Who’s using what for planning, tracking, etc? pro’s / cons of each?
I’m currently experimenting with intervals.icu, seems decent if a few bugs (which is understandable for a free solution, I’m not complaining). But wondering if trainingpeaks is that much better.
I only use Intervals.icu now. The fact that it is free is unbelievable. The customization is great but can take some tinkering to figure it out.
I like to have a basic calendar that allows me to schedule my week and also analyze workouts in the same app. I’ve created custom charts to track hours per week, etc. The estimated FTP (eFTP) is a nice touch I hadn’t used before. It comes in handy when I am zwift racing and want to compare my best 20 min power to my latest zwift race in terms of eFTP.
I only use trainingpeaks, I’m not super happy with it as a coach but tried intervals.icu shortly and didn’t like the UI. It might have improved, it was some time ago…
I love TP for planning my workouts and my year, plus how it integrates with zwift and training plans from the likes of final surge
what are your issues with TP?
Not so much issues as lack of tools. Tools I know is a part of WKO which I haven’t got but I use Golden Cheetah instead.
Since WKO is a part of TP and sells as a separate product I guess that’s where those tools will stay.
Thanks…
I tried GC a few years back, ended up abandoning yet because it was a local install on my PC, which died a tragic death.
I have a 14 day trial for TP available, I’ll try that in parallel with intervals.icu then see which one makes the most sense.
I love free stuff so intervals.icu for me. I stopped using Golden Cheetah two years ago and while I still miss some charts, for most of my post-workout and training load monitoring works perfectly.
Golden Cheetah is a great tool but when you (a triathlete doing three sports) uploads hundreds of activities to compare various seasons, it becomes unstable and crashes all the time
for the price, it’s disappointing that TP premium doesn’t include WKO and a BBS subscription with it.
Athletica.ai for my workouts, but I look at intervals.icu because I like watching that fitness line go up. I’m not going to pay for TP when intervals.icu does the same thing for free.
I just recently started using intervals.icu and for being free I think it’s pretty awesome.
As I mentioned I use it as a coach (also coaching myself) but if I wasn’t a coach I probably would use Intervals.icu but I’m not going to force all my clients to change.
I liked Intervals so much that I actually paid for it to support the developer, even though you can use full functionality for free.
The UI is somewhat of a mess, there’s just so much functionality and configurability and its not organized well (the pop-up windows are terrible UX), so it’s hard to get your head around. I suspect this is a turnoff for people that are overwhelmed at first glance, while TP is clean and simple (with much less functionality). Once you figure it out and configure everything, it is an incredibly powerful platform.
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Since WKO is a part of TP and sells as a separate product I guess that’s where those tools will stay
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IIRC from what Training Peaks has said in the past, only 20-25% of the Training Peaks user base also has WKO. My guess is the actual weekly user base is <20%.
I don’t think they are doing any further internal development work on WKO5.
Blockquote[quote=“AC_Prestation, post:12, topic:1281656”]
if I wasn’t a coach I probably would use Intervals.icu but I’m not going to force all my clients to change.
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I did a couple of months of a few athletes on Intervals.ICU 2-3 seasons ago. 4 athletes. When I asked them if they wanted to switch over it was no and 3 whatever you (meaning I as the coach) prefer. Didn’t get a single yes vote unfortunately.
Tons of data on there though. Haven’t gone to it since then, maybe I should swing back by and recheck it out
I’ve tried icu several times over the years, and its always been a few features short of TP premium. Things that I know used to be missing were workout libraries and training plans, and the ability to define structured workouts for export to Garmin. ICU also used to be very cycling specific, with “other” sports clearly added as an afterthought (many data fields had “Ride” in the name, even for swim or run workouts).
The lack of structured workout export to Garmin was always a deal-breaker for me, as I create everything as a structure workout, even steady-state runs. I typically include warm-up and cool-down “intervals” to keep me from skipping them. 
One feature I really like (in ICU, that TP does not have) is that I can create a structured workout from an existing recorded activity. So, if I go out and just do something random…and decide I really like it, I can simply drag that recorded workout into the library and it will auto-detect the durations and intensities and create a template that I can use for future planning. I can edit the template, as well.
I’ve been playing with it again over the last few days. Feature wise I think, ICU has now mostly surpassed TP, now. Everything I know that used to be missing is now present (see above). Plus ICU now provides the ability to define your own data custom fields and data streams. These can either be specific fields in the FIT file produced by device (but not standard), or they can be calculated from other data by writing JavaScript.
For example, I recreated the TP running Efficiency factor (Grade Adjusted speed / avg heart rate), as a real-time chart, interval summary field, and Activity Summary Field. It took me about 30m of fumbling around to figure out to do it.
The UI is stil a giant mess—typical of most engineer driven designs. TP UI is more refined/cleaner (but, still has its own issues…many of which have existed for a decade now). That said, ICU is very tailorable…much of the clutter can be hidden to clean it up a bit.
There’s no mobile app for ICU, but the web-front is responsive and looks pretty good on mobile…a few things run off the edge of my phone by a few pixels, but I haven’t found anything that makes it unusable (eg, an OK/Cancel button that’s not accessible).
I think its good enough now to try daily driving it for a while.
Hmmm…SW development isn’t free, neither are server resources. A quality product deserves to be paid for. They do have a subscription tier…which is ~half of TP. If I switch, I will subscribe.
Totally agree. I wish everyone using it on day to day basis pay. It would really suck if the developer abandons it because people cheap out on $50 per year.
Oh I donated. He quit his full time job to focus on intervals so it seems like enough of the users are forking over some money.
Intervals.icu hands-down.
I’ve been a supporter for a few years now and have abandoned TP which, in my opinion, is stuck in the 2010-era of development (and is less sucky than Garmin, but they both still kinda suck).
David - the Intervals owner/dev - is exceptionally gifted at adding new functionality and handling requests. Couldn’t be a nicer guy.
I only wish him continued success!