Whether you tend to hop on the trainer more in the winter months or any time you’re time-crunched, indoor cycling can be an efficient way to make real progress towards your goals. A controlled indoor environment, paired with the right virtual cycling platform, can help you ensure you’re nailing your structured workout and getting in your base miles, preparing you for the race season ahead. Here are five TrainingPeaks Virtual features that can help you achieve your ideal indoor training experience.
It’s Free with a Premium Subscription
TrainingPeaks Virtual is included for all TrainingPeaks Premium subscribers. This means that all Premium athletes get unlimited access to Virtual, as well as other Premium features like flexible scheduling, Peak Performances, performance insights, and the Strength Builder tool. At just 134.99 USD a year (now just $101.24 with code CYBER2025), Premium is a steal for athletes who are structured, goal-oriented, and data-driven — and who don’t want to pay for another virtual platform on top of their other subscriptions.
For those who do not have a TrainingPeaks Premium account, you can gain access to TrainingPeaks Virtual on the first Tuesday of every month. This is a great way to hop on a group ride, test out the GPXplore tool (more on that later), or ride your structured workout indoors, all for free.
Ride Any Outdoor Route in the World, Indoors
By leveraging GPS data to turn real-world routes into virtual rides, the GPXplore feature offers two options:
- My Routes: Create custom virtual courses by uploading a GPX file to TrainingPeaks to ride turn for turn in Virtual. Whether you’re prepping for a race or want to experience a climb on a dream route, My Routes gives you the freedom to ride wherever you want, from the comfort of home.
- World Routes: We’ve upgraded our Virtual world with some of the world’s most iconic rides, allowing you to experience the exact topography of these famous routes — like the Stelvio and Koppenberg — from the comfort of your pain cave.
My Routes is particularly useful if you’re looking to train for a specific, challenging climb or course (like Ironman World Championships), but don’t have the ability to train on-site ahead of race day.
Real-World Physics Makes Riding More Strategic and Realistic
While other virtual cycling platforms like Zwift rely on the gamification of indoor cycling, TrainingPeaks Virtual offers the most realistic riding experience on the market. Founder George Gilbert built the platform using real-world physics principles — which translate into the most realistic drafting, cornering, and wind speed — so that riding indoors can be a productive training tool.
- Drafting: Watch the drafting bar in the top right corner of your screen, and use the arrow keys to sit in and increase your draft.
- Cornering: Take a spin through Georgetown to experience a crit-style course with 90 degree turns… and feel what happens when you try to pedal through every corner. On your second lap get the hang of it by coasting then accelerating like you would in the real world.
- Wind Speed: Just like riding outdoors, wind can be a factor in Virtual. Keep an eye on the wind speed and direction in the top right corner and use the arrow keys to position yourself in a group to hide from the wind.
A Reddit user sums it up here:
“Training Peaks Virtual feels more like real life than Zwift. It reminds me of when I raced competitively and realized that drafting was a real thing, that let me sit in a pack with riders with a higher aerobic threshold, and still win races.”
Seamless Integration With TrainingPeaks
For TrainingPeaks Premium athletes, integration with TrainingPeaks Virtual is seamless. Planned cycling workouts on your TrainingPeaks calendar sync directly to Virtual so that you can execute your training efficiently and accurately. Once you finish your ride, the completed workout syncs back to your TrainingPeaks account, giving you access to comprehensive post-workout data like left/right power balance and torque. Additionally, TrainingPeaks Virtual accesses your current estimated FTP (functional threshold power) so that your workout data is consistent across indoor and outdoor endeavors.
Customize Your Riding Experience
From personalized kits to Zen mode, TrainingPeaks Virtual offers a custom riding experience that athletes can regularly change to meet their needs.
- Custom Kits: Send in the specs for a team jersey and the TrainingPeaks Virtual team will have it on your avatar in a matter of days.
- Zen Mode: Ride solo so that you can go at your own pace and immerse yourself in your own virtual 3D world with Zen Mode.
- Focus Mode: Remove all distractions and focus on nailing your intervals with Focus Mode. You’ll see your ride data and nothing else so you can dial in and get in the zone.
- Standard Mode: This is where all the action’s at. Ride with the rest of the Virtual community and get immersed in the scenery, all while getting in a great training session.
- Power-to-Weight Ratio: TrainingPeaks Virtual does not display the power-to-weight ratio (w/kg) of other riders publicly. While a rider’s weight plays a vital role in determining how fast they are riding (and is therefore taken into account by Virtual), your power-to-weight ratio isn’t broadcast to everyone nearby.
- Customizable Display: For those who love to see the data, you can choose both what and where various metrics are displayed when riding. There are around 50 different custom parameters to choose from — including normalized power, torque, draft speed, and more — and these can be placed in any of about 20 different locations on the screen.
Bonus: Performance Verification Keeps Racing Fair
In addition to pre-event requirements and checks, which are ubiquitous with virtual racing, TrainingPeaks Virtual also uses real-time Performance Verification checks during events. This means that riders whose data indicates they may be gaining an unfair advantage over others are removed during an event so they don’t affect the outcome of the race. Whether due to faulty equipment or accidental or wilful cheating, this ensures that those who are competing fairly can race each other on a level playing field.
If you cycle indoors at any point in the year, TrainingPeaks Virtual should be on your radar. Not only is it included for TrainingPeaks Premium athletes, but it offers the most realistic riding experience in today’s indoor platform landscape. Get ready for race day (and have fun doing it) by creating custom real-world routes, experiencing realistic drafting and cornering, and playing around with different kits and riding modes, all while getting the most accurate training data available today.
