There’s Rouvy, as another poster mention, as well as FulGaz and Bkool. I’ve used all three and - purely personal preference - prefer FulGaz. A good cycling buddy of mine prefers Rouvy so that’s cool, too.
Rouvy and FulGaz use videos of actual rides, and your smart trainer will adjust effort for climbing and rolling hills, just as Zwift does. Their rides/maps come from all over the world so I can, for example, ride in France from the comfort of my basement in Virginia.
Edit: and they all have free trial periods, I believe. Bkool didn’t impress me …
I’ll give MyWoosh a try some day soon. I kinda want to get off zwift. I was hoping the windows version might have a way similar to zwift to get workouts in and fit files out.
MyWoosh told me they might be open to supporting other platforms soon, but right now they’re not supporting Intervals.icu.
They have a way to download activities (I believe those would be fit files) from the website, so one might automate this with python. At least for the downloads.
A way to get the workouts out (they do have a bunch of training plans) would be great though. But since there isn’t even a way to get those as calendar I don’t see that happening (unless those files somehow are exposed in the windows version)
I logged in to my account, and I see that I have TrainingPeaks linked.
So I would have created the workout file in TrainingPeaks, and it would sync to the MyWhoosh app.
MyWhossh saves your own workouts in the directory
“AppData\MyWhooshTechnologyService.MyWhoosh_eps1123pz0kt0\LocalCache\MyWhooshContentData”
In some of its own *.json format , but since it fetches workouts from TP it surely supports some API. A matter of time and it will start working with https://intervals.icu/ . I already wrote to them about it on FB, they wrote back generically that they are working on integration with other services.
GoldenCheetah anyone? chatGPT says:
" GoldenCheetah can control Wahoo Bolt and other smart trainers using the built-in trainer control feature.
With this feature, you can create workouts and control the resistance of your smart trainer to simulate different terrain, power targets, or interval sets. GoldenCheetah supports several popular smart trainers including Wahoo KICKR, Tacx, Elite, and more.
To use the trainer control feature in GoldenCheetah, you need to make sure your smart trainer is properly paired with your computer or device. You can then create a workout in GoldenCheetah and select the “Trainer” option from the workout editor to control the resistance of your trainer.
Note that not all smart trainers are supported by GoldenCheetah, so it’s important to check the compatibility list on the GoldenCheetah website or forums before purchasing a trainer if you plan to use it with GoldenCheetah."
It is free and allows full control of features and appearance. I used to use it before stumbling upon Intervals.icu. Now at Version 2, GC is pretty attractive to go back to.
BreakAway：Small and convenient! Much better support Intervals.
（I’m in China, I often can’t access some websites normally（such as Mywhoosy Rouvy FulGaz Dropbox Google…）, because this, I can’t get gold coins to view advertisements normally）
It has been used all the time, but I occasionally change to Zoffline or GTBikeV for the following workouts
3X
20m 76-90% (190-225w)
5m 30-75% (75-188w)
BreakAway will default to 90%
If the workout is more difficult, the completion rate of the game interface will be higher.
Well your app is only “half zwift”
For workouts and watching TV Shows on the side, it’s probably perfect (I’m still riding outdoors. I kinda “forgot” the indoor season when I got my gravel bike )
But for the social/race aspect we “need” fancy avatars in unrealistic virtual worlds
Am I missing something or is BreakAway basically the better free version of trainerday?
It looks like trainerday could get wirkouts frim intervals and in turn push those to MyWhoos so that’ll be the cheap Zwift alternative with full Intervals integration.
Other than that? TrainerDay is “just” a training app with no “virtual” or “social” aspect. Or am I missing something here?
It depends what is being compared, and then why the outcome of the session is expected to be.
Zwift, Rouvy, MyWhoosh, RGT and a few others allow virtual group riding, as well as the structured training plan at the same time. As you have previously stated, Breakaway is a half-Zwift experience, but so too are the other apps that don’t have the “virtual” aspect to it.
Speaking of half-Zwift, Breakaway, Trainerday, TrainerRoad. Watt Bike and a few others offer a structured training workout without the “gaming effect” as an extra.
In almost all instances, custom workouts can be added, with the exception of Wahoo SYSTM. I might have missed a few apps (it’s not intentional).
Integration is another factor, as is the cost to use each app. Simplicity, or ease of use, is something some people look at.
For my new athletes, I like to prescribe workouts that can use ERG on and off during the workout. Zwift allows it, through the companion app. It makes it a little easier for them to get to learn the feel. For the more experienced cyclist, I’ll prescribe off ERG as they would have learnt the feel for the efforts.
