Trainer Road ??? (Page 2)

Just as a heads FYI, Nate has a good post on the accuracy vs precision of TR vs a powertap for a KK trainer:

http://blog.trainerroad.com/kurt-kinetic-power-curve-virtualpower/

I use a Cycleops Fluid2, and while I feel the precision (reproducibility) has been very good based on how well my HR locks into particular virtualpower readings even over a 90 minute workout, I'm pretty sure that the accuracy is overestimating wattage at least for my setup, likely by over 40 watts, as my outdoor TT race results don't suggest that I can remotely hold 300 watts (my calculated virtualpower FTP by the 2 x 20 min test) for an hour.

As Nate says, the virtualpower is probably pretty good for tracking improvement, but not as good for saying "I make X watts" with high accuracy compared to a powermeter.

For those of you having success with this - how did you set it up?  My home gym is slowly coming together and wanted to start using trainerroad this winter.  I'm not worried about the bike/trainer setup - I already have that (I also have a Quarq on the bikes so not an issue with power).

Do you use a laptop with an ANT+ USB stick attached to it?   What do you do to super-impose the numbers on a TV as you watch something else (like I think it can do).  How do you feed your laptop video signal to your TV (or do you just have both opened up side by side? Do I need to hang another monitor for TrainerRoad? I hope not as I'd hate to fish out more wires!

I have some old PC's I can probably set up just primarily for this but curious on ideal setup as I don't really want to have to open a laptop and find a place to set it down as I work out (would rather that it be integrated into the gym design already).

I just run off my laptop screen...although it would be better if you have a larger monitor (or TV) to send the display.  I use the "Horizontal View", which docks the TR workout data screens on the bottom and allows your video display to carry on as usual.  All the data shows up along the bottom of your screen, with an enlarged section of the interval chart so you can track your output vs plan with a little better precision.  Works great.

Thanks! So how do you feed the video to the monitor or TV? Just the typical VGA output from the laptop?  (my TV only takes either HDMI or component video so I have to figure out how to convert). I guess the Horizontal View will work if you're watching Hulu or Netflix on your Laptop and still want to display the trainer road numbers?  I guess I can get an HDMI-capable graphics card and see if it will work with an old PC I have.

I just use the laptop as well.  I would prefer a bigger screen after just 1 session, but it's a wimpy little laptop anyhow.

I did a quick search you can get a vga to HDMI cable for about $3.00 online.  Probably cost you more in shipping.

Scott