I’ve been a long term user of TrainerRoad, used it to go from <3w/kg to over 5w/kg.

Then my daughter arrived.

Since then, I’ve pretty much done little to no riding for the last two years, went back on TR around a month ago and I’m now down at 3.53w/kg. I’ve no aspirations to be racing again and can’t even commit to a regular club ride on the weekend, so I soon grew tired of TR after just a couple of weeks. I think it was because it seemed rather pointless peddling away in the garage for no real reason as I never get time to ride outside.

So, I thought I’d try zwift, signed up for the free 7 day trial, and did the first session of the cycling 101 yesterday. I was really underwhelmed by it though.

Maybe I shouldn’t be comparing it to TR, but it just didn’t make sense to me.

The programme was an introduction to power zones, but where it prescribed a given effort, it didn’t control my smart turbo to keep me at that level the same way as TR would, it appeared to not use ERG mode but stuck with slope mode. This meant that I was just looking at my power figure constantly trying to keep it around the target power, like I was riding a non-smart turbo. This then meant that I wasn’t really looking at the graphics etc. so all I could think was that it was like a poor version of TR.

I have a feeling I have missed the point here, and I’ve decided I’m going to give it a month to see if I get into it, perhaps it’ll be better if I join a group ride or something less structured where I’m not constantly watching the watts?

I can see that this is where zwift would beat TR in terms of maintaining an interest while I don’t have time to ride outside, but whats the deal with structured training on zwift?

TL;DR: Can zwift control a smart turbo in ERG mode to produce intervals the same way as TR?

No idea. And that’s maybe a key thing with zwift – I ride it as rides rather than as structured training ( plus races). I’ve been on it a year and only done one structured session. I suspect that a lot of the market are like me though to be fair a lot of people on it are in training sessions so it could be that you don’t have it set right.

Oh and congratulations on the birth of your daughter 😉 It will get easier and you’ll be out on the road

Yes.

You might have to turn it on manually the first time? https://support.zwift.com/en_us/-how-to-use-erg-mode-in-workouts-rklSxCkbH7

I’ve just come into it, I find it entertaining. I was on sufferfest and riding lots outdoors but an accident has stopped me really going for it until neck and back brace come off (6-8 weeks) so it is the closest I can come to riding outdoors and lets me ride along on the smart trainer. I like the way it alters resistance to make the courses seem uphill or downhill. The point for a lot of people seems to be the group rides/races (only done one group ride so will see how they go). The social side seems a key.

I’ve gone the other way, from Zwift to TR.

Yes, Zwift can use ERG mode to control the turbo but you have to turn it on in the workout settings.

I don’t see the point of Zwift over TR for following prescribed workouts if that was all you wanted to do.  I’d rather watch Netflix than watch an avatar pedal at a prescribed power.  However, if you’re not interested in structured training then TR is pointless and Zwift can be a good way of adding a bit of entertainment through variety in the courses or racing.

Yes.

You might have to turn it on manually the first time? https://support.zwift.com/en_us/-how-to-use-erg-mode-in-workouts-rklSxCkbH7

Aha, that is probably it, I’m struggling to get to grips with where all the settings are! I’ll give this a go.

I’ve gone the other way, from Zwift to TR.

Yes, Zwift can use ERG mode to control the turbo but you have to turn it on in the workout settings.

I don’t see the point of Zwift over TR for following prescribed workouts if that was all you wanted to do.  I’d rather watch Netflix than watch an avatar pedal at a prescribed power.  However, if you’re not interested in structured training then TR is pointless and Zwift can be a good way of adding a bit of entertainment through variety in the courses or racing.

I’m hoping to use if for structured stuff during the week, then maybe a social ride on a weekend. The main advantage is I can be in the garage with the baby monitor once my daughter is in bed, the range isn’t long enough on the monitor to be out in the hills!

I don’t see the point of Zwift over TR for following prescribed workouts if that was all you wanted to do.  I’d rather watch Netflix than watch an avatar pedal at a prescribed power.  However, if you’re not interested in structured training then TR is pointless and Zwift can be a good way of adding a bit of entertainment through variety in the courses or racing

I get a lot of Zwift riders telling me use it instead on TR as it’s more immersing, I completely get that for doing unstructured rides (although I actually prefer FulGaz) but for prescribed workouts I can be totally immersed in my interval not to need any other distractions than a bit of music.

For hard intervals, I totally agree, so if that’s all I used Zwift for then yes there would be no advantage. But it’s so much more versatile! On a similar note I really don’t get people who watch Netflix etc whilst doing intervals… tried it once then realised I had absolutely no clue what I’d just watched or what happened 😂 Although if I’m doing an easy Zwift group ride or something I might stick some Seinfelds on or something else I’ve already seen a million times

Ive been on zwift now for about 2 months and have to say i love it! i started just riding along, then did a couple of their workouts. But now i just love the group rides. I love riding along with others and trying to keep up with a group as motivation to keep going. As i’m pretty unfit i find myself being “on the rivet” for about an hour when staying with a 2kw group (if i drop off the back im gone). I do this a couple of times a week plus a real ride on the MTB at the weekend and thats probably as much a work out as ill ever need

I much prefer the sufferfest to zwift, I really don’t find 90’s level nintendo game graphics at all immersive, and if they want to do that the should “gamify” the training sessions to bring you into it more. The sufferfest do need to allow you train while watching netflix etc rather than just restricting you to their videos, especially for base and endurance workouts.