Integration is important, but not the end of the world if it doesn’t work. Dropbox helps currently, as does dual recording on a Garmin and Gaming App.
As the creator of TrainerDay and I would say friends with App4g the creator of BreakAway. I would not say BreakAway is better but different and free. But for sure BreakAway has a very tight integration with Intervals and some interesting options. In the end, I would say each is better in their own way.
TrainerDay is working on intervals calendar sync now, which means you can use the TrainerDay calendar and automatically have all your planned workouts in both intervals and MyWhoosh (via free TrainingPeaks). So this creates the simplest workflow and is $8 a month vs zwifts $15. Also in TrainerDay you might find the Coach Jack plan builder as something interesting even for the self coached cyclist. On other days you want to watch Netflix either the TrainerDay app or Breakaway would be a great option. Much better for quick hop on/off sessions than the slow startup of virtual worlds.
That’s why I love this forum. You can directly talk to both coaches, guys with extensive science background and developers of the tools we use on a daily basis
With better I didn’t mean anything specific, other than my exact use case. With software and even more in fields where everyone uses different tools and components there is really no way to define what “better” would even mean.
But since you mentioned features of TrainerDay, I have a few questions, as my view of “better” might have just taken a 180 turn towards your app
Which directions can be synced exactly?
Can I do THIS automatically?
plan in intervals → TrainerDay → TP → MyWhoosh (and probably Wahoo Head Units)
With automatically I mean, without me pushing any buttons or accessing any webpages - I’m not afraid to use APIs though, so should there be a step necessary where I “trigger” a sync, I’d call this automatic when it can be done via API calls as I’d just automate it on one of my servers.
And to the point of virtual vs trainer only, I totally agree. Most of the time I had Zwift on the iPad and Netflix on the big screen, so a simple “just trainer” app would totally be fine for those, and if I get the workouts automatically into MyWhoosh I’d have the virtual stuff when I want them.
EDIT after further reading:
It looks like we’d get icu planned workouts automatically to TrainerDay, but since those would be third party workouts TrainingPeaks won’t allow TrainerDay to sync those?
Therefore: do you have an API to create planned workouts on TrainerDay? That way I’d “create” a new planned workout directly on TrainerDay which in turn would be okay to automatically sync to TrainingPeaks? That way I would have those both in MyWhoosh and on my Wahoo ROAM (the two “graphical” options)
Yes, I can’t sync workouts from 3rd party to TP but in the new few weeks you could add workouts to our calendar that sync to both intervals and TP. I am considering letting people’s updates (to the name and description and move days) in intervals calendar and sync with TrainerDay and on to TP.
So you could only add workouts and plans via TD calendar but you could make your daily adjustments in Intervals. This does not violate my agreement with TP and still should give many intervals users almost what they want
Following what I am suggesting above. You don’t need to do anything except add a workout to your TrainerDay calendar. The rest would be 100% automatic.
We don’t have an API for inserting workouts into TrainerDay, that again allows people to bypass my agreement with TP. We have other API’s but not this one. Again using our calendar as the starting point, you would have it on your Roam, myWhoosh and intervals.
Yes, and I 100% agree with the “better for you” concept. We do our best to keep things as open as possible because cyclist change all the time. We do everything we can not to force people to use our app. We just provide solutions. David here is very open as well. With his incredible skills and API’s he does an even better job then us. Our API’s are no where near as full featured as his.
I’m looking forward to that. I’ve currently quit Zwift, TrainingPeaks and just about everything but Intervals, but I do want to get something for Indoor (including fancy virtual worlds) as well as workouts on Wahoo, so TrainerDay, free TP and MyWhoosh do sound promising
Edit: and should you ever need a data nerd with a background in software engineering and it security who recently turned triathlete, to test stuff or something like that, send me a PM. I’m especially interested in APIs
@Alex_VanLaningham: Just to clarify here. If I use the coach feature on your page to fill my training calendar that will both sync to intervals and TP (so MyWhoosh and Wahoo)
And then I can rearrange those in Intervals and have it sync to everything again? What about the „description“ in Intervals, which is really the whole workout? Let’s say the planned workout specifies some interval training, but I’d rather do a recovery ride around the lake and change the workout steps (in the description) on intervals accordingly. Would that basically „replace“ the planned workout in TrainerDay? And therefore TP?
Also, is there some source where we can read once it’s done? Like a „tech“ mailing list or public changelog somewhere?
I would check icTrainer (https://ictrainer.com). It costs 23,49 EUR per year and it’s downloading the workouts from your Intervals.icu account and upload the training results also. Perfect match.
But for sure BreakAway has a very tight integration with Intervals and some interesting options. In the end, I would say each is better in their own way.