TrainingPeaks Virtual (TPV) Chat Zone

[ColinJ]

MW 4.0.1 has been released today, and the Watch bug is fixed.

I have just reported another bug in the Apple TV app...

I was seeing a message saying that a 20 MB download was needed before I could continue... I clicked 'download'. Nothing happened. I tried again. And again... It was not picking up the click on the remote control.

I had switched the remote to click-only mode because I don't like the swipe-and-click mode. I discovered that switching back to swipe-and-click fixed the problem.

Hopefully, that will be fixed pretty quickly so I can change back to click-only. (Yes, I could do now but I don't want to have to keep switching the mode back and forth.)

 

[ColinJ]

Hopefully, that will be fixed pretty quickly so I can change back to click-only. (Yes, I could do now but I don't want to have to keep switching the mode back and forth.)

Hmm... They got back to me very quickly and said that it is designed to work that way so I just need to put up with it!

 

[Brusgaard]

Hmm... They got back to me very quickly and said that it is designed to work that way so I just need to put up with it!

I use a PC and never have all those issues.

 

[alex_cycles]

I use a PC and never have all those issues.

That was a very PC comment

 

[Brusgaard]

That was a very PC comment

Well, the amount of questions/demands from people running the cycling apps on all sorts of cr@p found on eBay, AliExpress etc. is staggering.

 

[ColinJ]

I am going to check tomorrow to see if the offer of a free month trial on TPV is still available to me. I was offered it twice in the last couple of weeks but I was away.

I rigged up my new game controller in anticipation, using a stick-on Garmin mount.

The weather is starting to get grotty now and daylight hours are rapidly shortening. The turbo trainer beckons!

 

[ColinJ]

I am going to check tomorrow to see if the offer of a free month trial on TPV is still available to me. I was offered it twice in the last couple of weeks but I was away.

It IS, so...

... I just signed up. I have 1 month to decide if I like TP(V), and if I go ahead, it will cost me ~ $161/year after that (~ £120?).

I saw a message saying that the AWS outage might be still affecting TP but I will go upstairs shortly and see if TPV is working.

I have just created a test route for TPV My Routes - a warm-up followed by the 7.7 km Cragg Vale climb. I know that route very well so I am interested to see how well it is simulated. I have a long-time goal of doing that climb in 20 minutes but there is nearly always an unfavourable cross-headwind for the second half and this time of year can be particularly unpleasant up there (chilly, wet and windy today). It would be good to do the virtual climb once a week during the winter in preparation for timing myself again on the real climb next spring.

 

[ColinJ]

I rigged up my new game controller in anticipation, using a stick-on Garmin mount.

The weather is starting to get grotty now and daylight hours are rapidly shortening. The turbo trainer beckons!

I was going to do a quick session with TPV this evening to test the controller but there were some teething problems. It took me a while to realise that the TPV app on my Apple TV 4k box hadn't updated itself recently and that was the problem.

I updated the app manually and it started working again.

I quickly confirmed that the game controller was connected and that TPV was responding to it; yes, all was good. I was able easily to go up and down through the virtual gears, traverse menus etc. By then though I had started to feel hungry so I put a real test off for a day or two and headed for my kitchen.

I plan to do an easy outdoor ride as a warm-up one day over the weekend and then come in to do some intervals on a free ride on TPV. I will report back once I have done that.

 

[ColinJ]

Oh, I have a question...

Does anyone know how to do a bulk download of all historic ride data from Wahoo to TrainingPeaks? I have connected the two systems but only a few recent rides worth of data were copied over.

I have seen a few suggestions online but they don't look very promising .

 

[YMFB]

I’m a bit of a Luddite so please bear with me.

I’d like to try Training Peaks on my iPad, as an alternative to Zwift. I record all my rides on Strava but I’m not seeing the necessary companion app for my iPhone, is that necessary?

 

[Norry1]

It IS, so...

... I just signed up. I have 1 month to decide if I like TP(V), and if I go ahead, it will cost me ~ $161/year after that (~ £120?).

I saw a message saying that the AWS outage might be still affecting TP but I will go upstairs shortly and see if TPV is working.

I have just created a test route for TPV My Routes - a warm-up followed by the 7.7 km Cragg Vale climb. I know that route very well so I am interested to see how well it is simulated. I have a long-time goal of doing that climb in 20 minutes but there is nearly always an unfavourable cross-headwind for the second half and this time of year can be particularly unpleasant up there (chilly, wet and windy today). It would be good to do the virtual climb once a week during the winter in preparation for timing myself again on the real climb next spring.

TP often do discounts around days like Black Friday - worth keeping an eye out.

 

[ColinJ]

TP often do discounts around days like Black November - worth keeping an eye out.

Thanks. I would have to make a note in my diary to cancel my subscription before the first payment goes out.

I wonder if the trial would get cancelled at the same time or carry on regardless?

I also wonder if any discount would still be offered if I then tried to resubscribe at a lower price? I bet there would be a 'new subscriptions only' clause!

It would be cheaper overall to just pay monthly to get me through the winter but that would only save about $35 for 5 months worth vs an annual subscription.

