TrainerRoad – STW approved sessions

Even having done a lot of road cycling I get the problems with staying seated for so long. Round here the roads are very much up and down rolling sort of terrain so you’ll often get out of the saddle for a few pedal strokes when pushing over a steep rise.

I’m on the third week of SSBLV1 and the last workout I only had to get out of the saddle once due to discomfort whereas in the previous weeks I’d be out of the saddle quite regularly after about half an hour. So it does get better but it’s not a quick thing.

The virtual power on TR is a really easy way of getting into turbo training – I used that to begin with and it worked great in terms of getting me on the intervals. It was also quite accurate – the main inaccuracy on my turbo was drift. As the turbo heats up the resistance falls and the virtual power calculation cannot account for that, so intervals get easier than they should over time. It’s not a huge effect though, and varies according to the turbo you have.

Recollect I used to find an hour on the turbo uncomfortable on the aris, and am fine now, so there is an element of just getting used to it. Do experiment with the saddle, though, and don’t try and persevere through prolonged numbness as that shouldn’t happen.

You are allowed to get out of the saddle. They suggest not for the ramp test though.
I think they got Jonathan at TR to do it wth standing and without and he got pretty much the same result anyway.

Decent shorts are better. Bibs especially. Liners tend to move around too much.

Definately do the base. Plenty of V02 stuff mixed into it now. I look at Build and think how the am I going to get through some of those!

I have to get out of the saddle every 30 mins or so in order to stay comfortable. One thing I have noticed though is as my core strength is improving it is becoming less of an issue as I am able to hold my pelvis in a better position with good contact on my sit bones but as I get tired I have a tendency to slide forward on the bike.

Awful session last night. Was out for a work do night before and had a few pints. Got on the bike after work did the first 12 min threshold effort, started the second and just had no power what so ever! I rarely drink these days but felt jaded all day and the legs felt terrible. Will give it a rest today before hitting a fresh ride tomorrow. Have a bit of a cold too so that might affect it.

Eclipse today. Ninety minutes with three twenty minute efforts at Sweet Spot – Eeek!

@robbo1234biking I really struggle with the turbo when tired/hungover. Tend to ride outside when I can if feeling ropey so the endorphins carry me through more!

Was a bit jaded myself today so couldn’t face the planned angel adams-1, did Megantic + something instead- similar tss but a bit less daunting

Eclipse sounds horrible!

I had Eclipse a week or so ago, last 20 was a real struggle ended up taking a few % off to get through it…cadence had dropped right off which is fatal with ERG

Thankfully sweetspot efforts are far more manageable with a hangover than the threshold and VO2 efforts coming soon…

I actually found the second interval hardest. Looking at my figures I think it was because the suggested cadence was lower by about 5rpm than during the last interval. I also missed most power targets during the second interval.

It’s worth going through each workout analysing power, cadence and HR (if you are recording that) for each interval and working out what works and what doesn’t for you. I’m just using a Minoura wheel-on turbo so no ERG mode so my power “fluctuates” as the wheel slips ever so slightly under load so I’ve got to account for that.

I’ve got my first over-under (Warlow) coming up next week. Not sure if I’m looking forward to it or not, definitely a bit different from the mainly sweet spot workouts up to now.

Followed this thread for a couple of years. Back on TR and determined to stick with it this time. Disappointing FTP Ramp Test about 10% down on a year ago and a lot down on my best of 4 years ago but did Baxter today and looking forward to SSBLV1. Aiming for at least 4w/kg again.

Warlow is a decent re-introduction to unders/overs, you’ll probably have Palisade next week where it gets a little tougher.

Just finished Sweetspot base 1, easy week coming up then onto base 2 where things start moving more towards the higher end of sweetspot and eventually a threshold focus.

