I'm using Inride with Trainerroad and found the power #'s seem a bit different this week too. Hitting my FTP last week during long intervals wasn't too much of a struggle. This week, I'm killing myself to hit my FTP. Ever since the update.

Question: Is it possible to have TR output both virtual power, AND real power from a power meter for a particular session? I have a KK road machine and I'm looking to install a power meter at the end of this week prior to re-testing FTP.

My virtual FTP is 294. I'd like to see 2 metrics following the test, a) my new, actual FTP with the power meter, and b) my new, virtual FTP that I can compare with 294 to gauge improvement. If I just see the real power number I won't have any idea if I've improved over the past 6 weeks. And no, I don't want to do the 20 minute test twice. Thanks!

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Strava

I was in a similar situation as i just got a power2max installed on my tri bike and re-tested my FTP yesterday.

Previously i was using virtual power with a Wahoo Speed and Cadence Sensor on my KK Road Machine.

My virtual power FTP was 296 and yesterday did the 20min FTP test with my power2max and got 286. I did four weeks of build between the tests so im actually quite surprised my actual power FTP was that close to the virtual FTP. I did probably gain a few watts over the four week build, but even so my 286 FTP on actual power was 96.6% of the virtual power FTP. Pretty neat stuff.

To answer your question, you could run TR using virtual power and if you have a bike computer you could record the 20min test using that for actual power and then compare the two.

Im interested to see your variance.

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https://www.strava.com/athletes/4391866

This. But make sure you multiply [20min segment power] * 0.95 so it will match the new TR estimate for FTP. Or you could just look at the ratio of average power from PM to average virtual power over that period and adjust accordingly.

Looks like we are in the exact same situation - I will also be installing a P2Max when it arrives. I'm running a gator skin on my rear tire and twist the knob 3 turns after contact. I'm hoping my results are similar to yours! Coming off the TR Base II and will retest late next week. I'll follow up and let you know how it goes.

I have a Garmin 500 but I only got it last fall and used it just a couple of times before hibernating indoors for the winter - is it easy to calculate average power over a certain interval from the raw power data? I also have trainingpeaks if that can do the analysis for me. I'll google and see what I come up with.

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Strava

 
Thanks, I just analyzed my last 20 min test in TP and I think this will be easy. It lets you select a certain segment and averages the power over that segment. My virtual 20 min power was 310 which matches up to my virtual FTP of 294. I'll let you all know how the 3x turn on the KK road machine and gator skin setup compares to my real power.

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Strava

Sounds good, looking forward to seeing the data.

I was pleasantly surprised as I was going into the FTP test with real power expecting a 20%ish variance from virtual power.

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https://www.strava.com/athletes/4391866

A birdie told me that the new plans (half, full, oly and sprint) will be available by the end of the week.

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Pain is temporary.

I hope so. 2 weeks left on my build and needing the full one to take me to the finish. That would be perfect timing for me.

yeah we have been waiting for olympic for a while, and now would be a good time... but good stuff is worth waiting for of course!!!

I just reviewed Coach Chad's sprint/oly/half/full plans this evening. I have a few questions for him but they are looking good! At the shorter distances they are threshold with a little VO2 max and some endurance, then as it goes up they are more threshold, sweet spot and endurance...just as they should be ;).

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CEO at TrainerRoad
Co-host of the Ask a Cycling Coach Podcast

Exciting !

So pardon if this is a dumb question ---- but why cant I use this outdoors if I have an ANT+ dongle for my iPhone?

I understand that performance might degrade: http://support.trainerroad.com/...rkout-Substitutions-

But I seriously don't have the patience to ride the trainer for 2-3 hours.

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Want: 58cm Cervelo Soloist. PM me if you have one to sell

Vintage Cervelo: A Resource

He's been sick the last two days :(. He has the plans laid out and is just working on the final text for the sprint.

His goal is to get that done and published on the site by Monday. Sorry for the delay.

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CEO at TrainerRoad
Co-host of the Ask a Cycling Coach Podcast

You 100% can :).

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CEO at TrainerRoad
Co-host of the Ask a Cycling Coach Podcast

thats perfect , as we transition from the aerobic block to a build and race specific blocks.. thanks for following up Nate

It looks like my Power2Max is stuck in Customs limbo somewhere so I may have to go ahead and do my 20 minute test with only virtual power again for now given time constraints.

However, I can probably just estimate my real FTP by spinning for ~10 minutes with both the PM (connected to the bike computer) and virtual power with TR, correct?

So for example say I re-test at 300 W for virtual power on Wednesday. Next week I hook up the PM and spin for 10 min at an average of 200 virtual watts over that period, and my PM output reads an average of 180 over the same period for a ratio of 0.9 virtual/real. That means I could rightly assume my real FTP is 270.. or does it not scale linearly (in which case I could do an interval at or near FTP).

