MegaSack DRAW - This year's winner is user - rgwb
We will be in touch
Is training peaks the most used and preferred? It's the one I've heard most about, wondered if it was because it has more features for coaches to share training plans and comments with clients. Heard of one called Golden Cheetah as well, is anyone using this? I want to be able to look through data for analysing and planning training sessions for myself.
Depends what analysis you want to do.
WKO is probably the daddy in terms of features for analysis. It's a PC app by the people who do Training Peaks.
Training Peaks web app is kind of a WKO lite, it has some of the basic features and is built on the same key concepts (from the Allen & Coggan book) and it's all cloud based.
Golden Cheetah is a free open source analysis tool, much like WKO. It use to use the Allen & Coggan metrics but there's been a recent spat and it's all being re-worked around new metrics. It's got some extra stuff too like Aerolab which is meant to be good for field testing of drag.
Todays Plan is quite a new one on the scene. They've tied up with Team Sky on the sponsorship. Not really looked into it.
Might be worth having a look at PerfProStudio too.
FWIW I use Training Peaks. Does as much as I need for analysis of sessions, and with the calendar and the Performance Management Chart for planning. If I had the time I'd like to explore the WKO tools.
I use Strava for basic power and Golden Cheetah for aerolab (which is rather nice, but not hard to replicate in any stats software). I also use the rather powerful bespoke software from Isaac, and SAS for my more wilder fancies - such as algorithms for predicting power.
To be honest, a basic power curve along with training impulse on Strava will get you most of the way to what you are looking for. I think you have to be a premium member for this functionality.
Training Peaks here as well (premium), would love to try WKO but not sure I have the time to dig into it enough to justify the outlay.
Which is a timely reminder to take a look a Golden Cheetah...
Golden Cheetah and TP have had a falling out so terminology has changed and no batch download to GC.
The GC importer is also garbage.
Exported all my rides from Strava and tried to import into GC at which point it freezes and dies.
Turns out its something to do with date stamping of the files or some nonsense.
Anyway, end result was GC only stayed on my PC for a few days.
Yet another case of 'you get what you pay for'
^ Very true however my interest in analysis also wasn't that long lived. I found that no matter how much I looked at my data the only thing that helped me improve was to train and race harder.