How to use TrainerCycle

A quick walkthrough of everything the app can do, in the order you'd actually use it.

Setting your FTP

Everything in TrainerCycle is built around your FTP (Functional Threshold Power) — it's what every %FTP target in every workout is calculated from.

Open Builder and find the Current FTP box in the sidebar.
Enter your number and hit Save. It's saved to your account, so it applies everywhere — Live Ride, Plans, the library's Intensity Factor numbers, all of it.

Don't know your FTP? Run the Ramp Test from the library (see Riding Live below) — it suggests a new FTP automatically based on your best minute of power.

Building a workout

The Builder page is where you create your own structured workouts from scratch.

Add a single step

Set a duration (mm:ss), a target type (% FTP, Watts, or % HRmax), and a low/high range.
Click Add step. It appears in the step list below, colored by intensity zone.

Add an interval set

For repeated work/recovery blocks (e.g. 4x8 minutes), use the Add interval set form instead — set the work duration/target, recovery duration/target, and how many repetitions, and it builds the whole block in one go.

Save it

Give it a name and click Save to library. It's now yours, synced to your account, and available from every page's workout picker.

Import from Tredict

If you use Tredict for planning, ask Claude to fetch a specific workout and hand you its JSON — paste it into the Import from Tredict tab and it converts automatically into the builder, ready to review and save.

Using the library

Every workout you've built, plus a large set of prebuilt ones (Recovery through VO2 Max, Threshold, Over/Unders, Anaerobic, and the FTP Test) live in the library on the Builder page.

Filter by type, or choose "Custom (mine)" to see only what you've built.
Sort by duration or Intensity Factor, either direction.
Click any workout row to load it into the builder view so you can see its full profile.
Every entry shows its duration and IF (Intensity Factor) — calculated properly from normalized power, so hard intervals push the number up the way they do on Strava or TrainerRoad.

Following a plan

The Plans page has multi-week structured plans — Sweet Spot Build, Threshold Build, Base Endurance, and a short VO2/Anaerobic sharpening block that ends with a ramp test.

Click a plan to expand its week-by-week breakdown, including rest days. Click any day's workout name and it jumps straight into the Builder with that session loaded, ready to review or take into Live Ride.

Riding live

Connect your gear

Open Live Ride in Chrome or Edge (Safari/iOS doesn't support the Bluetooth this needs).
Click Connect trainer and pick your trainer from the browser's device list.
Optionally click Connect HR strap too.

A trainer connection is required before you can start a ride — this stops you from starting a session that won't actually control resistance.

Pick a workout and start

Choose a workout from the menu (or "Free ride" if you just want to monitor without a script), then hit Start. The overview chart shows your whole ride's planned intensity with your live power/HR traced on top; the zoomed chart below it shows just the current step in detail.

While riding

Bail to recovery — drops the current interval's target to an easy recovery pace, holding it until the workout naturally moves to the next step.
Skip step — jumps straight to the next step.
Auto-pause — if you stop pedaling (both cadence and power drop to near zero) for a few seconds, the ride pauses itself automatically, and resumes the moment you start pedaling again.
Stop — asks for confirmation first, then ends and saves the ride.

The Ramp Test

A structured warm-up followed by 1-minute steps rising in intensity until you can't hold on any more — stop it whenever you need to. It works out your best minute of power from the actual data and suggests a new FTP, with a popup to accept or keep your current number.

Strength sessions

Open TrainerStrength, pick a session (Full Body, Upper Body, Legs, Core, Push/Pull Day, or the hip/glute-focused Knee & Hip Support routine), and hit Start.

Each exercise shows an animated illustration plus static Start/Finish position frames so you can see exactly what the move looks like. Tap Set complete when you're done with a set — a rest timer counts down automatically before the next one.

Reviewing rides

Every completed (or manually stopped) ride from Live Ride is saved automatically to Rides — no extra step needed. Each entry shows duration, average power, Normalized Power, Intensity Factor, and heart rate stats.

Click View chart on any ride to see power and heart rate plotted over the whole session.
Click Export TCX to download a file you can manually upload to Garmin Connect, Strava, or Tredict.

Tips & troubleshooting

Collapsed menu? Tap the ☰ icon top-left on any page to open the sidebar — that's where workout pickers, FTP, and connection buttons live.
Nothing loading? Most pages will show the actual error message if a load fails, rather than just staying blank — if you see one, send it over and it points straight at the cause.
Signed out unexpectedly? Sign back in with the same email — a fresh magic link works every time, no password to remember.
Fullscreen icon (top-left, next to the menu) is handy for a clean, distraction-free view while mounted on the bike.