTP (though it’s still clunky as I run it on an Android phone) but IndieVelo makes my phone very hot and stutters a lot. Not sure why yet. But it doesn’t update my training status in Connect (EDIT: even after manually exporting a .fit file from IV and importing to Connect)

Tacx Training will update the training status but the clumsy workout creation in Connect seems a deal breaker to me at the moment

I don’t find it clumsy, but I do wish it was possible to share workouts with others. It’s likely possible by sending the relevant workout file to my watch then using something like Windows File Manager to make a copy of the .FIT file, send it via messaging of some sort and then have the end user upload it via File Manager again. Bloody long-winded though.

I’m curious why you’d want to share workouts as they won’t “work” for the other person unless they have the same weight and FTP as you (presuming these are power-based workouts….)

As you say, there are other types of workouts.

Update: I’ve discovered that I can import .ZWO files into Intervals.icu as a scheduled workout which will sync with Garmin Connect which then syncs with the Garmin Training app.

So, workflow is

1. Create a workout in ZWO Factory (or clone one of their templates and adjust as needed)

2. Download .ZWO

3. In intervals.ico, import said .ZWO file as a scheduled workout

4. Garmin sync occurs

5. Log into Garmin Training app on relevant day and launch my workout…

6. Do workout

7. Garmin Training uploads activity to Connect (can view Training Status, Load Focus, VO2 max etc and any improvements to FTP feed back to Garmin Training so future workouts adjusted accordingly)

8. Connect uploads to Strava and Strava applies ludicrous “Athlete Intelligence” guff to activity…

Theoretically.

Nothing in my inbox about terminating Tacx Cloud (and I don’t routinely delete emails).

If it was flagged as junk, would it have autodeleted? I know most of my mail services delete from junk after a couple of weeks or so, then are deleted a month later.

Nearest I got is an email telling me to use my Garmin ID and password to log into Tacx.

It was about the same time period.

I’m usually pretty good at checking my junk mail folder periodically but who knows. Curiously, I searched thru DCRainmakers website as he’s normally on top of stuff like this but nothing.

If you dig around, there’s an item in the US Garmin Support pages about the switch off which happened on Aug 24th (which is probably when most northern hemisphere users wouldn’t have been paying attention…)

I cannot recreate my slope based workouts for my TACX NEO 2 because after contacting support they said it is no longer supported.

They recommend I log a product enhancement request… how about they dont remove something that I was already using successfully !!

So now looking for a nice simple alternative Windows 11 desktop based app that can control my TACX NEO 2, any recommendations ?

I’m curious. What is a “slope based workout”?

AHave you tried Auuki.com?

slope based workouts to simulate hill climbs and whizzing downhill as well 🙂

found this video shows how it used to look to be able to create slope based workouts – https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=2xO31bYFhs0

skip to 4:20 and mute the audio 🙂

but now there is no way to create or even run existing slope based workouts in the tacx app…

that does look good thanks 🙂 I’ll give it a test

I’m confused. Given that the only thing the trainer can do is increase the resistance, surely a “slope based workout” is just one where the resistance is harder for a while, then gets to zero, then increases again? I understand that means you don’t get “free” downhill miles but I’m failing to otherwise see the difference.

I know it’s  also possible to simulate any real hill by uploading a GPX track and riding to that. Would that not give you the same result?