Software for your Heart Rate Monitor and GPS

To some of us geeky MAMILS (middle aged men in Lycra), one of the biggest pleasures, next to the ride or run itself, is quantifying the vast amount of data available to us about our performance.  The prevalence of GPS based and downloadable cycling computers, combined with various websites and programs have made it possible to catalog, view and analyze mountains of data; metrics from average pace to peak wattage vs. peak heart rate are now at your fingertips.  Here’s a quick overview of a couple of the more common sites and programs out there.

 STRAVA

 

my new favourite after a while playing with Endo … (see next)

Strava.com is the relative new kid on the block in terms of ride analysis.  Offering both free and frankly too expensive subscription services ($6 per month or $59 per year) will allow riders to directly upload rides from their GPS devices and track their performance.  Displaying a GPS track of the route you rode, along with an elevation profile and metrics such as distance, elevation gain, moving time, speed (max and average), average speed, average cadence and average power, you get a mass of information to sift through and analyse.

The coolest thing about Strava and it is something that Endomondo also does is social connection ….  You can link Strava to your Facebook page and twitter account and you can even challenge friends (or strangers for that matter) to competitions.  Strava has a unique feature that allows you to designate segments of your ride and run (climbs, TTs, crazy descents) that you can measure against every other person on Strava that has covered that route (or just a section) before and uploaded their ride.  It’s an excellent idea that promotes competition and growth amongst different riders all riding in the same area.

Here is a section of the Arran ride that someone has made into sections … woo hoo I did well without even knowing it.

For example, imagine your club has a friendly “climbing competition” up a particularly long, steep, or otherwise nasty climb.  Anyone who is a member of Strava who uploads a ride containing that climb will be ranked based upon speed, power, time and VAM (Vertical Ascent Meters) along with everyone else who has ridden that climb.  The best part of the whole thing is that once the climb is designated on Strava, the site software automatically finds that segment of your ride and analyzes it, compares it to everyone else, and posts it in ranking of fastest to slowest.  It’s an excellent tool to use to compare both your form compared to others around you, and to chart your own progress by comparing to your previous attempts.

PROS: Great community based concepts.  ”Segments” option for competing with your friends.  Excellent data presentation and layout. Standalone free iPhone app if you don’t have a dedicated gps hrm

CONS: Pay site is yet another expense (free site only 5 rides/month allowance)

ENDOMONDO

My old favourite social exercise site – allowed you to see your friends workouts and comment on them. Again it allows analysis of the ride or run and also keep a note of your PB’s.

The social interaction may be slightly better on Endo although I prefer the slightly better analysis on Strava …. Again there is a dedicated app for iPhone so you can use that on commutes when your gps or hem is at home. Both these sites are better with Garmin products and that is more to do with the disinterest on the part of Polar and suunto more than the development of either of these two platforms. At the moment I import the gpx track from file although this loses the hrm info from the exercise. At the moment you can import the average and max readings into the endo workout but it is not a true graph.

Alternatives for Me

Movescount for Suunto users

Good analysis but lacking social connections as there is no app and your friends can’t compare to you.

Polar Personal Trainer for Polar HRM users

Better analysis but even less social connections.

e-paper watch for running, cycling and more

this watch looks very cool – not sure if it will record but might be a great interface for an endomondo or running app on my iPhone ….

THEIR SITE HERE

Customize Your Perfect Watch. It’s as Easy as Downloading an App.

Pebble is the first watch built for the 21st century. It’s infinitely customizable, with beautiful downloadable watchfaces and useful internet-connected apps. Pebble connects to iPhone and Android smartphones using Bluetooth, alerting you with a silent vibration to incoming calls, emails and messages. While designing Pebble, we strove to create a minimalist yet fashionable product that seamlessly blends into everyday life.

CUSTOMIZE WITH APPS

Apps bring Pebble to life. We’re building some amazing apps for Pebble. Cyclists can use Pebble as a bike computer, accessing the GPS on your smartphone to display speed, distance and pace data. Runners get a similar set of data displayed on their wrist. Use the music control app to play, pause or skip tracks on your phone with the touch of a button. If you’re a golfer, feel free to bring Pebble onto the course. We’re working with Freecaddie to create a great golf rangefinder app for Pebble that works on over 25,000 courses world-wide. Instead of using your phone, view your current distance to the green right on your wrist. These apps will be the first, with more in the works!

