Structured training normally asks the rider to be the integration layer. WattPlan builds training around your goals and the time you have, then adjusts it as things change.
Good cycling coaching costs $150-400 per month. Most cyclists can't justify that expense, especially when starting out. So they turn to generic training plans that don't adapt to their lives, or they piece together advice from forums and YouTube videos.
The result? Wasted effort. Inconsistent progress. Frustration when life disrupts a rigid 12-week plan. Many cyclists train hard but never see the improvement they deserve.
WattPlan was built to change this. We believe intelligent coaching should be accessible to everyone who's willing to put in the work.
WattPlan uses established power-based training models and keeps each calculation testable.
Every calculation is deterministic and testable — not model-generated guesswork. The formulas are covered by an automated test suite that checks them against known values. The coach reads those numbers back to you in plain language, but the training logic underneath is sports science in code, not a language model making things up.
If you recognise these models from the literature or from your coach's spreadsheets, that's the point. WattPlan does the same maths, on your own rides, without asking you to keep the spreadsheet.
One accent colour, used with conviction. Big numbers you can read from the bars. Every workout drawn, so you see the shape of the effort before you ride it. The rest recedes into two shades of charcoal so the thing that matters today is the one bright object on the screen.
A training plan should feel like something you want to open in the morning, and the numbers underneath it should never lie.
The data is still the point. Fitness, fatigue and form are shown live, to four decimals, because they are moving whether you look or not. Status is a dot and a word, not a wall of colour. Coral means something went wrong; amber means take care; nothing is red for decoration.
This extends to features. We don't add capabilities for their own sake. Every element serves one of three jobs: keeping the plan up with your week, taking the logging off you, or letting the coach talk back.
Your training data is used for one thing: giving you better coaching. The Coach reads your workouts, fitness metrics, and conversation history to give personalised advice — but that data stays within your account and is never used to train AI models.
In the future, we plan to use anonymised, aggregated training data to build smarter coaching models — understanding how riders at different levels respond to different Loads, what progression rates work best, and where common plateaus occur. This will never include personally identifiable information, and you'll always be able to opt out.
"Your FTP is 250w." Not "Great job! Your FTP is 250w!" We present data honestly and let you draw your own conclusions. Encouragement comes from progress, not empty praise.
Life happens. Training plans should adapt to missed workouts, schedule changes, and unexpected events without guilt or judgment. Flexibility is built into the system.
Your training data is yours. We don't sell it, share it with advertisers, or use it for anything beyond improving your coaching experience. Period.
WattPlan is built by a solo developer who rides, races, and uses the app every day. There's no venture capital, no boardroom, no marketing department writing copy about features that don't exist yet.
Every feature ships because a real cyclist needed it. Bugs get fixed the same day they're found. Ideas from users become features in days, not quarters. You're not a data point in a growth metric — you're someone who wants to ride faster, and so do we.
James has raced bikes since he was old enough to get a leg over a mountain bike, taught by his dad, a mountain bike coach. These days he races gravel only, and his proudest result is 5th in his age group at Gravel Cymru, a UCI gravel race in Wales. He trains with power on every ride, mostly on the turbo, in about 10 hours a week fitted around his family and work. He built WattPlan because he wanted a plan that kept up with him, and he reviews and approves every article and podcast episode before it goes live. James on LinkedIn.
Lyra is an AI. She researches each article, reads the studies behind it and drafts it, and she co-hosts The WattPlan Podcast with James. Every study she cites is listed under Sources at the end of the article, and every claim about what WattPlan does is checked against the app's code before it's published.
Power output is measured in watts. Watts are the universal language of cycling performance — objective, measurable, and honest. WattPlan exists to help you put those watts to work.
