You will be using them on there in no time....................Probably will have fun changing up your workouts.....Intertestin to learn high cadence with power

Nate-

Just signed up....this can probably be answered by anyone on here.

I am a beginner cyclist and just finished my 2nd ride (Kingsbury). What I am having trouble with is maintaining a high cadence (85+) during my rest periods. I have a triple crankset and during my all out effort, I am usually riding in the middle (up front) and in 6 on the back. Have no problem maintaining 90rpm. During my rest period, I would just shift the back down to 4 and be able to maintain the 75ish power with a 65-70 cadence.

Do I need to shift into a much lower gear to keep the high cadence during rest periods? Any insight is appreciated.

That's a good general question. I'd shift down and get used to spinning at 90 RPM a lot. Once you can do it without thinking about it, then do what feels naturally.

There are a lot of people who do really good at 90+, and there are a lot of people that do really good at 80ish. Think Lance vs Ulrich.

Once you become a good cyclists you should be able to ride anywhere from 70-105 pretty comfortably. When that happens, you can just pick what ever cadence you want and feels good.

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

Thanks for the reply...I guess my main issue is-- I feel like if I try to maintain 90+ during my rest period ( I am totally comfortable riding a high cadence ) my power goes up and I can't keep the lower target power in check. Is your suggestion to get into a much lower gear to maintain the cadence, yet keep the power to a minimum?

Yah. But...some rest intervals I don't even pedal for like 30 seconds because I feel like I'm dying. The only way you can do the rest intervals wrong is to do them too hard. Cadence doesn't matter too much.

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

I just wanted to let you know the update we did last night added computrainer support. You need the stereo to USB adapter for it to work. There's details on our http://www.trainerroad.com/install page.

We're going to make a video tonight or tomorrow demonstrating it.

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

Awesome! THanks Nate - looking forward to giving it a try

I think I have convinced 5 people already to give it a try....which is why I asked for a referral rewards program as a feature. ;)

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TriAnotherDay.com

VanDrunken wrote:

I think I have convinced 5 people already to give it a try....which is why I asked for a referral rewards program as a feature. ;)

Isn't your fitness reward enough? :)

I see us doing a referral program one day, but we just want to build features right now to make it kick ass. Once we get a mature code base we'll be doing more deals like this.

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

I have been putting off buying a power meter and this solves that problem! I just couldn't justify spending $800-$2000 to train with power on my small budget, but $10/month is very worth it. I had all of the necessary components already I just had to buy the program, sync them up, and in 10 minutes for $10 I was training with power.


I just finished the FTP test and I already love it! What a great set up. Good job Nate! Keep it up!

Thanks so much! We're trying really hard :).

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

Nate,

I just signed up, paired my devices and tried start a workout. However, I don't see speed or cadence displaying within the workout. I only see it if I go back to the devices list. What am I doing wrong?

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What I do: http://app.strava.com/athletes/345699

fixed

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What I do: http://app.strava.com/athletes/345699

This may have already been addressed, but I am assuming that an older garmin device like a 305 plugged into the computer via usb cord cannot substitute for the ANT usb stick?

That is correct. That would be sweet though!

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

First ride on Trainerroad.com done. I did the 20 minute FTP test. It was my first bike workout in 5 months. The visual tools kept me engaged and focused throughout the ride. I'm actually looking forward to my next trainer ride.

I have a lot of work to do, but there is no doubt in my mind that this product will make me a better cyclist.

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What I do: http://app.strava.com/athletes/345699

Tell you what - I'll sign up because I really like where you guys are headed with this, but you and Reid have to agree to write this on your whiteboards:

"But we agree that it's a +1000 feature :). It's the most requested feature we have right now."

And look at it in the future when you're pondering what to code next. ;)

hahaha, deal!

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

I've said it before, but I'll say it again....this is flat out awesome. If I ran on a treadmill I would be begging you to get something going for that.

I remember reading that you addressed this before, but having a data line for cadence would be nice. I know what my "sweet spot" is, but sometimes i don't always have the gearing to hit the power output in my "sweet spot" cadence and it would be nice to readily see if I was under/over my "sweet spot" cadence to hit that power number. Also would be nice to correlate that to the HR data.

I understand there are much bigger coding fish to fry right now, but maybe way down the line....

Thanks again for putting out such a great product at a reasonable cost!

Great updates so far! Do you have an ETA on the Powerbeam support? I so want to give it a try.

Okay, did my first Trainer Road workout today.

Found the Free Ride workouts and used one of those. Stupidly, I chose 60 minutes even though I was supposed to go 1:05 today. TR doesn't let you go longer. Am I right in assuming that if I had chosen the 90 minute one, I could have paused and just saved at 1:05 and been fine? (As it was, it was fine...I actually started TR a little late and missed the first five minutes just futzing around with stuff.)

Oddly, it paired fine with my Garmin HRM strap and it acted like it paired with my GSC-10, but I never saw any data on the GSC-10. But I paired the Computrainer and that got me speed and distance data anyway. No idea why the GSC-10 didn't work with TR, but I did have my Edge 800 on and logging, and it saw the GSC-10 fine.