CUSTOMIZE WITH WATCHFACES

Pebble can change instantly, thanks to its brilliant, outdoor-readable electronic-paper (e-paper) display. We’ve designed tons of watchfaces already, with more coming every day. Choose your favourite watchfaces using Pebble’s iPhone or Android app. Then as the day progresses, effortlessly switch to the one that matches your mood, activity or outfit.

CUSTOMIZE WITH NOTIFICATIONS

If you need to stay on top of things, Pebble can help with vibrating notifications, messages and alerts. Dismiss a notification with a shake of your wrist. Don’t worry, it’s easy to disable all notifications.

• Incoming Caller ID
• Email (Gmail or any IMAP email account)
• Calendar Alerts
• Facebook Messages
• Twitter
• Weather Alerts
• Silent vibrating alarm and timer

Android users can also receive Text Messages (SMS) on their Pebble. Unfortunately iPhone does not expose this data. Have any suggestions for other notification types? Leave us a message in the comments!

iPhone iPad app to make your sailing better

Best sailing tool might not be a gps or amazing fitness – it may be post race analysis to see where you are poorest … tactics. This is fascinating for sailors wanting to improve. I was watching a series the other night on my my iPad and it was really interesting to see why the goog always rise to the top. Was watching on particular race series and enjoyed one were a guy who was pretty good had a bad second race start … was interesting to see how he tacked his way out of trouble on the first leg. See their home page here

BLURB

We’d all like to improve our sailing, but often it’s hard to really know what to improve. On a typical weekend, the good guys are quickly in front and there is no way to tell what they are doing right and you wrong.

Sometimes a race is lost on a “bad leg”, but what actually happened and what went exactly went wrong? Often we never find out. How do we identify our current weakest point of sailing that we should be attending to first? What is needed is information; hard facts, that are often not available to you on the race course.

With the availability of inexpensive GPS tracking devices, such as the QStarz BT-Q1000X,  it’s now easy to record a boat’s track around the course. And with TackTracker, you can play your GPS tracks and watch the race again, as it happened or navigate tack by tack.

But TackTracker is much more than just a player. It is a race analyser, and can give us leg by leg information on how far we have sailed, how fast we were going, and how high we pointed on both port and starboard tack.TackTracker can even deduce the ambient wind direction, and indicate which tack a boat is on at any time, and whether it was close hauled, reaching or running!

Its fun to play your track around the course, and there are plenty of things to learn. The real value is attained when a number of sailors get together and share their tracks with each other. Then you can ascertain who travelled the shortest distance on the windward leg, who was sailing fastest, and who highest. At moments in the race where you may have fallen back, you can see what you were doing in relation to the other boats you were competing with.

 

A Complete GPS Solution

TackTracker is designed to deliver a complete solution, streamlining and automating the entire process from uploading tracks into the software, archiving and managing tracks, to viewing and playing tracks.

The track browser maintains a library of your tracks organised by date, so you can easily find tracks from past races.  You can select individual tracks, or an event (race) which may contain multiple tracks. As each track or event is selected, it is displayed in the track player.

The track player has a group of navigation buttons at the bottom, which you can use to drive your boat around the course. You can also press “Play” and sit back and watch. Then speed up and slow down the action as required.

The track player lets you pan and zoom with the mouse, or you can turn on “auto zoom” to have the player automatically track the race boats. You can also drag the mouse to create a distance and bearing meter allowing you to assess the separation between boats at any point.

Races are defined in the “Event Editor”, where you set the start time and lay the course marks. This is all done graphically, allowing you to define the course in a matter of minutes. Once the course is defined, all participating tracks are analysed and all race legs computed. The Legs table gives you a summary of all the key statistics for each leg for each competitor.

 

You can sort the table by any column to compare results for any leg or competitor. Powerful!

TackTracker also has a great range of interactive charts that provide additional insight into your boat’s performance. The speed chart shows boat speed over the course of the current leg, whilst the deviation chart shows how high or low you are sailing to the true course. Together, these charts are an effective visual summary of your sailing efficiency.

The vertical bar indicates your current location. As your boats progress through the leg, the bar moves to the right. Alternatively, you can drag the bar with the mouse, and the boats will follow. (My daughter says this is really cool!)

