cycling
14. Februar, 16:42 Uhr
Background: Like the rest of America, I started road cycling last summer and liked it well enough to get a trainer in the fall, which I mostly ignored until a couple weeks ago. But now I’m looking forward to the upcoming season and found my motivation, so I started looking into the training apps out there. There are a lot of options and it's all a lot to take in, so I recorded my thoughts and experiences, and hope that it will help others in my situation.
The Sufferfest offers a two week trial. Quite frankly, this doesn’t give you much time for a proper evaluation, but I recorded my experiences in Strava and thought that they might help others trying to decide which service to follow. As someone pretty new to non-mountain cycling, and brand new to indoor cycling, I found this whole thing a bit overwhelming. I didn’t know where to begin so I chose the 10 week Fitness Kickstarter training plan. Besides riding, it includes yoga and strength training, and this holistic approach to training is one of the main things I found attractive about The Sufferfest. Unfortunately, I only got one or two of those sessions before the trial ran out so I can’t comment on how effective they are.
Here’s the tl;dr:
* After turning off the video and motivation cues, I liked the desktop app a lot. It’s pretty much exactly what I want—all work out, no social. I don’t care about virtualized racing or riding with people. I just want to be bossed around while I watch Netflix.
* As someone completely knew to the whole thing, I found it a bit challenging to get started. A lot of the content, UI, etc feels like it is geared towards people who know what they want and understand then nature of it all. This isn’t a deal breaker by any means, but folk like me will have to take some time to poke around and figure things out.
* Semi-related to the above, I chose the wrong plan for the trial. Being pretty out of shape and not having any idea what would be in store for me, I conservatively chose the 10 week Fitness Kickstarter. This turned out to have too few activities that were too spread out to really get a feel for what The Sufferfest can offer you. In hindsight, I should have chosen the All In Cycling plan. So, if you’re where I was, that’s my suggestion.
* If you do sign up for The Sufferfest, do a test ride the day or two before your training plan begins to make sure you have your equipment set up and are familiar with the app. Nothing's worse than when you actually set aside time to workout but most of it is taken up by getting ready.
* I’m going to check out TrainerRoad because I understand it’s basically the same thing. But the only reason why I’m interested in trying it is because I don’t know enough to say which one has better workouts. If The Sufferfest is it then I am 100% content.
So, with that, here are my Strava entries:
**2/1 The Sufferfest: ## Getting Started: Desktop**
>Tour of the app and getting the devices connected. Easy stuff.
**2/1 The Sufferfest: Thursday Fields**
>Test run of Sufferfest. I'm starting one of their training plans tomorrow, so today I intentionally chose an easy ride that wouldn't interfere with it and would give me a feel for the app.
>
>My heart rate monitor wasn't picking up my HR very well. I remember having this problem last year, towards the end of the season. Probably time for a warranty call.
**2/2 The Sufferfest: Total Newbie Yoga**
>About as newbie as it gets. One step up from teaching you how to spell "yoga."
**2/2 The Sufferfest: Igniter**
>When you realize that you forgot to turn the fan on after you start your ride.
>
>First real workout with Sufferfest. I like the interface well enough. I especially like that the miniplayer will overlay Netflix, so I can ride and still watch something interesting.
>
>Still, this was an easy workout. I'm looking forward to seeing what I think after tomorrow's more strenuous ride.
**2/3 The Sufferfest: # Half Monty (Ramp Test)**
>First challenging workout. I was doing ok until about halfway through when I got stuck in ERG hell. No coming back from that until the power target dropped suddenly from \~240w to 79.
>
>Then, conversely, the workout switched from targeting power to targeting heart rate. The problem was that I couldn't pedal fast enough to get to the min HR—I kept spinning out. It is surprising to me that the trainer didn't up the resistance to help me get to the target HR.
>
>Also, screw you, sit-bones.
>
>But in happier news, I think I found the problem with my HR monitor. It started working again after I tightened the strap, so it must have been too loose. 🤦♂️
>
>Update: I found this after the fact and it looks like I did the workout incorrectly. [https://support.thesufferfest.com/hc/en-us/articles/360015029640](https://support.thesufferfest.com/hc/en-us/articles/360015029640). Why wasn't this in the workout's description?
**2/4 The Sufferfest: Thursday Fields**
>Not part of the training program, just burning a few calories and getting my butt used to the seat.
**2/6 The Sufferfest: Power Station**
>I spent some time last night reading up on ERG mode and now realize that I was doing it wrong. I knew that it would adjust resistance to match the targeted power, but I thought that I still had to do some pedaling to get in the ballpark, or something like that. Now I know that I need to simply focus on cadence and app/trainer will take care of the rest. So that’s what I did today and I didn’t have any more problems spinning out.
