So this sunday im traveling for work and will be gone the rest of the month of january. I’m not able to bring my bike along, but i’m going to bring pedals and HRM and try to use the gym hotel bike. What happens with my training plan? I’m also going to run so I set up a running profile that i will manually upload. For biking, should i just set up the HRM estimates in my profile, and start workouts with my HRM synched up via BLE and run it that way? I’m really trying to not lose any riding fitness. I’ll also be adding in some weights as well. How does all this work with XSS?
If you can buy a pair of power pedals you should be able train just like at home (except no ERG mode).
I do not know how the Xert app works without power, but you can record the training with your watch, upload it to Strava and it will show up in Xert.
It will be hard to do intervals just based on HR. I would go for longer steady workouts like zone 2 or zone 2 where you can keep the effort the same for the full workout. Or 2x20 min or 3x30 min (you choose) at threshold.
Spin bikes typically have a resistance dial that you need to adjust. It takes some time to find the correct resistance, especially since the HR will keep increasing during a threshold interval. But try to keep a fixed cadence and resistance throughout the interval. If the hear rate max or average was too high or too low, adjust slightly the resistance dial for the next interval. And remember the resistance setting so you can reuse it for the next session. (Say you end up with a resistance setting of 4 for the rest interval and 14 for the work interval).
Unfortunately most hotel gyms are too warm for cycling and they do not have fans. So most likely your HR will be higher than normal and your power less.
I think you also need a cadence sensor for the HR derived XSS, so make sure you have that. You can just attach it to your shoe (e.g. Wahoo Cadence, Stryd (or other running foot pods)).
Yea, power pedals isn’t going to happen. I run a 4iiii pm on my bike now.
Looks like I will probably just run and upload like you said to strava and have it pull into my running profile. And then just steady state zone 2, building base, and same thing, upload to strava and hopefully it pulls into my cycling profile or I will upload it manually.
If uploading manually and with only HR, do I need to set my profile for the next 3-4 weeks as heart rate estimation?
You can leave HRDM on all the time for a cycling profile.
Works best if you have plenty of HR, power, and cadence data on file to compare to rides with HR and cadence, but will work with HR only too.
I have an inexpensive Magene cadence sensor for this purpose.
Once enabled you can also adjust maxHR and RHR manually to fine tune results if the auto-estimate numbers are off.
Ah that’s a good idea with the cadence sensor. I’m sure I can pick one up locally fairly cheap. Like a wahoo unit or something that I can attach to whatever bike I might be riding.
If that’s the case, I could do my rides through xert with only my HRM and cadence sensor paired right? Obviously wont show power, but hopefully the other two would be enough.
Works fine IME. 
When I travel for work, I turn to the elliptical machine with HR for some exercise. I’ll throw in some weights too.
All great ideas. Thanks everyone!