Had a better weekend. Got up at 5 on Saturday to do Antelope and did pretty well consider lack of pre-fuelling. Had an issue in each of the last two intervals with the trainer where my cadence dropped and the trainer just dropped the power. I think I confused it and then it wouldn’t go back up again no matter how fast I spun! Had to stop completely and then start pedalling again.

Then did Petit yesterday.

@Haze – yes, I’m doing Sweet Spot Base 1 low volume so this week the long workout is Warlow and Palisade is next week’s. Looks like I’m two or three weeks behind you.

@teamslug – I wouldn’t say that Ramp Test result was disappointing – if you’ve focussed on other things then it’s bound to be lower, mine dropped a similar amount but it’s four years since I was on TR and back then it was the 8min and 20min tests so slightly different protocol. I suspect that my mix of riding has kept it fairly high.

I’m currently just under 3W/kg, realistically I think I’ll be able to get to 3.5W/kg, anything above that is likely to be chasing FTP gains just for the sake of it. There’s this thread https://forum.trainerroad.com/t/the-bell-curve-of-cylists-how-fast-are-the-average-tr-users/5840/124 on the TR forums where they’ve analysed the power to weight of their users (obviously weight is self-reported). For my age group (60+) I’m around the 85th percentile, 3.5W/kg would put me around the 95th percentile and 4W/kg is the 99th. There’s no mention of actual numbers in those graphs but since that equates to their subscribers it’s not surprising but from other bits TR have put out I think their user base is in the low tens of thousands.

Looks like I’m two or three weeks behind you.

You could well catch up if you’re following it religiously, I tend to follow the workouts in order but fit them into a 3 weeks on/1 week off schedule.

I’m already noticing some gains with strength/muscle endurance.

I have seen big gains this year in the 8 weeks since doing Trainerroad (mid-September). I would say up by between 10-20% on my power curve (apart from sprint power as I haven’t done any of that really yet – it also isn’t something I am interested in particuarly). This is for the first 9 months of the year (which consisted of Zwift training plans – Gran Fondo and Academy) versus the 8 weeks of TrainerRoad. I would add my Powergrpah to show the difference but it is a bit off a ballache on here.

Warlow today – should have been yesterday but I’d postponed Geiger from Wednesday to yesterday due to being away and shifting rather a lot of stone by hand. The over/unders felt quite a bit different to the variations on Sweet Spot that most of the workouts have been up to now and which seem to suit me. At least the overs were just a minute not the two minutes that next week’s Palisade will inflict!

Ah but at least Palisade is 5% less!

Never noticed this thread before! think I’d better say hello as I’m a trainer road fanboi.
I came back to tr after dabbling in it last year and early this year. I managed to get to 291 FTP in may.(it was higher on zwift but I’m not counting that)
Had a ramp test a few weeks ago at 242 so I started from beginning and re tested today at 263. Going to hit the general build low volume next and see where that takes me. Feel pretty excited to see some of the horrendous workouts like Spanish needle I have coming up.
Massive podcast fan of theirs too. Listen to it every week on the commute

My first ramp test gave 241W which was down a bit from the 265W of a couple of years ago when I was last on TR. Quite surprised I’d lost so little. Nearing the end of SSBLV1 so I’ll have another ramp test in a couple of weeks.

The podcasts are interesting – only came across them when I signed up for this session – been doing a bit of cramming in going over the old episodes.

If you want to see a nightmare plan have a look at the maintenance plans under speciality -> enthusiast, Spanish Needle is one of the easiest!!!!

Treated myself to a direct drive trainer yesterday. Have got an Elite Direto now. Tomorrow will have a play around in Zwift with the free 25k and do a new ramp test to see how off my tacx flow was! Then continue with SSBLV2.

Robbo123. You now have and previously had exactly same set up as me. Had my direto for 18 months or so and I reckon the tacx was about 10% overestimating. Only issue I have had is that when doing short intervals such as Spanish needle I turn off erg mode as the trainer can’t keep up with the rapid changes but I think a lot smart trainers have the same problem.

