Sometimes I want to hop on my bike and make up a workout as I go. Some apps allow manually setting a target wattage. That’s a fine feature, but we don’t really need it. Here’s what I do:
Make a new workout on the Xert webpage. Add a bunch of one-hour blocks at 100% Threshold Power. Call it “manual”.
Select your new manual workout on your mobile app or garmin and set the trainer to erg mode. Start riding. Adjust the intensity. Now, if you adjust the intensity to 75%, you’re riding at 75% of TP. 120% intensity and you’re at 120% of TP.
Simple.
(Note: my “manual” workout s actually a bunch of blocks at LTP rather than TP, since most of my manual workouts are done near LTP. This saves me clicking intensity down a bunch when I start the workout.)
Makes sense, but how is this different from me setting my Neo to 230 Watts and then add or subtract 20 or 30 Watts as I go? Not sure how many presses go into going from 100% to 75%, versus going from 220W to 240W though, so it might save you a press or two, but still. Plus, I take it you add a warm up (and cool down) block too? I wouldn’t like to set out at ~LTP level.
For this scenario, I would use the Tacx app, for better speed and distance accuracy. But the Xert app has the free ride workout, which will also suffice.