There’s lots more to TackTracker, but this will serve as a quick introduction.

To learn more, the best thing you can do is download and install the free race player from the Download page. You can watch and interact with races available online that have been recorded at regattas for a range of classes. You can also read the User Guide, available from here.

I hope you have fun using TackTracker and that it helps you improve your sailing.

 

For a limited time, the TackTracker Player App is a FREE download from the Apple App Store.  Go to the App Store

New! You can now get a TrackTracker Player for your iPhone and iPad. You can browse the online races database and play and review all the racing from the convenience of your handheld device, wherever you are.  You’ll be impressed by the full-featured player with multi-touch panning and zooming and all the familiar graphics from the PC players. Includes a full regatta browser, competitor selection, and leg by leg stats and charts. See stats and charts for any two competitors side by side.

This new player is the first manifestation of a significant investment TackTracker is making in the Apple platform. We now have all the core software running natively in Apple’s application frameworks. Stay tuned for more to come.

iPhone Screen Shots

 

Searchable Regatta Index. Tap any Regatta to see the Regatta detail, including a photo and list of races.
Player: Note you can tap in the player to hide the top navigation bar.

 

 iPad Screen Shot

The iPad is a wonderful medium for TackTracker, with plenty of screen real estate for a compelling replay wherever you are.

 

Photo snapshot – Brompton in the sun

same bike different filters

Pace Calculator app by Runners ally

Found this last night a really handy app for pace calculation as well as being a predictor for race times over different distances. I based this on my last race and must say it predicts a 3h00 marathon time which is frankly very flattering. But although it is just a guide it also is quite motivational and makes me want to enter and train for one.
If I do enter a marathon my only desire is to beat my brother-in-law’s time which was 3H31 and he is 10 years younger than me.

I have done a half marathon before and did a 1H42 with no training and crappy running gear.

Will have to check my work schedule and see what I can do.

BIKE SNAPSHOT – Klein

BIKE SNAPSHOT – Rohloff

 

Rohloff

 

 

BIKE SNAPSHOT – Big Apple

 

Schwalbe Big Apple

 

 

BIKE SNAPSHOT – Exposure Flash Light

 

Flash by name ...

 

 

BIKE SNAPSHOT – Brooks Saddle II

 

B17

 

 

BIKE SNAPSHOT – Brooks Saddle I

 

nameplate

 

 

GPS Running and Biking apps for the iPhone a recap

screen grab

I did a brief review of apps a while back – thought it was time that I reviewed the ones that still stay on my iPhone …

MOTION X Pro

I paid for this app – it is a great sub for a dedicated gps unit. It is very quick to pick up signals and lock on to the satellite signal. If you are buying an app as a dedicated gps then this is the one. For purely cycling or running there may be better.

CYCLEMETER (bike App)

See here

THE BIKE

A more basic gps application. Screen comes up horizontal layout which is a better use of space on the screen. The top shows duration – centre shows speed with odometer below. On the left there is an average speed display and a maximum speed display. On the right is a trip display and a large  Start button which once pressed turns into a STOP button. Ease of Use is the primary benefit. Tracks can be saved and also uploaded to everytrail

TrackThing

vitals

A good gps unit equally good for biking or running. I have done 2 screengrabs. It is a vertical display on black background that is easy to read.

Vitals shows Speed and Distance and Duration. Good for cycling.

Stats Screen

Stats shows avg pace / avg speed and odometer

Velotrac

Downloaded for trial. Not one I will describe and recommend here.

GPSies

Another good vertical display. Again more for bikes. Display shows Elapsed Time / Distance / Average Speed and Current Speed. Bottom half of screen is map display. Again this can be uploaded to GPSies where there are tools and tracks to share. While app is quite basic the website is versatile.

Runkeeper

map screen

As it says on the app – running is in the name itself. Two screen displays – a read out of time avg pace and calories at the top and a map below.

split screen

Second screen shows /min splits. I believe in the pro version you can change this to /km splits. A good running app which will serve most runners well.

Runmonster

 

 

 

RunMonster

 

 

A really nice running app – I like the display and the readouts on this app – think it is the nicest app for running.

Display shows Distance / Time / Pace / Calories

Below it shows splits showing altitude climbed and /km splits. You can them email your route – it attaches a gpx file and also allows you to see the route in Google Earth.

