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Cycling Stats

27 Friday Dec 2013

Posted by Stonehog in Cycling

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Tags

bike computer, cyclemeter, dailymile, excel, garmin, google glass, iCloud, iphone, randonneur, RAV power, rflkt, runkeeper, Seattle Randonneurs, SIR, stats, wahoo fitness


Being a geek, I have been collecting data on my rides for the past 5 years.  I’ve gone through several approaches, and certainly don’t have a vast knowledge of all that’s out there, but I’ll tell you what works for me these days.

When I moved back to Seattle and started bike commuting again I discovered I could use my new phone (iPhone 3gs) with an app called Trail Guru written by Tim Park.  It quickly became my favorite app, although I tried quite a few.  Having a GPS built into the phone was one of the “killer apps” for the burgeoning smart phone market, and this was something I used twice daily.  Lo and behold, sometime in 2011, Trail Guru stopped working, and there was no word from Tim.  Eventually, the app fell out of the App Store, and I had to move on.  Unfortunately, the web site went offline and so did my data.

This soured me on the smartphone idea for a while.  I picked up a Garmin eTrex 20 for an upcoming brevet.  This would solve another problem with the smartphones – my iPhone was good for a max recorded time of  about 4 hours when the GPS app was active, even with the display turned off.  The Garmin should last 20+ hours, and used AA batteries that I could bring along for spares.  Unfortunately, things didn’t work out too well – I did the ride, but on a commute home a week later, the unit popped off the mount on my handlebars and was gone forever.  After this short-lived experiment, I went back to the phone again.  Besides the mount problem, the Garmin software was prehistoric.  It was clunky, confusing, and getting the data on the computer was much harder than it should be.  OK – I expect wireless in everything these days, people!!

I started using RunKeeper (iOS app) and, although it wasn’t specifically made for a cyclist, I really like the reporting available.  It does a great job of letting you see your data and jumbling it around however you like.  Here’s an example of the “advanced fitness reports” page from their site:

RunKeeper

One of the downsides, however, was the subscription based “elite” membership you need to see a lot of the reports.  The other thing I didn’t like about it was the simple cycling screen that wasn’t adjustable.  It only showed a select group of data points, and this was not negotiable.  That said, I used it for all of 2012, and it was rock solid reliable, and simple to use.  

RunKeeper Total 2012

I was lured away by a post in one of the cycling groups I follow that mentioned Cyclemeter.  This app was a phone-only application, but it tied into various websites for data display on a computer.  That said, most of the data is displayed very well on the iPhone itself.  You can export it via .csv as well, so it’s simple to save the data and work on it in Excel or whatever you like.  (at this point, Cyclemeter allows saving its database to iCloud)

Cyclemeter3                 Cyclemeter2                 Cyclemeter1

I liked the display versatility better than RunKeeper, and tied it into dailymile.com for viewing on the web.  This site is a social media site that focuses mainly on the community aspect of workouts, so it doesn’t do a lot of advanced analytics, but if you just want a place to log your mileage, it works.

Daily Mile 2013

This is a view I built in Excel from a data dump directly from Cyclemeter.  Much more versatile, but a bit more work.

2013 Cycling Stats

This leads me to the problem of having a speedometer on the bike.  I tried a handlebar mounted iPhone case for a while, but found it a bit too bulky and over the top.  I never lost it, or got it wet, but it wasn’t exactly svelte.  The other problem was battery.  I couldn’t really use it as a display for anything longer than an hour or two without draining the battery.  The combination of LCD and GPS puts too much hurt on battery life.  I wanted to do longer rides with the Seattle Randonneurs, and a 200k takes me about 9-10 hrs.  I could get by barely by using my dyno hub to charge the phone during the day, but for any ride that goes into the night, I would lose that capability.  All the power coming from the dyno would need to be used for my front and rear lighting.

I became convinced that the newer Garmin Edge GPS units for cycling would be better.  I picked up an Edge 810 and within a month brought it back to REI.  Garmin still hadn’t fixed the confusing software, and to top it off, the hardware routinely shut off in the middle of a ride.  The whole point of this device is to be on and track a ride from start to finish.  I tried a few firmware updates, but it never worked the way I wanted it to, so I returned it.  Back to the phone.

I had a 300k coming up in August of 2013, so I knew I needed to be able to keep my phone alive for up to 20 hours.  After doing some research and chatting with a co-worker who had just been to China.  I purchased a RAV Power external battery pack.  I brought this on the ride, and recharged the phone 3 times during my 16 hour ride.  When I returned, it still had half its charge.  It didn’t weigh much either.  OK, I found the power solution, now I needed a display.

Wahoo Fitness had the answer with the RFLKT bike computer.  It is essentially a small bike computer that displays info from your phone application via Bluetooth.  It is customizable, and allows you to see things like speed, time, distance, heart-rate, battery remaining, music playing, etc…  It also lets you control the application with the 4 buttons on the device, and they can be programmed to do things like start/stop the app, control your music, scroll through multiple pages (handy if you want a main data page, and other pages for maximums, heart rate data, etc…) This thing is awesome, and has been rock solid.  It integrates nicely with CycleMeter, is small and lightweight, has a lighted screen for visibility at night, and works every time I get on the bike, 3-5 days a week.

