HOW TRAINERROAD USES AI FOR CYCLISTS (Not what you think…) | Ask a Cycling Coach Podcast 573
Ask a Cycling Coach Podcast - Presented by TrainerRoad
TrainerRoad
4.9 • 4.6K Ratings
🗓️ 13 February 2026
⏱️ 62 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
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// TOPICS COVERED
(00:00:00) Welcome + Why We’re Talking About AI in Cycling Training
(00:00:30) Environmental Impact of AI: Water Usage and Perspective
(00:06:15) Where TrainerRoad Uses AI (and Where It Doesn’t)
(00:09:30) TrainerRoad AI Results: Fewer Failed Workouts & Early Feedback
(00:14:40) Power Records Chart: A Better Way to Understand Your Workouts
(00:17:30) Why FTP Isn’t Driving the Model (and What Actually Is)
(00:31:00) Group Workouts Return + Fatigue Detection Toggles
(00:40:20) Failure Rates, Workout Difficulty, and Why Some Failure Is Good
(00:43:36) Why Your FTP Prediction Changes (and How to Think About It)
(00:53:03) Triathlon Support + Workout Scoring Updates
(01:00:22) Wrap-Up + Leadville Update
In this episode, TrainerRoad CEO Nate Pearson and Coach Jonathan Lee explain how TrainerRoad uses AI in training—what it does (like improving workout recommendations and predictions) and what it doesn’t do (it’s not a chat-style LLM running the whole app). They address environmental impact concerns, clear up common misconceptions around FTP and AI, and share recent updates like the Power Records Chart, group workouts returning, and new controls for fatigue detection and workout scoring—ultimately focusing on how these changes help athletes get more consistent, achievable training and better results.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to the Ask a Cycling Coach podcast, presented by Trainer Road. |
| 0:02.4 | Today, we are going to talk all about AI and cycling, training, and coaching. What we do here at Trainer Road, we've gotten questions from a lot of you, whether that's on YouTube, through our forum, through support tickets, on our social channels. You can find us at Trainer Road all over those places. We're going to answer those because we have our CEO, Nate Pearson, with us. Hello. |
| 0:21.6 | Hey, good to have you, Nate. |
| 0:26.0 | One of the main, or I shouldn't say, let's just say the first topic that we want to cover here. |
| 0:29.6 | We want to talk about AI in general, how we're using it, all of that stuff. |
| 0:34.9 | And in some cases, some athletes have expressed, like, concern over the environmental impact of AI usage. |
| 0:37.2 | And if we're contributing that end to what scale. |
| 0:38.2 | Let's go through that. |
| 0:44.3 | Yeah. But we've got some like accusations on things of, uh, we're being not environmentally friendly because we're using AI and then what are we going to do about it? Uh, which I mean, I'm, |
| 0:49.9 | I'm with you because there's like, I've seen TikToks where it says, you know, |
| 0:55.5 | every time you do a search or a query, it's like a bottle of water or a gallon of water. |
| 1:01.2 | And this is how that, how that works is like the water is used to cool data centers and |
| 1:07.0 | then it evaporates. Some of it does. The then they put in, like, in these estimates, |
| 1:12.2 | they put in like how big the model is the train. There's, no, there's a lot of stuff in there |
| 1:16.1 | that might be overestimated, but who knows? But that doesn't even matter. So there was a, |
| 1:20.6 | there was a port that came out recently that said, oh, and also too, they, I'm sorry, jumping around. |
| 1:27.1 | They, or a port that came out recently that estimated the water use in 2025 for AI data centers globally. |
| 1:35.8 | There's a high end of $202 billion a year, low end of 82. |
| 1:40.5 | So the high end at 202 kind of mimics the total bottle water use for the U.S. per year, which seems like a lot. |
| 1:50.0 | And then if you look at, there's a report from the USGA, U.S. golf course, golf administration. |
| 1:57.3 | And they said in 2002 to 2003, they estimate just for irrigating golf courses, it's $750 billion. |
| 2:04.2 | So that's about four times more for U.S. golf courses back then. |
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