WalkJogRun

 

 

 

 

WalkJogRun

 

 

 

 

Not so much a gps tracker as a track finder – finding routes in an area that you are visiting or living. Can display in vertical or horizontal format.

quick escape and a few miles down

motion-X map

Quick ride at 4pm as Jolene and the girls were coming back from swimming – Ruby (now 6yo) was doing only her 2nd ride to the West End (glasgow) which is just over 5km each way. in between was a 40 min swimming class which always wipes her out so thought I would meet them on their way home to give Ruby a moral boost and also to make sure she was safe on the road

10km happy yawn

Took a bit of coaching at the end – but she was insisting on doing it – we were going to strap the bike on the side of the Yuba if she was tired … but she wouldnt give up despite complaining.

Went to meet them on the Brompton – getting used to the slightly small wheels and noticing the bumps – but a solid well-made bike and I am loving it.

Brompton - S6L brooks and schwalbe marathon upgrade

Name:		Track 023
Date:		3 Oct 2010 5:19 pm
Map: (valid until Nov 2, 2010)		View Larger Map
Distance:		7.84 kilometers
Elapsed Time:		35:34.6
Avg Speed:		13.2 km/h
Max Speed:		35.0 km/h
Avg Pace:		04′ 32″ per km
Min Altitude:		81 m
Max Altitude:		107 m
Start Time:		2010-10-03T16:19:53Z
Start Location:
Latitude:	55.860547º N
Longitude:	4.223120º W
End Location:
Latitude:	55.860423º N
Longitude:	4.222976º W

Using MotionX-GPS Track: Track 021

MotionX on iPhone – send tracks to your self and for info. This is from commute to school on the yuba

HAPPY TO SHARE

Anyone out there with an interest in ‘rambling’ (in the sense of kite,bike,tour,camera, surf) and who want to contribute then get in touch. I only started this blog as a ramble into the ether and now it turns out that people read it so – if you fancy writing about your tour on a surly big dummy, fell-running, bike maintenance or even reviews of things or places then I want to hear from you.

RunMonster bike app – running app

Using RunMonster on the iPhone – quick trial taking the girls to school on the bike. Tracks very well and simple to use – has a feature where you can email the route to someone after completion … an example is below. It attaches a gpx file so they can upload the route to their GPS or app …. although wordpress drops this attachment off. Sportypal has a good viewer for gpx files.

Greetings!

You have been sent a bike ride from RunMonster for iPhone.

Activity: Bike Ride
Route: Cranworth St – Speirs Wharf
Date: Aug 17, 2010 11:42 AM
Distance: 3.91 kilometers
Duration: 25:07
Calories: 42
Avg Pace: 6:25 min/km
Avg Speed: 15.0 km/h
Max Altitude: 115 meters
Min Altitude: 80.0 meters

Splits:
Kilometer 1: 4:39/km
Kilometer 2: 5:18/km
Kilometer 3: 3:23/km
Last 0.93 Kilometers: 12:30/km

The file attached to this message is in GPX format. To display the route: Any Platform: Google Earth (http://earth.google.com/)
Windows: TopoFusion (http://www.topofusion.com/)
Mac: TrailRunner (http://trailrunnerx.com/)

A full list of applications that support GPX files can be found here: http://www.topografix.com/gpx_resources.asp

If you have any questions or comments, please email support@runmonster.com.

Cheers!
The RunMonster Team

A trip to Arran

Arran Jolly on a bike

With an imminent work trip to the Middle East trip scheduled, I said goodbye to the lovely lady and the kids who were headed north to Shetland for a holiday. Mmmm a few days before I go so I could either work on the showreel, go kitesurfing with Ed or go for a bike ride or two.
Jolene was on the ferry already when she texted to say that Tom was going walking and camping on Arran for a few days. His wife and kid were also on the ferry so it was a case of 2 dads banishing the boredom.

So a plan was hatched catch the 8:40am train from Glasgow to ardossan, get the ferry to Arran and then head north to try and find Tom. Now the thing about Tom is that he is low maintenance – happy to rough it, happy to exercise, happy to change plans. Now there is the rub that he might change his mind and campsite and he doesn’t use a mobile phone so the chances of tracking him down are slim.

