I would like to give Xert a try. The way that our fitness signature is modelled and the ability to have progressive overload with semi-structured intervals really appeals to me.
My concern is that I’m a mountain biker and I like to do at least some of my hard workouts on trails, and that Xert underestimates the stress of hard MTB rides and races (AFAIK no model other than HRTSS really does this). For example recently I did an XCM race that Xert rates as moderate difficulty (65), a short track race that is rated as easy, and a training ride with over an hour at XC race pace as moderate.
Are there other MTBers that use Xert, and how do you deal with these limitations?
If your only concern is whether a ride is rated easy, moderate or difficult, I would honestly ignore that, and I’d say that for road, MTB, gravel etc.i would instead focus on XSS and the breakdown into low high and peak. Difficulty is some kind of weighted average of XSS per hour, but it’s over a fairly long time so short rides it’s very hard to get difficulty to higher levels. On the other hand difficulty doesn’t increase with duration (beyond eg an hour) so whether you do 1, 2, 3 or 4 hours at sweet spot you’ll see the same difficulty. It’s a bit like intensity factor in that sense (but more complex as it’s XSSR based).
More broadly, for MTB I think all platforms probably underestimate the physical effort / strain of MTB as you’re hinting at, since the downhills are not usually ‘rest’ and even flat trails use much more energy than the power you put into the pedals. I guess if you’re consistent in the terrain you use, and only ride MTB it doesn’t matter - you’ll just end up with lower XSS than a roadie… but not sure that matters? Maybe more an issue if you mix road and MTB in an inconsistent way (like me!). I’m probably 70/30 road/MTB and still find the signature tracking etc fine though. I do find it harder to hit the same power on MTB but it doesn’t really worry me…
The difficulty is not important. What matters is that your MTB power meter is accurate. You can check this by doing a dual recording and then comparing the values with those from your trainer or other power meters.
I’m a mtber and only have mountain bikes in my garage. So they are used for everything including road rides and commutes. I ride off-road up to three times a week and find Xert better than other platforms in the amount of XSS compared to TSS it gives me. Magic bucket filling off-road is great. Use the climbs to descents to fill them. It looks like you are seasoning the descents, but a lot of the time in reality, you are filling buckets on the climb!
Hey, thanks for the reply. It’s not that my only concern is easy/moderate/difficult, but if they’re not lining up with my actual effort then it makes me question the modeling. I don’t want to end up with workouts that are too hard to do on my MTB and then too easy on my road bike. My mix is inconsistent also. When conditions are good, I want to MTB more. Sometimes I go to the mountains during the weekend, sometimes I stay local and ride the flat trails. Etc…
My last important race is in early October. I think I’ll give it a try in the winter and early spring when I’ll be stuck on the trainer a lot of days anyway. Hopefully I can’t mess up my training too much.