Got the bike yesterday. Didn't have a chance to get on it, but plan to today.

Any recommendations on what to start with? I've got some cycling experience so not a complete novice coming in.

I did some googling and looked like a couple "intro" options.

Power zone endurance class

AgLiving06 said:

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Got the bike yesterday. Didn't have a chance to get on it, but plan to today.

Any recommendations on what to start with? I've got some cycling experience so not a complete novice coming in.

I did some googling and looked like a couple "intro" options.

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Don't skip the setup video. Learned the hard way.

mrsbeer05 said:

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Power zone endurance class

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That sounds miserable!

I did the 20 min beginner ride with Leanne Hainsby to get comfortable on the bike.

Good easy ride to get back into it. Need to fiddle with the adjustments a bit more to find exactly right, but man I miss being on a bike.

Looking forward to getting into more of the week as I build back my bike endurance.

Just tried peloton for the first time!

Did the 45min hiit and hills ride with Hannah Franklin. Placed 5650th. Music was solid. I always thought the concept and Coach was lame but I enjoyed it much more than expected.

I imagine a live class is even more fun!

Both of the Hannahs are in the bottom tier of my favorite instructors. Same with Cody..

I enjoy a class with Cody on occasion as a change up.

My wife loves his rides when she's wants more of a 'fun' class. He drives me nuts.

I like London Hannah but not American Hannah. I also enjoy Ally Love when not doing PZ classes.

I ended up signing up for the Power Zone 5 week intro course.

Knocked out the first 2 classes back to back today with Matt Wilpers.

Question: Tomorrow would be an "off" day. Do most take that as a day to not do a PZ course or to not ride at all? Was thinking I'd try to find something easy to get 30-40 minutes in on those days.

Ok. Relative newbie here. Had my bike for about 2.5 months. Why is it that sometimes my calorie consumption is listed as high when my effort isn't PR worthy then other times with PR rides, it's lower?? Makes no sense to me.

I know it's not accurate regardless but it should at least be calculated consistently.

Are you using a HR monitor? The calorie counts are usually based on what range of HR you are working in, more so than how much output you produce. HR can be affected by many other factors so that you could have a higher HR for a lower output.

I like Alex a lot but I think he's really bad at keeping you informed about what the next cadence and power level is and when it's going to occur. He is always yelling 321 go it seems and only about 60% of the time does it actually mean you are changing anything about your ride.

Yeah, my first ride ever was a live ride of his. Enjoyed it but was lost as hell. It's a little better doing past rides and setting the bike to automatically change resistance. But I've switched the Matt power zone rides anyway.

Just set my alarm for Matt's PZ ride at 5:00 tomorrow for a birthday ride if anyone wants to join.

txags92 said:

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Are you using a HR monitor? The calorie counts are usually based on what range of HR you are working in, more so than how much output you produce. HR can be affected by many other factors so that you could have a higher HR for a lower output.

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Yes. Every ride. It's interesting that they calculate calories off of hr rather than simply output. I appreciate the insight.

Happy birthday - I'll be on! I'm megbmedina on the bike.

The output of a large human is going to be a lot higher than a small human so it's not an accurate gauge of how hard someone is working. Heart rate shows the actual effort relative to a normalized baseline.

Fedup said:

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txags92 said:

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Are you using a HR monitor? The calorie counts are usually based on what range of HR you are working in, more so than how much output you produce. HR can be affected by many other factors so that you could have a higher HR for a lower output.

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Yes. Every ride. It's interesting that they calculate calories off of hr rather than simply output. I appreciate the insight.

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Yeah, I think it is HR relative to whatever max you set. When you are working closer to your max HR, your are burning more calories than if you are working at an easier level. When you gain fitness, you become more efficient and can produce more output for the same HR level. So your output may go up, but if you are not exerting yourself as hard to achieve that output, your calorie count will be lower. I don't really know the ins and outs of how peloton's platform incorporates things like height, weight, gender, age, etc. into their calorie estimate, but I will just say that I don't really trust anybody's estimates. If you are using as part of a weight loss program and you are counting calories in and out, I would use something like 60-70% of whatever peloton estimates just to be conservative. Otherwise, I would just ignore the calorie count altogether and use other metrics to measure how hard you are working out.

Question about the strive score. Just connected my garmin as the heart rate monitor and strive popped up. Did a 30 minute PZ endurance ride. Score was a 28 but I have no basis for what that might mean. It wasn't a big exertion since it was an endurance ride.

