Whats happened to the new 16 weeks of SS plan?

Training Plans
1

With the new 16 weeks of Sweet Spot for 2022 plan - How do I do the weekend workouts over the wintertime as I use Trainerroad to control and run my smart trainer? It appears the weekend workouts have been changed since it was first released.

There are now NO erg mode workouts for any of the weekend rides in the plan. They are all now simply “Sweet Spot Group Ride” etc. This means its unusable for indoor trainerroad controlled workouts.

Being in Scotland, theres no way I can get outside to ride for a number of weeks/months over the winter period and need the erg mode workouts that were in the plan when it was first released.

Can you please add these erg workouts back.

2

A possibility is for you to see what the TSS requirement is for that particular day. Go to the TR workout list. Pick a type of ride then, match the TSS requirement. I have done that in the past.

3

Its not quite that easy im afraid. Being old i tend to ride at the lower end of the FasCat zones. Tempo being 76% of ftp and ss being 84%. TR workouts tend to be a lot different to this.

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4

Id much rather they just give us the 2 hour and other weekend ss erg workouts back.

5

Maybe just use the TR SS training plans?

6

Why would i do that when ive purchased the FC plans?

Ive tried the TR SS plans for tghe last 2 years and they have far too much high intensity stuff for me now at this age.

7

Makes sense. I’ve heard many athletes choose high volume plans but remove 1 or 2 days strategically which then corrects the intensity issue

8

You can just pick workouts from the TR workout library that fit the intensity profile you’d like to do, and use those until you hit the FasCat plan’s prescribed TSS. I’m with you, TR has the best trainer control software and I’ve been using it to control FasCat workouts indoors for years

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9

Big Cat Can you please add these erg workouts back

10

Riding in the ERG mode indoors for that long a period of time @oldcyclist is actually quite harmful for you.

Don’t do it.

That’s why we removed that in the old sweet spot 18 weeks plan.

Instead ride free form as Coach @Jake describes in this video:

Cycling power output and performance is variable and this is the most effective way to get in your workout indoors and not turning yourself into a “one gear wonder”

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11

I dont have zwift and cant afford another platform to train on.

12

I am same as you. Use FASCAT training programme but use TR as love it.

I use ERG but you can turn ERG off and just ride the FASCAT sessions using your gears in TR. I do this for any rides with intervals less than 30seconds but use ERG in winter for my SST

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13

After 3 days of structured workouts during the week, I find free form sweet spot rides on winter weekends to be a nice break. I live in the far northern US. No ERG mode, just keeping track of TSS & time in sweet spot. I use a data screen on my Garmin that displays cumulative time in each zone. I choose a route (or routes) on Rouvy & let it send real feel terrain to my Saris H3. Rouvy for 4-5 months costs me $60-75. I can ride anywhere around the world including :scotland: And I can do weekday rides in ERG mode on Rouvy. Win-win. Give it a try for a month. $15.

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14

The problem with the sweet spot free rides as per the plan for me is that they call for 3, 4 and 5 hour sweet spot rides. There’s no way on this earth that I would or could ride on a smart trainer for that period of time.

Thanks for the info on Rouvy though.

15

Is the time in zones a custom field or app, and does it have a sweetspot zone? I tried one a couple years ago but it didn’t work well.

16

Garmin lets you create custom zones. Set up zones using the FasCat spreadsheet & then use those zones to set up your Garmin using Garmin Connect.

17

Do you mean setting up the numbers? Or actually adding a custom range named “sweet spot”. If that’s now possible I didn’t realize it

18

Garmin only uses numbered zones. My bad. So it’s Zone 4 for SS.

19

@FRANK Can you clarify why long ERG mode rides can be harmful? I certainly find them tougher than doing the same TSS, duration and intensity outdoors, but I’m not clear on why I should avoid doing the longer rides this way.

1 Like
20

Yeah im curious about this too.