My FTP on the tacx flow was 254w. On the Direto it was 247w. I think I was due an FTP bump in any case as I was starting to bump the intensity on the last couple of sets of workouts. It is amazing how quiet it is and being able to stay in gear because it doesn’t have a narrow wattage range like the flow is amazing.

I’ve got the elite directo too. What gearing are you guys using for it? I’ve only really used it for long interval stuff and no microbursts. I think I’ve got a 38 on the front and worried it won’t be big enough

In ERG mode it’ll be fine with that gear.

I find the same on Taylor which is 30seconds rather than 15 but leave it as in reality it gets there quick enough. I never hit the avg wattage target for the interval but if you look at the data I get 29 or 30 seconds at the wattage it’s just 3 seconds after the start and end of the interval.

Treated myself to a Tacx Vortex

Did “Carson” using Erg mode last night for a 1 hour session.

It was **** brutal. There is nowhere to hide.

I’ve asked some of this on another thread but it seems more appropriate here.

Couple of things I noticed, for a given power output it feels easier in a higher gear I suspect this is down to the flywheel helping a bit. The cadence readings don’t seem as steady as when I used separate speed and cadence sensors on the dumb trainer.

During the second interval, where there was some out of the saddle sections it felt like I fell into a low cadence hole – the app told me to aim for 75, when I stood up this dropped down to the low 60’s then the cadence readout got really choppy and the resistance felt all over the place. I sat back down and really had to dig myself to get the cadence back up to 80 where it felt tolerable again.

The next interval with out the saddle section I held a higher cadence and had less of an issue

Its probably a couple of things – Shite techinique while standing but also I don’t think the cadence on the Vortex is that great

Standing and pedalling on a turbo is really awkward as the bike doesn’t move in the way that it does outdoors, this may also be a bio-mechanical problem on my part.

I did Carson a couple of weeks ago and it wasn’t that bad, certainly my notes don’t indicate anything untoward. If you are doing Sweet Spot Base LV then your next workout will be Eclipse which is a similar load. It might be that riding in Sweet Spot is hard for you, don’t know without more info.

Not sure why the cadence sensor on the Vortex should be erratic, can you use the speed/cadence sensor at the same time but attached to a different head unit and compare the two?

I think the standing sections really took it out of me, it felt like I was battling the bike and my heart rate shot up. I did a ramp test the day before and got a higher FTP which won’t have made things easier either!

I suspect I’m not very good a long sweet spot intervals – I’ve never done any long interval training before, all my riding is MTB.

Yes Eclipse is next, those 20 minute intervals at 88-94% FTP look like fun!

Not sure why the cadence sensor on the Vortex should be erratic

It’s estimating your cadence by measuring the ‘dead spots’ in your pedal stroke:

My experience with this (on a tacx flux) was that it works quite well with ‘normal’ pedalling, but anything really slow or really fast would throw it off quite a bit. Using a separate cadence sensor fixed this.

Cheers for that, really good explanation in that video.

I’ve got a Wahoo cadence sensor anyway as I was using it on the dumb trainer. I’ll pair it instead of relying on the Tacx Vortex

Yes, there’ll always be one of the zones/workout types that you struggle with. Sweet Spot is meant to be “fairly” hard but not so hard that you can’t recover quickly from it (or at least that’s the TR blurb about it). It might be the steady state aspect of the longer intervals that’s the problem for you rather than the actual intensity. If that’s the case then there’s no reason why you can’t put a one minute rest period in to each interval maybe towards the back part or as long as you can cope.

Presumably you took the ramp test to match you and the turbo

You get used to sweet spot – under/overs are worse. I am about halfway through SSBLV2 now and some of those early ones don’t seem to bad. You can recover quickly from ost of the workouts though. I did 4 x 10min FTP intervals last night (cant remember what the workout was called) and got up at 5 this morning and did a fasted 1 hour endurance ride without any issue. I am always surprised at how quickly I feel OK after nearly dying on the bike!

