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Computrainer and Trainer Road Experiences

For those that are using Trainer Road as a controller for computrainer, what has been your experience?

For me, I've been kind of frustrated with the combination. When using RM1 software as the controller, the power changes have been fairly realistic / road like, and interval power switches are fairly instantaneous. With Trainer Road, the interval power jumps cause me to go high cadence with pushing the pedals harder to hit my targets.

Lately, I've had a hard time keeping power at my FTP for more than 5 minutes. So today, to keep the frustration level down, I went pure Computrainer, and RM1. The other reason for going to RM1 was that it gives you a distance readout which was the purpose of today's ride: 50 miles with a goal of doing it in less than 2:30:00.(Happy Birthday to Me!) I did the ride with a NP of 270 over the full 2:08:12 also with a VI of 1.02.

I think the good effect for me has been a bit of a cadence increase, but it's caused big frustration especially with my experience of the past 4 months of recovering from concussion in October and made me think I was having issues related to the concussion recovery. Today's ride felt pretty much like pre-concussion days and my heart rate only spiked when I sprinted to the finish.

So what's been your CT/TR experience. Is there something I'm missing? I like TR for the pre-programmed workouts, and the work interval stats. I think I may try the KK Road Machine for a while to see where that takes me.

Comments

  • I really like the Computrainer along with the Trainer Road. Don't forget that you have a ERG mode and a SLOPE mode that you can change with the F2 key on your handlebar controller. The slope mode is a constant load while I think of the slope mode as a constant cadence. If I increase the cadence, and hence the power the resistance gets a little easier to keep me at the designated power. So play around with the 2 modes and see which one works for you.

    I did have some trouble in an early vesion of the Trainer Road pairing with my Computrainer. So I downloaded the Beta version and no problems pairing. Also no problem with the new versions. I do have to say TR guys are responsive because about every week there is a small quick update to fix little bugs that people report back to them.
  • I don't know anything about RM1 software because I had it for 2 years and still couldnt figure it out(way too complicated and over my head). Trainerroad made my Computrainer a joy to use. So simple. Plug and play it just works. I toggle back and forth between ERG and SLope usually for at least one or two intervals but mostly keep it in ERG mode. I love not having to shift for the intervals. I find I do have to anticipate and large changes in power and lead them a little bit for smoother transistions but really have no problems at all.
  • I am very happy with TrainerRoad and Computrainer. TR has breathed new life into the CT. The software that comes with CT is terrible and even last year's update was 10 years to late and still 10 years behind.

    I do find the Sufferfest videos harder than I would expect because of the continuous change in cadence. The CT torque seems to have a tough time adjusting and if I'm pedaling slowly, then I just can't get enough power to keep pedaling and have to stop for a couple of seconds. All in all though, I love TR.
  • Thanks all,

    The plug'n'play thing is what I loved also, but I must be missing something.

    Yesterday's ride was with the Trainerroad/CT combo, and I could barely maintain 270watts for 5 minutes and I was spun out in high gear with a 54-tooth chainring. Today, I maintained 270watts for just over 2 hours, although I did split my ride up into 5 -10mile blocks. I did my first 10mile chuck in the best time that I've ever done the Computrainer 10mile TT course, and met my previous best when I was loafing on one of the intervals.

    The ***only*** change between the rides was switching out Trainerroad(Mac OSX) for RM1(Mac OSX with Parallels).

    I love that we have the workouts pre-programmed with TR, and I really like that it gives us stats for each interval.

    Just trying to figure it out.
  • @Sam

    I haven't noticed any specific discrepancies between how TR works and how RM1 or any other CT controller software works. I have noticed the problems you describe above, but I blame it more on how ERG mode works on the CT and general, and a specific symptom of riding pre-programmed ERG files.

    The problem is with ERG mode itself, which dynamically adjusts the resistance to hold a given specified power at any cadence. If you are riding at a very high cadence, the CT doesn't have to set that much resistance in return. If you are riding at a very low cadence, the resistance has to be set much higher to meet the same power target.

    The specific problem is when you start an interval, there is no smooth ramping from the pre-interval to the interval target power. If you are just riding along at easy watts, the interval will hit and the CT resistance will surge. This slows down your cadence, which lowers your power, which the CT detects and reacts by increasing the resistance, which slows down your cadence, which increases the resistance, etc.

    This is not a problem for non-CT users of TR since they are in control of how long they want to take to ramp up to the target power. Nor is this a problem for doing your workout in manual ERG mode in the CT software, if you are simply using the +/- keys on the controller to set your intervals (I set mine to 5W increments), you can ramp up to your target power much more smoothly. But it definitely is a problem for any ERG file (in any CT software) that goes from some low power immediately to some much higher power instantly.

    If you are designing an ERG file for CT users, you really should have it increase to a target power over some specified duration (I'm not sure what would be ideal). However, given that seemingly none are designed that way, I simply pre-load my intervals in the last 10-15 seconds of the rest interval by spinning my cadence (and power to an extent) way up prior to the start of the next interval so it's not so much like riding into quicksand at the start.
  • Just a note on how I transition from recovery to work intervals using the TR/CT combo...I make sure to raise my cadence above 90 in the last 10-15 secs before the transition. Makes entry into the work interval smooth. TR also helps a little by building in a very slight,short ramp .

    I love the fact that I have a trainer which has programmable resistance. I hate the way RacerMate software implements this. LikeTom, I like the way TR makes the process easier,almost painless, as well as more pleasing to my eye.
  • I would have to agree with Al sn this used CT/TR for the Tour of Sufferlandria on both mac and windows. As long as I ramped my cadence a little bit prior to the major step ups it was a dream. The interface is much nicer and the smaller ste ups weren't bad it was just the easy to ftp etc that you need to make sure your cadence is decent 90-100 worked well for me.
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