I subscribe to TR and Zwift.  I  create my TR workouts in the Zwift workout creator and ride them there.  I just cant bare watching numbers tick by.  I like Zwift’s interval arches, climbing the hills and passing other riders while I do my workouts.  I also do the odd race and sometimes even freeride – manly just up Alp du Zwift to see how hard it is. Personally, I’d find it impossible to get on TR and probably very hard to get on Zwift without some sort of overall goal for why I was doing it.  Neither is really fun enough to just ‘go for a ride’ on.  Having said all that though, if I had to pick one though I’d pick Zwift. You can make any workout you like and its less boring to look at.

used it to go from <3w/kg to over 5w/kg.

Blimey, you sure about that, as your 60min or ftp figure? 5.46w/kg is Frome’s figures so that would place you close to the elite of the elite.

You can, if you want to, mix things up and use both Zwift and another app. So.. you connect your smart trainer to Zwift using, either Bluetooth or ANT+ but not as a controllable trainer, so it’s simply reading the power from your trainer and, if you like, cadence and/or HR.

Then you connect the other app – SF, TR, WHY – as a controllable trainer using a different connection – the one you didn’t use for Zwift – and off you go. You can do your SF or TR intervals and amuse yourself, if you find it entertaining, by zooming past people in Zwift.

Yes, it’s utterly pointless, unless you believe that racking up Zwift kms or climbing metres has a point, but it can be done.

Talking of the gamification of Zwift, that seems to have hit a brick wall. Once you reach level 25, you just keep on racking up points with no increase in levels – no new jerseys, hats, or whatever – and once you’d done all three major challenges, that’s it. I get that some people don’t care, but how hard can it be to create a new major challenge with some sort of worthwhile prize and/or add some more jerseys, or whatever. Anyway…

It is odd what floats our different boats. My Zwift avatar is still wearing his original jersey and riding the zwift classic steel bike. I don’t really care what he looks like and figure the difference between different power meters in terms of what they report is so large and distort the race aspect so massively that the difference in virtual performance of the different bikes/wheels is pretty irrelevant.

Blimey, you sure about that, as your 60min or ftp figure? 5.46w/kg is Frome’s figures so that would place you close to the elite of the elite.

Ftp figure, 329watts when I was 64kg.

2 Ant+ dongles on one computer and it’ll run Zwift and TR on the minimal setting although mostly I use the phone or laptop for TR and Zwift on the creaky desktop.

I like the distraction of Zwift running and somtimes add in Netflix if it’s a longer less intense session.

I can happily ride around in Zwift putting some random efforts in up hills or on sprints or longer laps. Then some racing or TR sessions. Would rather be outside in daylight but that’s not compatible with life especially once the clocks change.

ZwiftPower keeps logging your level if you look at your profile so it goes beyond 25 not that gives you anything other than to prove you’ve done more than others.

Ftp figure, 329watts when I was 64kg.

Well, good work. Have you translated that to real world racing – with those sort of figures there won’t be many in this country who could keep with you on a climb.

329watts when I was 64kg.

If that’s 329 Watts with a power meter that’s pretty impressive. If it’s a wheel on turbo power then I remember being able to hold 310 Watts for an hr on my old elite. When I got my stages in reality I was around 240 Watts max!

It is odd what floats our different boats.

I just find it amusing., a bit like when I were a lad and we had a Barbie, sorry Action Man, and spent hours dressing him up a ballerina or a barista or a hotel bellhop. In reality, despite my vast choice of Zwift bikes, I pretty much always ride the Tron bike in camo with a ridiculous hair / beard combination – because I’m worth it 🙂

As far as power figures go, there are so many ridiculous w/kg figure floating around thanks to a combination of uncalibrated, inherently inaccurate trainer powers and people weight doping, that I don’t really believe anyone. I’m reasonably confident that my regularly calibrated Kickr isn’t too far out, but I take everyone else’s figures with substantial pinch of salt. It’s one of the reasons I can’t be arsed with Zwift racing.

Yep, combined with the fact that I can’t put out anything like the same power as outdoors any zwift race is kinda pointless. That’s using the same power meter for both

Fine for training and competing against yourself, or I guess I could just drop my zwift weight by 15 kg.

Yep, combined with the fact that I can’t put out anything like the same power as outdoors any zwift race is kinda pointless. That’s using the same power meter for both

Interesting – I’m exactly the other way around. Same bike, same power meter (Neo smart trainer but I use my power2max cranks for the power reading) and I’m crap on zwift in comparison to the really world. I did a 45 min climb in Greece last week on holiday with an average power 40watts higher than my ftp calculated indoors. And that was in the middle of a 4hr ride with a shed load of other climbing  – I could have gone harder. It might have only been 45mins rather than an hour but pretty confident by on road ftp that days was not a lot lower and appreciably higher than what I can produce indoors.

I find the training plans or just riding a different course on zwift just as boring as sat on an old turbo trainer after 10 minutes or so .. for me the selling point of zwift is the races; thats what keeps me from getting bored on it.

FTP of 329w for a 64kg person is elite for sure.

Power figures are only ever relative to yourself using the same power meter. I only mention it to highlight the drop in fitness, not to willy wave or start a debate about measurements. I was usually top 10% on local road climbs on Strava at the time. Regularly got overtaken going down and couldn’t sprint for a poo.

I’m exactly the other way around. Same bike, same power meter (Neo smart trainer but I use my power2max cranks for the power reading) and I’m crap on zwift in comparison to the really world.

You read wrongly! You are exactly the same as me.. I’m around 10% lower indoors which seems to be the norm doing a bit of research online. Obviously if using the power from the turbo it may be different but I use stages for both

Also about 10% under indoors generally, that’s using a left only pm with a wheel-on dumb trainer.

Just switched to a Kickr and sacked off the Stages so will be interesting to see any differences

You read wrongly!

I is stoopid. Glad I sound like I am normal on power production though. I think I have also noticed that the time it takes me to get properly warmed up and comfortable is getting longer with age. It takes an hour on the bike or a mille of swimming before things feel good and I get the maximum out of myself.