>
>I don’t know if it was finally using ERG mode right or not, but it more like an outdoor ride. The resistance builds were smooth (unlike a couple Zwift like apps that I tried where it was like hitting a wall when a hill was simulated). So that was nice.
>
>I also used a headband for the first time to keep the waterfall of sweat out of my eyes. You people with hair don’t understand the extent of this problem. So I got this: [https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B002AQPSWW](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B002AQPSWW). It’s great. Essentially, there’s a gutter in the front that carries the sweat to the side of your face and lets it fall there so it doesn’t get in your eyes. Worth its weight in gold.
>
>The ride itself was definitely an effort, but not too bad. My left calf started cramping around the 27 minute mark. This is a problem that plagued me last year. Still not sure what is causing it. It went away and came back a bit at the end, but nothing I couldn’t power through.
**2/9 The Sufferfest: Cash Register**
>This was a tough one. I stopped four or so times for short rests. Probably 2-3 minutes total. Maybe I could have pushed through one or two of those stops. It was probably a combination of not eating right and drinking enough. Water, that is. But also booze.
>
>I recalibrated the KICKR CORE before this ride. It also turned out that the wheel circumference wasn't set properly before either (not sure what effect that has had), so I corrected that. It was barely off, though.
>
>The other interesting thing about this workout is that it was on "level" (i.e., not ERG) mode, so shifting was a new experience. I found it really hard to stay steady; my watts were bouncing all around. Maybe that's normal, maybe it's just my inexperience.
>
>I've also been thinking about the feature of doing the workout while watching something else, like Netflix. I still like The Sufferfest’ format, and I still like being able to watch a show, but I find that I have to pay a lot of attention to the workout app so I'm only paying so much attention to the show.
>
>Final note: I was having trouble getting getting the app to report watts. It turned out that even though I closed the Wahoo app on my phone (when I calibrated the trainer), it must have still hung on to the Bluetooth connection. After disabling Bluetooth on my phone and unplugging/plugging the trainer, it worked perfectly.
**2/10 The Sufferfest: Sub-Threshold Alternating Cadence: 8 x 3**
>I found this easier than yesterday's workout, that's for sure. Though at the third interval I was wondering if I would end up taking a rest or two again. But I didn't do any stretching ahead of time, so I think it was mostly a matter of not being warmed up.
**2/11 The Sufferfest: Morning Yoga Routine**
>This was the second yoga workout in the plan and it just doesn't seem like it was all that much. I chose the beginner level because I had no frame of reference for what that meant, but it just feels too beginner.
>
>When I started doing yoga exercises for the first time ever, I launched straight into Yoga with Adrienne and her videos were doable, even for someone like me. I feel like the yoga portion of this plan could be kicked up a lot. But I don’t know what goes into creating these plans so maybe there are reasons for doing what they do.
**2/13 The Sufferfest: Strength - Beginner Level 1A**
>Super easy, but the purpose was to introduce you to the types of exercises in later strength training workouts. You can actually view it here: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1qfX9nxtFAI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1qfX9nxtFAI)
**2/13 The Sufferfest: GCN Strength Endurance**
>Fun little workout. Not really much more to say on it, other than I was better at keeping cadence, which was nice.
>
>This is the last workout on the training plan that I will be able to do as my trial ends tomorrow. I couldn't have know this before I started, but I chose the wrong plan for a trial. If I could do it again, I would have chosen the All In Cyclist plan, which more thoroughly incorporates the different types of activities and has something scheduled every day.
BiketourGlobal 
Zwift Insider 
Bikepacking 
Radsport-News.com 
MTB-News.de 
Ohne Auto im Alltag 
Velomotion 
LisasBunteWelt 
Cycling Weekly 
Cycling Claude Rennrad Blog 
Velonews 
Fahrradportal 
It started with a fight 
Cycling Sunday 
Unterlenker 
Bikerumor 
www.berghuhn.de Blog Feed 
Ride. Breathe. Live. – Takeshi war Rennradfahren. 
abstrampeln.de - Mountainbiken - Radtouren - La... 
Off The Beaten Path 
Aller Wege 
Fahrrad – mein Senf 
Velohome 
Velostrom 
Tausendkilometer 
Pedelecs und E-Bikes 
MartinTriker 
Warum ich Rad fahre 
there is no "I" in cyclyng 
hcb leezer 
Cyclingmagazine 
Home - HFS - Helmuts-Fahrrad-Seiten - hfs.bike 
inside MTB 
RADfahren.de 
Cycling Tag on Medium 
bicycling