A little background, I came into a brand new Wahoo Kickr Core from a coworker who is doing a van life thing and getting rid of everything. I used to do triathlons but haven’t in 5 years, really just been running since I became a dad mainly because of time commitments and general on road safety fears. I did have a Peloton but the rah-rah wasn’t for me but I didn’t like the PowerZone program. I sold that a while back though. The goal is to have something to break up the running and possibly hopping back into the triathlon game (70.3) maybe next year.
I have looked at Zwift and the gaming/racing doesn’t really appeal to me. I’d like to have something where I can do something from 30-90 minutes, kind of like Peloton’s PowerZone program, put on a movie or show and hit numbers. Is TrainerRoad the best fit for me?
I thought Zwift was a gimmick until I tried it, don’t write it off until you give it a go, the group rides available almost any time of the day (or night) are a great way to burn through an hour or two on the trainer without even thinking about the time.
But if that’s not your thing also have a look at Rouvy, you can choose courses anywhere in the world to ride, and that is pretty fun as well.
Both of them have free trail periods ( I believe 7 days), try each one for a week and see what floats your boat.
Thank you for that. One thing, it would be helpful to link the reviews/articles off that main one that you linked. It was (is) hard to find the others in the series.
Honestly, between the integration with training peaks and the ability to programme structured sessions there that automatically load into zwift Erg, the many structured plans and individual workouts in zwift, and the pacers/racing in zwift, you would be really surprised how much quality training there is in there. And of course like most you can test for a week as a trial, or in zwift case then just cancel any time (on a monthly basis).
And don’t knock the training benefits of zwift racing until you’ve done a month of them.
I really like TrainerRoad. The major reason why is that I run it from my phone. I have not so great internet in my area, but always have phone service. Also by running it thru my phone sitting in front of me on my lil bike table… it keeps my TV free to watch whatever I want, burning thru Netflix, youtube rabbit holes, or sports.
Zwift for me, due to the great group rides on pretty much any day of the week - now they have mulitple ‘pacer bots’ you can find one that is in your sweet spot for Z2 long rides and boy does the time fly by, especially if there is some chat in the group.
Zwift links to Training Peaks so you can do your structured training on their too and it overwrites the gradient changes to instead make you follow your planned workout.
I like Trainerroad. Just a screen with data and a course profile, no outside interaction, no gimmicks. Tons of different workouts along with some good training plans, good as in for cycling not so much for swimming or running but I have a coach for those.
I go back and forth depending on the time of year and my goals at the time. If I only had one, it would be Zwift as it is so much more versatile(group rides, racing, workouts, running). But both are useful to me and I’m glad I have them.
Zwift all the way for me. Love the races for days I need to trash my legs for an hour or more. z5-6 intervals (standing/ low cadence) easy to do on alp du zwift. Flat courses for my z3-5 longer intervals. 4 Horseman for a grueling long ride. I don’t usually do the Zwift workouts- I use Tridot and just do those workouts on my trainer.
I also enjoyed Sufferfest for a season or two back in the day. Great workouts and I liked the encouraging statements on the screen. Their 4d FTP test is tough.
Try them all. Most (all?) of them have 2+ week trial periods where you can test it out. I get that its probably a lot of installing and uninstalling programs, etc, but if you find something that hooks you into indoor training all the better.
Like others have said there are a lot of positives with Zwift. For me, the best part is being part of a team. You don’t even need to race.
I do race with my team but a lot of times we do group rides together or just join a discord chat channel while we do different things. The time goes by in a flash.
The racing is awesome though, today I did a 4 race series with short rest between races. My legs were trashed at the end. The best part was that I was chatting with 8 teammates from around the world and we won the team competition.
I even got some PRs for my power curve.
If you don’t want to pay $189 a year, try Trainerday. It’s simple, clean and cheap. Downside: no desktop version, also doesn’t have the wealth of training plans and workouts that TR offers.
You all were right, Zwift isn’t the gimmick I thought it was. Done a couple of rides and they were very engaging, I’m going to give it a couple months and doing a training plan.