I have a Concept 2. I don’t have any way to measure power on my bike. Can’t really justify the cost right now for the limited amount of riding I do. I am curious though if my output on the rower over, say 20 or 30 minutes, would match my output on the bike over the same time.
Thanks
Big no-no. First of all, the power generated from cycling comes from your legs, the power generated from an erg comes from the combination legs-back-arms. Still mostly legs but also the last part of the stroke, if done properly. Second, it doesnt measure constant power I think, just when you’re pulling on it. The power does not drop to zero when you’re sliding forward in the recovery phase, whereas with cycling your power would drop when you’re coasting.
Just to add, I plugged in my best rowing scores here: http://www.concept2.com/indoor-rowers/training/calculators/pace-calculator to see what kind of wattage they correlate to and it seems like they might not be too far off from my cycling power, but that still does not mean that you can reliably track power from one to the other. Still a good workout though 
Big no-no. First of all, the power generated from cycling comes from your legs, the power generated from an erg comes from the combination legs-back-arms. Still mostly legs but also the last part of the stroke, if done properly. Second, it doesnt measure constant power I think, just when you’re pulling on it. The power does not drop to zero when you’re sliding forward in the recovery phase, whereas with cycling your power would drop when you’re coasting.
Just to add, I plugged in my best rowing scores here: http://www.concept2.com/...tors/pace-calculator to see what kind of wattage they correlate to and it seems like they might not be too far off from my cycling power, but that still does not mean that you can reliably track power from one to the other. Still a good workout though
Thanks. My thinking was that over that amount of time my power output (average) would be limited by my aerobic capacity and lactate threshold so that in the grand scheme of things what power I can put out on the rower for a set time would be similar to what I would be able to do on the bike.
I’m sure training your treshold etc with rowing will translate into some amount of gained threshold fitness on the bike, but rowing in general will be much closer to your threshold anyway. If we assume that threshold is your one hour maximum, I ask you how often you’ve done a rowing race that lasted an hour 
Let alone longer. Or workouts on an erg longer than 90 minutes. I remember doing 2x45 mins or 75 mins workouts on the erg and they were mentally tough for sure (and those weren’t threshold workouts ofc). Rowing is just more a strength-endurance sport than an endurance sport. I say if you want to get better on the bike, then you bike If you want virtual power from Trainerroad, all you need is an ANT+ cadence/speed sensor for your rear wheel and an ANT+ stick. Together probably around $60 or so. This is assming you have a trainer to put your bike in of course (which could be had as cheap as prob another $60-80 secondhand).
I’m sure training your treshold etc with rowing will translate into some amount of gained threshold fitness on the bike, but rowing in general will be much closer to your threshold anyway. If we assume that threshold is your one hour maximum, I ask you how often you’ve done a rowing race that lasted an hour Let alone longer. Or workouts on an erg longer than 90 minutes. I remember doing 2x45 mins or 75 mins workouts on the erg and they were mentally tough for sure (and those weren’t threshold workouts ofc). Rowing is just more a strength-endurance sport than an endurance sport. I say if you want to get better on the bike, then you bike If you want virtual power from Trainerroad, all you need is an ANT+ cadence/speed sensor for your rear wheel and an ANT+ stick. Together probably around $60 or so. This is assming you have a trainer to put your bike in of course (which could be had as cheap as prob another $60-80 secondhand).
What is FTP? Is that from the 2x20 type workout? I thought trainer road only supported certain trainers with known resistance curves and spin down rates?
I’m not looking to get better at biking by rowing just wondering about my power output. Which isn’t a whole lot unfortunately. 
Thanks for the help and info.
Just to add, I plugged in my best rowing scores here: http://www.concept2.com/...tors/pace-calculator to see what kind of wattage they correlate to and it seems like they might not be too far off from my cycling power, but that still does not mean that you can reliably track power from one to the other. Still a good workout though
That is a cool calculator… I plugged in my best 2k (6:10) test and got 442.2 watts… Not bad considering I was 167lbs at the time. Oh the good old days…
I’m sure training your treshold etc with rowing will translate into some amount of gained threshold fitness on the bike, but rowing in general will be much closer to your threshold anyway. If we assume that threshold is your one hour maximum, I ask you how often you’ve done a rowing race that lasted an hour Let alone longer. Or workouts on an erg longer than 90 minutes. I remember doing 2x45 mins or 75 mins workouts on the erg and they were mentally tough for sure (and those weren’t threshold workouts ofc). Rowing is just more a strength-endurance sport than an endurance sport. I say if you want to get better on the bike, then you bike If you want virtual power from Trainerroad, all you need is an ANT+ cadence/speed sensor for your rear wheel and an ANT+ stick. Together probably around $60 or so. This is assming you have a trainer to put your bike in of course (which could be had as cheap as prob another $60-80 secondhand).