 

[Norry1]

I am a Premium member of TrainingPeaks anyway so will always have TPV access. I'm pretty much exclusively on Zwift at the minute because I'm following a TrainerRoad Plan and the TR-Zwift integration is very good.

I must hop onto TPV soon though to try some of the new features.

 

[ColinJ]

I must hop onto TPV soon though to try some of the new features.

I did an 80 minute free ride on TPV this evening.

I think that it must have updated itself because the scenery looks a lot nicer than the last time I used it.

The gaming controller is way better to use than the awful Apple TV remote. I haven't worked out exactly what controls do what yet though and so accidentally started following other riders at one point instead of watching what I was doing!

Only after I finished did I spot that virtual gearing can be adjusted (number of gears and default gear); the settings were scrolled off the screen. I found the default set-up used in the session way over-geared for my chainring/sprocket combination. At one point I was doing 200+ W on a minor slope with trainer difficulty reduced significantly and with a cadence of only 60 rpm. Steeper slopes were so hard that in the lowest virtual gear I had to reduce difficulty to 20% and even then my cadence was painfully slow. I have increased the number of gears now and made the default gear mid-range instead of near the low end. Fingers crossed that the hills will be more manageable next time or I will have to reduce difficulty to about 10% or put a bigger sprocket on the bike (and lengthen the chain).

I suffered less with numbness than on previous rides, but it did still eventually become an issue. I felt it developing after about 50 minutes and was feeling increasingly uncomfortable after that. I have made another saddle adjustment now. I'll see how I get on next time.

The game controller is mounted slightly too close to me so my knees nudged it a couple of times when getting out of the saddle. I might have to use a different mount to move it nearer to the handlebar.

The other problem I had was with the fan remote control which did nothing so I had to dismount and turn the fan on directly. I'm wondering if I had accidentally left something on top of the control and flattened its battery. I'll try to sort that out before the next session but I can always turn the fan on before I mount the bike.

The only other issue was that riding out of the saddle felt a bit odd. That might be because the turbo is sitting on tennis ball rocker feet... I'll probably get used to it.

All in all though, a pleasing session!

I will try my simulated Cragg Vale climb next time. I am extremely familiar with what the real climb feels like, having done it hundreds of times over the past 35 years. It will be fascinating to see how closely the TPV/Victory trainer combination mimics it***.




*** The real climb usually features cross-headwinds for the exposed second half. I will check the TPV suggestions list to see if anyone has suggested user-definable wind... PS They had! I have added my ideas to that discussion.

 

[ColinJ]

I did another hour on the trainer this evening.

I have moved the game controller up the stem using a Garmin mount held on by stretchy bands. That got it out of the way of my knees but it isn't held so securely now. It moved a couple of times while I was using it. I might try fixing the mount onto the stem with cable ties instead.

I started off in a bot-paced group ride but I was fiddling about with the game controller as I rode and accidentally turned away from the bunch at a junction, turning it into a solo free ride! [PS I forgot that I had planned to try a virtual Cragg Vale climb. That will have to wait until another time.]

I got the fan remote control working again a couple of days ago by replacing its battery. Unfortunately, I forgot to switch the fan into standby mode for this ride so once again I had to dismount to turn the fan on mid-ride!

I have now discovered cruise control; I like it for free rides. I set it to 135 W to warm up after I had turned away from the bunch. Stupidly, I had not warmed up before joining them so it was good to ease off and then build back up.

After about 10 minutes I raised the cruising power to 150 W, and then in increments to 170 W. The buttons at the back of the controller nudge the cruise power up or down 1 watt at a time for single presses, but double pressing in quick succession changes it by 5 watts. I managed to get a step of 10 watts, which was probably by a triple press, but I didn't confirm that. I rode at 170 W for a while then gradually stepped up to 180 W. I maintained that for around 5 minutes then spent nearly 15 minutes warming down to around 130 W.

Cruise control wouldn't be much use for racing but for free rides it is more convenient than virtual gear changing. It is effectively a more flexible erg mode.

I tried virtual gear shifting with cruise control disabled but my attempt to improve the range of virtual gears in setup didn't feel like it was doing what I had wanted it to.

I had increased the number of gears to 32 and set the default gear to halfway through the range. I thought that TPV would make that a reasonable virtual ratio and give me a good range of ratios above and below.

What TPV actually seems to do is to make the reasonable gear ratio 'gear 0', 1/4 of the way through the range. The gears are displayed as -8 to +24 (actually 33 gears!). The negative gears are easier, for climbing; the positive gears are harder, for going fast.

This is overgeared for people like me! I need a much lower gear for climbing and don't need super-high gears.

I would have to turn trainer difficulty way down to race on any route with significant hills.

I might get in touch with TPV and suggest changes to how the virtual gear range can be user-configured.

What else...?

Oh, I am still uncomfortable on the turbo bike. I am racking my brains trying to work out what the problem is. I need to sort it out because it is making even 1 hour very uncomfortable. I had thought of trying to do 2 hour virtual zone 2 rides over the winter, but no way until the comfort issue has been tackled.

Standing to ease the discomfort feels odd compared to standing up on real road rides. Another thing to look at.

2 steps forward, 1 step back, but I am making progress getting this set up the way I want it.