Listen in as indieVelo creator George Gilbert and TrainingPeaks president Lee Gerakos break down the reasoning behind the acquisition of the virtual riding platform, the possibilities for coaches and athletes and how the ethos of credible virtual racing is a part of the DNA of the merger.
They share with Dirk the importance of community feedback in shaping the platform’s development and commitment to creating inclusive and credible virtual racing environments. Plus, learn about the seamless integration of TrainingPeaks athlete accounts and TrainingPeaks Virtual and its impact on cycling training and community building. The options for creating group rides, races and training simulations are extensive for coaches and athletes.
Standout Quotes
George Gilbert— The Distinction of Tactical Racing: “One of the things that makes real-life bike racing great is that it’s not the strongest person who wins.”
Lee Gerakos — Benefits of Leveraging Virtual Training: “Now having an environment where you can actually, like, put on your own race, go race it, understand those tactics, experiment, and just, you know, try different things and really start to build that that other part of the knowledge of what it means to compete that is so critically important and is really that difference between, you know, success and placing within a race.”
George Gilbert — Addressing Undue Advantage in Virtual Training: “It’s where somebody is going faster than they should, and some of the time, yes, people will be outright cheating, but the vast majority of the time, actually it’s people who’ve just got miscalibrated equipment or something like that, they haven’t set it up correctly or they haven’t, done something as part of their setup, which will enable them to have accurate results and their, speed in-game isn’t a accurate reflection of what they would do in real life.
TrainingPeaks Virtual is constantly checking riders for anomalies in the data, and every few seconds, it’s constantly sampling people’s data, looking at how they’re doing compared to absolute standards to relative standards and looking at how their data compares between different sources. You know, how’s their power compared to heart rate, is it coupled, is it decoupled, how’s it changing, you know, all these kind of subtle signs around is this person’s performance legitimate, does it look plausible, does it look like this is an actual person doing what they can do outdoors, replicating it indoors, or is this person gaining some sort of advantage, that is, as I say, undue?”
“It should be your event done your way when you want, however you want it.”
George Gilbert on Empowering Athletes and Coaches
George Gilbert — Importance of Replicating Real Racing in Virtual Spaces: “All these decisions are what make bike racing interesting. It’s not about sitting on a trainer and just spinning at a constant power for 40 minutes or so, and then whoever’s got the biggest sprint wins. It’s about who’s got the best brain, who can deploy their skills, their physiology, in the best way, to get the best results.”
Lee Gerakos — Growing the Sport: “What is important as we think about growing the sport, getting more people to be able to, like, live all the benefits that we do as participants in such a wonderful, you know, ecosystem of athletics is how do we make that easier for people to come into it?”
“Coaches have profound impact on people’s lives.”
Lee Gerakos on the Power of Coaching
Lee Gerakos — Growing the Sport: “What is important as we think about growing the sport, getting more people to be able to, like, live all the benefits that we do as participants in such a wonderful, you know, ecosystem of athletics is how do we make that easier for people to come into it?”
TrainingPeaks Virtual is here!
With the acquisition of indieVelo, TrainingPeaks just became your home for seamless indoor cycling.