What is FTP? Is that from the 2x20 type workout? I thought trainer road only supported certain trainers with known resistance curves and spin down rates?
I’m not looking to get better at biking by rowing just wondering about my power output. Which isn’t a whole lot unfortunately.
Thanks for the help and info.
FTP stands for Functional Threshold Power, or the maximum average power that you can sustain for 60 minutes. On Trainerroad you would do a 20 minute all out test, and it would then divide a factor 1,10 I think or something and that’s your FTP. Ideally you would just do a 60 minute TT to get your FTP, but I don’t think many people do this for obvious reasons. I’m guessing the 2x20 workouts you’re thinking of are sweet spot workouts, where you do 2 times 20 minutes with a couple minutes rest, with the blocks at around 90% of your FTP number. The amount of exertion is called the sweet spot because it appears to be some kind of optimum of gains in fitness while being able to recover quickly (I think, I’m sure others can explain it better than me, there are lots of threads on this if you really want to find out more about it)
Trainerroad supports known trainers, but you’ll find that the list is very extensive, covering all the major brands in a variety of different models.
I’m sure training your treshold etc with rowing will translate into some amount of gained threshold fitness on the bike, but rowing in general will be much closer to your threshold anyway. If we assume that threshold is your one hour maximum, I ask you how often you’ve done a rowing race that lasted an hour Let alone longer. Or workouts on an erg longer than 90 minutes. I remember doing 2x45 mins or 75 mins workouts on the erg and they were mentally tough for sure (and those weren’t threshold workouts ofc). Rowing is just more a strength-endurance sport than an endurance sport. I say if you want to get better on the bike, then you bike If you want virtual power from Trainerroad, all you need is an ANT+ cadence/speed sensor for your rear wheel and an ANT+ stick. Together probably around $60 or so. This is assming you have a trainer to put your bike in of course (which could be had as cheap as prob another $60-80 secondhand).
What is FTP? Is that from the 2x20 type workout? I thought trainer road only supported certain trainers with known resistance curves and spin down rates?
I’m not looking to get better at biking by rowing just wondering about my power output. Which isn’t a whole lot unfortunately.
Thanks for the help and info.
FTP stands for Functional Threshold Power, or the maximum average power that you can sustain for 60 minutes. On Trainerroad you would do a 20 minute all out test, and it would then divide a factor 1,10 I think or something and that’s your FTP. Ideally you would just do a 60 minute TT to get your FTP, but I don’t think many people do this for obvious reasons. I’m guessing the 2x20 workouts you’re thinking of are sweet spot workouts, where you do 2 times 20 minutes with a couple minutes rest, with the blocks at around 90% of your FTP number. The amount of exertion is called the sweet spot because it appears to be some kind of optimum of gains in fitness while being able to recover quickly (I think, I’m sure others can explain it better than me, there are lots of threads on this if you really want to find out more about it)
Trainerroad supports known trainers, but you’ll find that the list is very extensive, covering all the major brands in a variety of different models.
Thanks again. My trainer is supported but it’s such a POS that any data would be totally unreliable. It’s a blackburn tech fluid that has at least 4 different levels of resistance in any given hour and on any given day. It spins down from a 20mph wheel speed in 3 seconds. Makes it feel as though I’m always riding in sand. Maybe when I can upgrade my trainer I’ll check out trainer road.
That is a cool calculator… I plugged in my best 2k (6:10) test and got 442.2 watts… Not bad considering I was 167lbs at the time. Oh the good old days…
That’s a very awesome time for the rower, if you were a LWT, world class time there! Respect.
I raced on a Senior development team the previous year as a lightweight (I was 16, racing with a bunch of 22-25 year olds) because I was closer to 162 that year… The year I pulled a 6:10 I was 167-170 and couldn’t drop any weight because I had almost no body fat to lose and 10+ pounds of water weight would be tough. That year I raced with the Jr Nat team and had probably the highest watt/kg ratio in the country for the Jr level.