Not sure what the numbers mean other than the longer you are in higher zones the higher the number

I finally broke the 400 club after taking a short break off. Felt amazing!

TheClaw07 said:

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Question about the strive score. Just connected my garmin as the heart rate monitor and strive popped up. Did a 30 minute PZ endurance ride. Score was a 28 but I have no basis for what that might mean. It wasn't a big exertion since it was an endurance ride.

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Strive score is just a generalized measure of "how hard was I working". It just gives a quantification of the intensity you are riding based on HR times the duration. I kind of wonder if they are going to start comparing it to the difficulty ratings people give rides or maybe start displaying the average strive score for rides as a way to see how hard other riders were riding.

I often think about how the leaderboard compares on a PZ max ride vs a low impact ride and how much the difficulty rating likely is skewed by the types of riders that typically choose to do certain rides.

So I'm just over a week into having the bike and loving it. Haven't missed a day.

I started the "Find your Power Zone" workout last week. Probably should have waited to start it, mainly to make sure I had the right fit on the bike. I've raised the seat several times since I started and may need to raise it a bit more but the adjustments have continued to improve my overall output. (I'm 5'10 and have my seat at 24 C right now).

But overall loving having the bike.

I do the Power Zone on the days it says and have being doing some shorter beginner/low impact rides to try out different coaches. Big fan of Olivia Amato right now, even though I don't think any ride she has is truly easy.

I did notice strive colors on the leaderboard during today's ride. Lots of people were orange which I think means working pretty hard so it's interesting to see those who are pushing on an endurance ride to try and drive up the leaderboard vs riding for the purpose of the ride. Also seeing those who are green and still crushing numbers (like I assume Nitro would be, lol)

One of the things they have really neglected in the rollout of the strive score in my mind is how to get more people to set a more accurate max HR. Strive is entire based on where you are working against your max, so if you see somebody near the top that is all green and yellow, it is more likely that their max HR is set wrong instead of that they are just riding that easy. The commonly used formulas are really only accurate for about 30-40% of the population.

I'm honestly not sure how garmin sets my heart rate max either. I do know that in a ride like today I stayed below 150bpm and that's comfortable but still working. Probably need to look into it!

TheClaw07 said:

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I did notice strive colors on the leaderboard during today's ride. Lots of people were orange which I think means working pretty hard so it's interesting to see those who are pushing on an endurance ride to try and drive up the leaderboard vs riding for the purpose of the ride. Also seeing those who are green and still crushing numbers (like I assume Nitro would be, lol)

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I was just about to ask something about this.

I was doing a ride today and followed the intent of the ride. I was at the higher ends of the resistance and cadence. Yet when I looked at the leader board there were people with significant more points (can't think of the unit) than I had.

I'm as competitive as the next guy but not sure I understand the intent of ignoring the ride plan just to get a higher score.

Just remember that the guidelines from instructors are suggestions. There are a lot of people who create higher outputs because that's what they do naturally, or what they need for the ride. For instance, on a heavy climb the instructor might say to be between 45-55 resistance and 65-75 cadence out of the saddle and tell you that it should be heavy. For me, at that cadence out of the saddle, 55 just isn't heavy so I adjust according to perceived effort.

What I was talking about earlier was on a Power Zone endurance ride which should, by design of power zone training, be similar effort for everyone because zones are customized for each individual by measured (or perceived) maximum output.

I hope that made sense

Yeah. Did a power zone endurance ride today where it was zone 3 intervals and zone 2 recovery. A dude shot up past me while we were supposed to be in zone 2. His hr indicater showed he was in zone 5 (red), I was in zone 2. I had it filtered by Texas aggies so he may very well be in here lol

I follow the cadence of the instructor but increase the resistance to make it more difficult for me.

However it's very obvious the higher ups on the board are increasing both

Did Jenn Shermans Pearl Jam ride yesterday. Great music, but her singing along to the songs is awful. Even with the mix at more music/less instructor, her cat in heat shrieking still came through. Surprisingly I PR'd that ride. Being able to see your pace on your previous personal best may be my favorite feature.

That's fair. I was lumping it in as one, but you're right, I should disconnect a PZ ride from other rides.

Good to see you on there Meg! Didn't get my shout out and was really feeling sluggish after a hard ride Monday, but muddled my way through.

I look forward to doing some live classes once I get through the PZ course. I just don't know how y'all are able to get up for a 5am class haha.