Use the external cadence sensor I find they are more stable.

Yeah ramp test was needed for the new turbo.

I don’t mind that the efforts are hard. I got myself really out of shape so I know its going to hurt a bit. 3 weeks in I already feel a bit stronger and I’m 2kg lighter – although I know that initial weight loss is a one off from going from couch to trainer.

Palisade today. I’d pushed it back from last Friday as I’d had a cold last week, glad I did as I’d probably be in hospital now if I hadn’t! Wasn’t too bad apart from the last set of over/unders where the cumulative fatigue began to tell. I still made all the power outputs but I wouldn’t have wanted a sixth set.

This is meant to be my recovery week at the end of Sweet Spot Base Low Volume 1. I replaced Pettit with Palisade because I felt I needed the workout. The rest of the week will be easy then it’s the ramp test at the start of SSBLV2 next Monday.

What are peoples favourite taper week workouts? I’m not followin the CX plan really but its thursday taper is San Joaquin -5, which I don’t really fancy. I’m thinking I’ll either do Scott peak -1 or maybe Dorr, but looking for other options.

This mornign I did Silverthrone which was a nice one to do with legs still tired from Sunday’s race. Always think it’s a nice workout for tired legs. I’ll either do 30 mins easy spinning tomorrow (Dans) or have a complete break…probably the latter.

I did spencer + 2 this morning. 10 weeks ago I would have looked at that and thought no way can I do 6 sets of 3 minutes at 120% ftp. I still thought that this morning to be fair but once I got into it it wasn’t so bad. I bumped the last set by 3%.

Was a 5 am workout pre work so was kind of fasted. I had a big bowl of shreddies before bed and then a banana during the warm up and a gel after the 3rd set to fuel me. Seemed to work.

This week has been my recovery week at the end of SSB1 so yesterday was Bald Knob (fnarr! fnarr!) and today was Brasstown. A bit of fun yesterday as I’d a slow puncture in my rear tyre – how do you get a puncture on a turbo trainer???? It meant that my power was all over the place, fortunately today’s workout went a little more smoothly.

The recovery workouts/rides feel quite hard work – they are more like traditional “sit and spin” turbo sessions rather than the more targeted intervals in other workouts so today was basically sit somewhere around 70% FTP for a solid 75 minutes!! I could not do the traditional base plans.

You’d be suprised what you begin to normalise after a few years. Extending hour sessions to 1hr 1/2 is now the norm. That though would have been reiculous 2 years ago. Getting through the full 90 minutes to 2 hour sessions was a chore.

BUt no the traditional base plan looks a step too far. You’d need an awful lot of freetime too! Which would be used outside for me,

Second ramp test today (for the start of SSBLV2) and I saw a mahoosive increase of ONE WATT!!!!!!!!

Next up is Ebbetts, the last time I did this was four years ago and my FTP was 10W lower. Looking at the rest of SSBLV2 I’ve only done about half the workouts before, some with an FTP 10W lower and some with it 25W higher. Could be interesting.

Anyone making much use of the ‘rideoutdoors function in TR? I hopr to buy a power meter and then try and stick more rigourously to the plans next year by making use of it. My garmin is old and so I dont think I can ‘psuh’ workouts to it, but so long as I make a note of the durationsa and power i hope I’ll be ok

Had an email today regarding the new custom plan builder. What do people think? Just coming to the end of SSBLV1 and wondering if it’s worth giving it a try.

I have used it to plan my year up to mountain mayhem. It seemed to work OK. I selected intermediate for the experience at first and it put me as doing SSBLV 1 & 2 but I have just completed them so I changed it to advanced. I have a partial repetition of SSB and the. I go into the build and speciality phases. it does truncate the plans to your events so certainly helps with that aspect rather than the previous approach of requiring 28 weeks before a plan starts.