BH-6.jpg

This is going to be my solution for a while.  I believe that Garmin is in a losing battle with smartphone app developers at this point.  Especially with the new M7 coprocessor that the newest iPhone has.  Smartphone GPS apps are the future, at least until smart watches become the norm, or Google Glass.  These apps are far superior, and quicker to update/innovate.

Spring 200k

11 Monday Mar 2013

Posted by Stonehog in Cycling

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

a. homer hilsen, Biologic, cyclemeter, Escape from Seattle 200k, garmin, Hahn Rossman, iphone, jan heine, rando, rivendell, Seattle Randonneurs, Selle Anatomica, SIR, son 28, SON Delux, Titanico X, Wool


Randos!

I started my rando season yesterday with a 200k that conveniently began and ended within a mile of my house.  There were probably 100 folks that started this ride.  It was a great day with temperatures ranging from 38-65 F resulting in little need for more than a couple wool jerseys and a vest.  No rain – just a bit of fog for the first few hours with sun breaks at the tops of any hill over 300 ft.

Jan and Friends

Jan Heine was at the start with his lovely chrome rando bike, and was the first one out of the gate with his friends and riding partners including Hahn Rossman who was test riding a Mad Fiber bike.  I rode the whole ride with my new pal Bruce, and was grouped up for a while with Asta and a friend who had ridden up from Portland the day before.  Wow – 200 miles up, and 200k for the ride.  Solid!

Cockpit

This was a test for me in a couple of ways.  The most mileage I have put into a ride in the past 8 months was a 38 mile training ride.  I have been commuting over 200 miles a month for the past few years with 3-4 days per week the norm.  I also end up doing a lot of climbing on my commute, so this definitely helped.  I also benefited from a few longer rides last year, as well as a bike fit.  I found a few things that didn’t work once the mileage got over 50 (plain B17, lack of consistent nutrition and water).  On this ride, I started eating and drinking right away, and never really stopped.  My riding app (cyclemeter) said I burned 7500 calories on the ride, and I’ll bet I only had a slight deficit by the end, although 2 bowls of chili and a beer definitely went down with no problems!

Pit Stop

I also got to put some miles on a Selle Anatomica Titanico X which I’ll write up later.  Verdict?  No saddle soreness with my Ibex wool knicker/tights.  The iPhone Biologic rig worked, but it took finessing to keep it charged.  I ended up having to turn off the display and lights to keep a charge going to the battery.  Verdict?  Use the SON28 (more output) on these rides, and leave the Delux on the other bike for now.  That or look into a smaller battery powered GPS, but I’ll be damned if I’m going to jump back to the Garmin without giving the larger SON a try first.

Beautiful Day!

Overall, at the end of the ride, I felt tired, but great.  My right knee was a bit sore, but the pain was gone by Sunday night.  I think a 300k is actually in my sights.  It was a great start to the season!

Extra pics from the ride on Flickr

GPS vs. iPhone

28 Tuesday Aug 2012

Posted by Stonehog in Cycling

≈ 10 Comments

Tags

ahh, case, charger, cyclemeter, dynamo, garmin, gps, hilsen, iphone, motionx gps, randoneurring, rivendell, runkeeper


When I decided to try out the insane sport of randoneurring, I quickly found that my iPhone running my tracking app, RunKeeper, was not going to work.  The battery only lasted 4 hours in GPS mode, and these rides started at about 4-5 hours.  I ran out and picked up a Garmin, as these things still take AA batteries and go for 25 hours before expiring.  After riding it on one brevet in March, and fiddling/cursing the old mode of convoluted GPS UI/OS the Garmins use, I launched it off the handlebar mount on a large bump on the commute home one night.  I didn’t notice it was gone until I came to the next stop light, and after circling back to the likely area, it was never found.  After weighing the logic of dumping another $200 into a device I found cumbersome, I decided against it.  The iPhone has GPS and will always have a more competitive app arena that will ensure the best GPS experience.  Already, apps like CycleMeter, MotionX GPS, and RunKeeper have better UIs and more specific usability features.  Now I just had to find a way to use my dynamo hub to power both the lights and the iPhone.