It's odd to have to go to the website to get your data back via downloading. I'm pretty sure I get why (you're doing the conversion to TCX on the website, no?), but it would be good if there was at least a download button in the TR app (in the little view of your workout under Career) that would warp you to the right place in the site to do it (since you're logged in already, too). I also think you should do the default name of the workout download to something like TrainerRoad-date-time.tcx. Minor quibble. :-)

I'm still a little unsure about Computrainer control. I saw your note about it on FB and here, but I sort of assumed that in Erg mode I'd get the normal screen on the CT head and see actual watt settings go up and down. Normally when just using the CT in Erg mode, it defaults to 150W and you increase or decrease in 5W increments. Instead it looks like Free Rides are defaulted to 150W and the plus and minus keys adjust the software up and down in 1% increments. Only it just didn't *feel* right to me even doing that. I'm not sure why. So I switched to Slope mode (which I almost never use, but SHOULD probably be using more) and just lived with that for this workout. So was I missing something, or is that how it's supposed to work? If that's how it's supposed to work, any chance of "Computrainer Free Rides" where the default is 150W and the plus and minus increase and decrease by 5W?

Somewhere on the to-do list I hope you have a quick ability to export straight to TrainingPeaks and Strava, too.

Okay, this seems like a lot of "problems" for a first time, but honestly, I loved the software. Especially for something still evolving and with great support. Most of this is REALLY minor. The fact that the Free Ride option exists for those of us doing custom workouts is a very reasonable bridge to being able to do custom workouts in the future (but still, DO THAT NEXT! :).

Very happy. You'll be getting my $10/month for a long while.


--Donnie

Another suggestion perhaps:

I did the 8 minute FTP test today and my numbers changed a good bit. It would be nice if perhaps in the career page on the website or the profile page in the app, if you could plot the changes in power and LTHR over time, so you could see how those numbers change at different times of the year and having completed different phases in the training.

Thanks!

Cool man, thanks for taking the time to write all this.

For the 1:05 thing, yes you could have done the 90 minute one and ended at 1:05 and been fine.

That's weird with the GSC-10 thing. If it pairs it should come up. You won't see speed while you're working out, but you should see cadence. We don't display speed because it doesn't mean anything by itself on the trainer, especially while on a computrainer. Can you pair your GSC-10 by its self and see if you can get cadence to show up?

I agree that it's odd to go to the website to download you workout. There should totally be a download link in the app! I kinda rushed that .tcx export thing. I need to spend the time to do it on the app side too.

That's another good idea about the workout name. How about TrainerRoad-WorkoutName-Date-Time?

The free ride and CompuTrainer has a bug right now. The target for those are "0" watts and when we change the intensity on that it's 110% * 0. So that doesn't work! I'm fixing that one tonight.

Yes, export to TrainingPeaks and Strava and a bunch of other places on our list.

Thanks for the suggestions. Being critical like this is very helpful. It's the small things that make great software. And you've just added some good tweaks to our list.

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

Yes, we track the changes already and I've been meaning to put it on the website. When we first started, it was a dumb graph because no one had any history. Now that people have been using it, it's time to add it back in!

This is on the list now. Thanks!

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

Yeah, I'll go back and play with the GSC-10 and see if I can get more info. And I noticed no speed was displayed, but I probably wasn't completely clear...I was getting zero cadence and in fact, the workout was pausing automatically because of it. I admit I was in a bit of a hurry to get that workout moving and done and didn't have too much time to be playing around with stuff. When I turned it off and still got the data I needed from the CT, I just went with that.

Agreed with your suggestion on the filename.

LOL on that CT bug. No wonder the change wasn't doing anything! Glad it wasn't just me.

Glad to hear the export to other sites is on the list. Not a huge priority, but it'll be way nice when it's there. I freely admit I'm weird in that respect...I actually log all my bike and run data to TrainingPeaks, Strava, AND Garmin Connect. I do Garmin Connect mostly because I've always used Garmin devices so I've been using that since it started, really, and I sort of like their page as the best quick summary of everything. But my coach uses TrainingPeaks, so I also have to log there (and honestly, they have the most in-depth analysis capability when you want to dig into things). And I gave Strava a try on a whim, and now a bunch of my friends use it, so the community aspect is REALLY appealing.

To wax philosophic for a minute, I think the community side of TR is interesting, but probably really mostly for folks in worse climates than me and thus spend a lot more hours on the trainer than I do. Since I can do so much outside (and because I also run), I like the community in Strava better, simply because it's a bit more all-encompassing. I'm going to have runs, outdoor rides, *and* I can put trainer rides there. But all that said, I think it's quite possible you could create a rich enough community with some things going on that I can't get at Strava that MIGHT lure me in to that side of it, too. That'll be interesting to see...

Anyway, again, nice work so far. And I'm really glad you're so open to feedback...I was a little hesitant to post it all and go through your internal system, but just felt like public might be better in case others had similar issues.


--Donnie