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Strava

Yes i believe you'll get it "close enough",
this is what i did with my stages on my KICKR once i got it and it seems to work for the purposes of what i need. Purists will say you can't and you need to retest with the power meter, but they're the same people that tell you a FTP test needs to be 60min long and anything less isn't accurate.

I believe the best answer is "it depends." While I would have agreed with RONDAL prior to attempting this myself, I'm skeptical based on my experiences after installing a Quarq. The dependability of the virtual estimate, however, is determined by your trainer and not by your PM.

I use a Cycleops Fluid2 and despite reading about all of the inconsistencies with the power curve, I didn't really believe my unit was affected when I was using virtual power. As soon as I installed the Quarq I could tell something was wrong, and the variability between the two numbers was neither neither consistent nor linear. It is my understanding, based on numerous threads (this one included, I believe), that the Kurt Kinetic fluid trainers will provide a much more dependable virtual power estimate.

So I'd say, give it a shot. If you want, you can look up or ask about experiences with virtual power as it relates to your specific trainer. You should be able to tell rather quickly if the numbers are lining up correctly. To get the best estimate, I'd look at a few 10-minute segments within the same ride to asses the variability as the trainer warms up. If those are somewhat consistent, you can probably use the numbers. If not, you should be able to ballpark your "true" FTP, but it might need to be tuned with an "official" FTP test using the new PM.

Thanks both -

I do have a KK road machine, so I'm hoping that the consistency is there (as described by various blog posts & threads) with only that y-axis variable remaining as an unknown. Next week I am also doing some over/unders and near FTP intervals such as avalanche spire:

https://www.trainerroad.com/cycling/workouts/30032-avalanche-spire


That I can hook up to both the PM and Virtual Power and get some comparisons. After multiple workouts with intervals at/near FTP I hope I can get a good estimation of what my FTP actually is (and then I re-test in 4 weeks). However, I am also doing St George on May 2nd and it would be nice to know my FTP beforehand... but I'm sure an approximation will do this time around.

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Strava

I have a KK, a fluid 2 and a power2max.

If you want to do an FTP test while waiting because you think they are fun.. go ahead.

But you cannot tell a single thing from your virtual test even with the KK (which will be better than the fluid2) and compare it to the power2max once you have it. Getting the p2m and then trying to use the virtual power will make the p2m useless for training other than spitting out numbers.

Edit: typed something then deleted it by mistake.

It is not that the virtual power is wrong, there are just too many factors in getting those virtual numbers to match up. A simple temperate change in the room and how long you did the test therefore how much heat is in the bearings and fluid in the trainer will alter the figures. I mapped a comparison of my fluid 2 and my p2m several times and it changes.

Cool, thanks for the perspective. Theoretically from what I've read the VP results are consistent with each other, however I'm sure it varies and is highly subject to environmental conditions including temp, tire pressure, and knob tightness...

Actually, as if posting here magically helped, I just received notification that the P2M was delivered (after sitting in customs for 5 days probably due to the holiday...) so I'll be able to test with the PM after all (assuming I install it correctly). I'll hook up the PM to my computer and have 2-3 rides to do a comparison with VP; curious to see if the consistency is there. I'll post links to my rides following the test. Here's hoping that VP underestimates my true power :)

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Strava

Not related to the online app, just found your last post and replied to it...

I was checking out some old TrainerRoad Facebook posts after thinking of some features that would be cool for TR. I found this, from September 2012:

Have you guys been working on something like this, or will it be a long time in the future before we see online group workouts?

haha! Awesome! The above is the entire reason why I started TrainerRoad. This has been the goal up until now. It takes a lot of work to build a platform to do this stuff. Just the technical aspect of sharing data of riders is easy.

The hard parts are: Proper calendar to find/schedules rides with friends and strangers, a good team feature to enable teams to ride together, critical mass of riders, great support team and constant monitoring of production services, rock solid hardware/device layer so there's crashes/drops while you ride.

We've got most of these down. The big glaring one is we don't have a calendar system to share/plan rides. We also have to revamp our desktop app because that code base was written when I really didn't know much about large software architecture. Now I employee people who really know a ton and have done an excellent job with iOS.

This is hard to do, but if we do this right I think we'll have a strong company for years to come.

There's also one other major feature that I'll tease here just a bit. I'm not 100% sure we'll be able to pull it off, but if we do you'll all be really happy :). It's directed at triathletes! If we pull it off (which I think we can) it should be announced at Interbike.

Okay, back to work so we can get all this work done! :)

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CEO at TrainerRoad
Co-host of the Ask a Cycling Coach Podcast

Very excited for these as well - will there be any sort of announcement when they are done, or best to keep checking the Triathlon section?

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Aaron Bales
Lansing Triathlon Team