Well he is planning to climb Goatfell and the only campsite is in the north of arran at lochranza right opposite the Arran malt distillery…. The distillery was the last bit of temptation I needed and hastily packed. I thought that I didn’t find him I could catch the last ferry home at 8pm after a nice 100km cycle, but if I did find him there was the matter of camping … He had a small tent so should I carry a sleeping bag and try squeeze in to his tent. ‘Mmmm no’ so plan b was hatched that if I found him I would also try get a room nearby and just go out for a drink or two. Arran is also home to the Arran brewery with some very fine ales but more on that later.

Bike on the Train

So up and packing I realised the time was going past a bit quickly – no time to change the flats over to clipless pedals. I sped out the house down to the station and bought a ticket with just 40 secs to spare .. Whew a bit close that was a bit stupid as the next train was an hour away. This train is great gets you to the harbour (ardrossan) with enough time to wander over to ferry terminal and buy ticket (subsequently found out you can actually buy a joint rail ferry ticket at the train station)

On the Ferry and the sun is out

The ferry was fine – loads of French schoolkids and more than a few day-trippers and road cyclists.
Headed north on the road to Lochranza and it was mighty fine. I was on my Klein singlespeed geared 32:14 cruising nicely at 22-25km/h with a camelbak HAWG stuffed to the gills mainly with raincoat and spares for the morning. After 25ish min the road suddenly goes uphill which is all fair but on the singlespeed it felt a bit brutal at times.

the hill for a heart rate hike

Had to stand and stomp pushing so hard that I saw the handlebar flexing. One roadie passed me spinning happily as I neared the top. Over the top the descent back 200m to sea level. Great to blast down this but road surface pretty crappy so glad now not to be on roadbike bu rather my schwalbe big apples (I think they are 1.5 or 1.75).

Got down to Lochranza looked at the castle and the little keelboats marooned at low tide…

Lochranza castle

Then carried on to find the campsite. ‘you’ve already passed it mate… ‘ so spun back to try locate Tom. ‘yes there is a tall blond chap here .. And yes he does look Norwegian’ so penned a note which the site manager promised to give him then hopeful for accomodation went to the Lochranza hotel. £55 they wanted from me as only a family room left – that was taking the piss so took a number and decided to try my luck further along.
2 miles on came to catacol hotel ….

not the key to paradise

• basic but clean and let’s face it I would be wearing the same cycling shorts tomorrow.

Left the heavier items from the bag (great I packed a shock pump for an adventure on a rigid bike) then carried on down the west coast of Arran. No midges to worry about and cycled on the road as some paddle boat steamed up the coast.

Dead quiet spot for lunch

Stopped for a bite then headed back to hotel for shower but was in such a daze I cycled straight back into Lochranza – divine providence and ended up at the distillery having a mosey and buying a small bottle of malt didn’t want to carry a litre bottle with me back to the ferry.

Whisky Galore

Got back to hotel had a shower (no en-suite here) then read for a while before heading back to campsite in Lochranza to hunt down Tom.
Was having a bite to eat when ‘woops there he goes’. Heckled him from the door and he seemed hugely surprised. He quickly dropped his kit bit on discovering the crap choice of beer at the local bar/ hotel we proceeded around the corner to my hotel where we had 2,3,4,5,6 err 7 pints of Arran brewery (can’t even remember which one – not Arran blond, dark or witch on) played a few rounds of pool – Tom is even worse at pool than me which is pretty funny.
‘meet you at 7:15am’ for that was when we would meet to cycle back over that hill and to the ferry.

geared up ready to go

The next morning it was howling and pissing down.

Cant see howling wind and rain in the photo

Met up at campsite then headed off to ferry – the Lochranza hill from the north wasn’t so bad – the misery of the rain and wind was quite funny. Over the top and Tom was a few hundred metres behind so decided to wait at the bottom where there was some tree cover .. Tried to coast but the wind was bringing me to a halt (on a downhill) but once on the steep bit I tucked down and tried to get a good speed.
Once down and Tom had caught up came up with a plan to slipstream north… I told him to call speed he was happy with and I would do it and take the wind … He was dealing with panniers, a tent all on a heavy kona smoke bike.
Pretty coast road then ferry and train back to Glasgow …

Tom looking tired

Tom was looking a bit tired after his Munro climb (or corbett) double bike adventures and said he was going home to sleep. I had football that night but that’s another painful tale to tell……..

