Trainer Road jacking prices – alternatives?

In case it’s passed anyone by Trainer Road is upping prices in $22/month (presumably plus vat?) from august 4th. I do use it twice a week so I may hang but but it does seem a bit steep now.

I basically use it to train for specific weekends / holidays. I just stick a date in and tell it ‘make me a plan’, invariably i go away or can’t do a workout and then it auto updates. Is there a (cheaper) alternative that does the same thing? Maybe the wahoo thing?

Just want it to control my kickr etc. Don’t want / need the whole gamified thing (e.g. zwift) as I have a massive telly set up in front of the trainer so I use it to catch up on youtube videos whilst I ride.

I think Trainerday is the closest cheapest alternative to Trainerroad. I’ve never used it but heard it is decent.

trainerday.com/

Off the top of my head there’s also JOIN and I think My Whoosh might even be free but is funded by Saudi oil money so maybe put your virtual hard-hat on before admitting using it to anyone on social media. I think there’s also one called Athletica AI but I have no knowledge of what it’s like at all.

I didn’t realise TR was going up in price. I’ll probably stick with it but I ditched Zwift when they upped it even though I really like the racing on it.

Yeah email went out yesterday. They blamed inflation, but presumably it’s actually just a reaction to zwift upping prices and maximising returns!

Will look at trainerday

I use Trainer day having used trainer road back in the day. I’m a very infrequent user so didn’t want to spend much.

For the moment it’s good. And very personal – the guy that runs/owns/operates it answers questions in the forum, sends emails etc. That’ll change in time as the big boys price themselves out of the not too serious user parker and more and more more to trainer day and the like.

Garmin Edge has built in workouts if you set the activity profile to “trainer”

Just want it to control my kickr etc. Don’t want / need the whole gamified thing (e.g. zwift) as I have a massive telly set up in front of the trainer so I use it to catch up on youtube videos whilst I ride.

GoldenCheetah used to be the only PC based way of doing it if you can be bothered with the learning curve of both the software and creating your own training plans. Garmins and I presume others now can do it via the head unit (I presume there’s an easier way to create the workouts than on the tiny screen though).

MyWoosh is the new, free, funded by petrostate sportwashing, Zwift alternative, I’ve not tried it yet but I presume there’s an ERG mode with training plans? You could always run it on a phone with something else on the TV

[edit]

is funded by Saudi oil money

Neither Fred, Velma, Shaggy or Saudi fund it but Abu Dhabi doo.

Wahoo SYSTM has great library of workouts with accompanying videos and music. But the plan builder is quote simple and there’s no adaptive training or updating when you miss workouts.

XERT is only 9.99 a month and offers most of what you’re after, I got a free trial but didn’t get anything useful out of it because the weather turned nice and I didn’t have a power meter on my outdoor bike,

Think I might park TR on next renewal – like it a lot but the intervals that really move the needle on fitness for me are dead simple. Just threshold blocks and basic VO2 max stuff for TTing. I’ve not used the zwift workout builder but surely I could put these together very easily. The adaptive training is good, but also quite simplistic – having gone through it a couple of times you know how to manage progression yourself.

Xert is good and much cheaper than Xert, but has a steep learning curve to find your way around it.

The forum is generally pretty good at helping you along, and support are pretty good at replying to issues/queries.

I’ve used it for the last 18months, but am probably gonna ditch it this month as I am concentrating on training for a half-marathon so the running is taking over a bit.

For me its a real shame that Zwift’s training functionality is so poor as if it was even just halfway as good as say Trainerroad or some of the others I would for sure opt for Zwift as my one-stop platform for virtual racing and training and there would be no contest.

It sounds nuts but half the reason I use Trainerroad is purely because of their calendar functionality which I find really intuitive and helpful when planning my weeks.

Think I might park TR on next renewal – like it a lot but the intervals that really move the needle on fitness for me are dead simple. Just threshold blocks and basic VO2 max stuff for TTing. I’ve not used the zwift workout builder but surely I could put these together very easily. The adaptive training is good, but also quite simplistic – having gone through it a couple of times you know how to manage progression yourself.

Exactly this for me , I build my own workouts in TrainingPeaks (Premium) focusing on steady progression through blocks…dead easy to copy a workout for the following session and edit it in the calendar.

Maybe Zwift and TR would benefit from offering Lite and Premium levels for potential subscribers who don’t want all the bells and whistles.

I have no interest in thier workout libraries, plans, group rides, racing, analysis, AI or unlocks etc, I just want an environment to ride my own workouts in that might keep me engaged and sat on the trainer for longer (Zwift was great for this).

I’d paused my subscription for a few months for the summer prior to the increase. I tend to usually only do a small number of workouts anyway, so think I may be better just devising workouts on Garmin connect and sending to Garmin head unit to follow. Anyone do this?

From what I gather, as a business they’re funded by theri reenue rather than VC stuff or the stock market. I believe them when they say the’re upping prices so that they can pay their staff appropriately while building new features.

I’m really interested to hear people’s thoughts about the other platforms. The last time I looked around was a few years ago and none of the others seemed to get the basics right for me. Would like to see who else has a nice simple, fucntional calendar that lets me choose whether to do my intervals inside or outside.

Is it me, I just find it hard to justify $22 a month on this when I can get a local gym membership for £10 more? Guess its horses dor courses.

“Is it me, I just find it hard to justify $22 a month on this when I can get a local gym membership for £10 more? Guess its horses dor courses.”

Yeah – the reason i use it is because I can just jump on the bike at lunchtime and do my workout – do this twice a week all year round. Keeps me relatively bike fit – otherwise when I get outside once in a while (very young kids!) I just die! Can’t do that with a gym.

Yeah, I’m also happy to pay more than a gym membership for the convenience. Also dislike gyms!