RunMonster App Review

Tried out the free version of this software the other day and I must admit I like it

Shows a map of where you are running although in UK this was a bit slow to load (in comparison to maps from google etc) but not slow enough to be a problem for running.

mapping page

What is interesting about the data it feedbacks is that you can swipe the map left or right – which doesnt change the map but rather the stats shown. There are 3 stat screens which overlay ….. here is one showing elapsed time calories and elevation.

showing calories burnt

Or you can skip the map completely

table stat view

Think this may be better than Runkeeper for me but every runner has their pet likes and dislikes.

THEIR   BLURB

RunMonster Pro is the premiere app for recording your workouts using your iPhone’s GPS. RunMonster shows your time, pace, distance, and calories burned as you exercise, all overlaid on a beautiful custom map. The Pro version adds audio feedback, seamless music integration, and interactive visualizations to provide the best exercise experience for iPhone.

RunMonster Pro features:

✭ Hear your workout statistics read aloud during your workouts
✭ Customize the announcement interval and select which stats you would like to hear
✭ See gorgeous, interactive visualizations of your workout data
✭ Control your music library without leaving RunMonster
✭ Use gestures to easily switch between songs as you exercise
✭ See your pace for each song you listened to during your workout

You also get all these great features available in the free version of RunMonster:

✭ Record your runs, walks, and bike rides using your iPhone’s built-in GPS
✭ Check your stats, including distance, pace, time, and calories burned, at any point during your workout
✭ See a live Google Terrain View map of your route
✭ Let RunMonster intelligently name your workouts based on nearby street names
✭ Watch as RunMonster automatically groups together similar workouts
✭ Let RunMonster automatically detect whether you ran, biked, or walked
✭ Examine your splits and other detailed statistics after you’ve finished a workout
✭ View your full workout history on your phone, grouped by week or route
✭ Relax as your workouts are backed up automatically to RunMonster.com
✭ Export your workouts via email

Darth Vader or gandalf spotted in Amman business lounge

Bike and Running App for iPhone update May 2010

• see also RUNMONSTER HERE

• Recap November 2010 HERE

or click on the app / application tag on the right.

For GPS tracking I would go with the free version of RunKeeper think about MotionX (although a more rounded gps all sport app) or use some money and get  CycleMeter.

CYCLEMETER

CycleMeter app

Track

Cyclemeter continually records your time, location, distance, elevation, and speed – years of rides only take up the space of a few songs. Stop and start recording on-screen or with your earphone remote.

Visualize

See your results on maps, graphs, and a calendar, and organized by routes and activities. Know how much distance you’ve rideed by day, week, month, year, and overall.

Hear

Monitor your progress with up to 20 configurable announcements including distance, time, speed, elevation, climb, and more. Announcements may be heard automatically at time or distance intervals, or on-demand with your earphone remote.

Share

Use Facebook, Twitter, and email to share Google Maps of your rides, automatically updated every 5 minutes. Hear replies from family, coaches, and friends spoken using text-to-speech technology. Have emails automatically sent as you ride to keep family and friends notified of your progress and location.

Cyclemeter screen grabs

Another option if you have a garmin or Polar Heart Rate Monitor is the Cychosis App for the iPhone. £1.29 on iTunes

SPEC

• Charting
  • See colorful high resolution charts of your training and riding progress for Weekly, Monthly, Yearly, and All time.
  • Chart your distance, average speed, and time.

good graphs

• Twitter
  • Optional automatic tweet (twitter) of each ride after you enter it lets your friends and family follow you on your bike!
  • Export ride data to CSV — private access to last 5 exports via Cychosis exports server.
• Bikes:
  • Keeps track of the mileage and number of rides on any number of bikes.
• Goals:
  • Set any number of distance goals and track progress against them.
• Routes:
  • Keeps track of common routes, distance, elevation, notes, etc.
  • Automatically keeps stats for each route.

• Rides:
  • Quickly record rides as soon as you’re finished.
  • Filter rides to current week, month, or year
  • Optional summary totals for current filtered period
  • Shows stats for each ride.
  • Pre-fill a new ride with one of your pre-defined routes, or enter a new name quickly.