There are a few options out there.  Peter White sells some chargers, Wahoo makes a case with built in battery, but I settled on the BioLogic ReeCharge system that is made up of a case/battery combo, a handlebar mount, and a dynamo charging system.  The setup was very straightforward, and I used my older iPhone 4 with it for the first few weeks (in case it launched, as well)

iPhone case mounted on A. Homer Hilsen

I had no issues with the case coming loose on both road and trail over the past month or two of use.  I have put a couple hundred miles on the bikes with the case mount, and gone over some knarly bumps, but the case has held fast.  This is by no means an exhaustive test regime, but it has certainly done better than the Garmin I had.  Wiring on both bikes was simply a matter of merging the light and ReeCharge wires at the clips that attach to the hub.  This took about 15 minutes at most.  The other end just plugs into the handlebar mount.  I honestly had a tougher time figuring out what to do with all the extra wire.  I took a couple different tacks on the two bikes.  On the Hilsen, I wrapped the extra around the handlebar mount, as I was trying to minimize the wiring down on the frame:

Wrapped around handlebar mount

On the Hunqapillar, I coiled the cable around the shifter cabling.  I did this one first, and didn’t like the result, as it is more visible overall:

Coiled

The dynamo unit is strapped to the back of one of the fork legs, and simply held in place by zip ties.  Here are some pics of my wiring on the Hilsen.  I followed the basic process that Lovely Bicycle had posted a while back to keep the wiring as invisible as possible, while still being an easy job that doesn’t require any frame drilling or fiddling.

Front Hub Mount Point

ReeCharge unit

Cabled up to Bar Mount

More images of how the lighting cables are run are found HERE.

 

 

 

 

My First 200k

20 Tuesday Mar 2012

Posted by Stonehog in Cycling

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

200k, ahh, bellingham, brevet, etrex, garmin, hazelnut, rando, randonneur, rivendell, SIR


After working up some distance with a couple Populaire’s and a 32 miler over the past few months, I signed up for, and rode my first full 200k (126 mile) brevet.  I had planned to head to Portland with my wife and daughter for a “brewpub” 100k, but when travel plans fell through, I saw that SIR was doing the Bellingham 200k the same weekend. Perfect intro to the longer distance!  It was a relatively flat ride for the area with 3-4k feet of elevation gain, so it seemed pretty reasonable for me to test my fitness.

The night before was packing and prepping.  I knew there was a chance of rain, and it would be in the upper 30’s to lower 4o’s most of the day, so I put an extra wool jersey and tights in my saddlebag, as well as spare socks and a hat.  I brought my rain gear thinking I would just pack it if necessary.  In the front rando bag, I put a couple packets of Perpetuem drink mix, some Nuun tablets for electrolytes, and various snacks like dark chocolate, a roll of Thin Mints (my daughter is a Girl Scout), and some snack mix.  I also threw in a couple small cans of V8.  Locked and loaded, I checked the bike and got my new Garmin eTrex set up and ready.  I did a dog walk, and then tried to follow the same 1 mile track on my bike.  After experimenting, I found a fairly good dashboard for biking that allowed me to navigate like I do in a car GPS in following a marked line.  I had downloaded the route earlier, so I had that ready to go.

Other incidentals in the bag were spare batteries, 2 tubes, and the usual tool kit for flats and such.

After listening to increasing rain all night, I had go get up at 4:30am to get up to Bellingham by 6:30 for check-in.  Driving up, I noted that the 1.5 hour drive at 60mph was less distance than I would be riding for the day, at only about 76 miles.  Intimidating, but I felt ready.  I stopped for a coffee at Starbucks, and the barista said there were a number of folks passing through that were on their way to a run, climb, or bike ride.  I was definitely not going to be alone on this wet day.

As I neared Bellingham, it started to snow.  Now I was getting excited!  The snow wouldn’t stick – it was too warm.  It would certainly be invigorating.

The machine

We left the coffee shop at 7:32am, and I told myself to take it easy and try not to burn out of the gate.  I had a long ride ahead.  There was a secret control not too far down the road at a lookout on Chuckanut Drive (normally a panoramic beauty of a road).

Chuckanut Drive

As it was snowing and cold, I commented that it probably couldn’t get any worse, and of course that sealed our fate for more of the same for the next few hours.  As we rode along Lake Whatcom, it started snowing harder, and seemed to be sticking everywhere but the road.  As we exited the lake’s northern end, I happened to run into a road race that was just getting started.  I pulled to the side for a cookie when the pace/support cars and about 30 riders came by climbing a long hill.  I thought to snap this pic a bit too late, but it shows the nasty conditions pretty well:

Road Racing

After this point, things started to look up.  I continued to ride solo as I had from the start.  I was trying to keep an easy pace, but also realized that the headwinds I was starting to run into would not help.  Luckily, I had tailwinds going north.

Definitely Sticking

Getting up to Sumas was a trip – lots of semi-flooded farmland that seemed to be growing hazelnuts.  I snapped a lot of pictures as the clouds were starting to clear and the sun was starting to break through occasionally.

Hazelnut Farms

Once I got to the border, I realized I had come a long way.  It felt like I was days away from Bellingham, but I still felt pretty good.  I had been keeping up with regular eating and taking water, and still had plenty of go.

Still Smiling at 100K

Now it was time to start heading back towards the water.  After riding along the invisible Cascade foothills, I started to get into a headwind.  This wasn’t too bad, but it definitely slowed me down, especially in the relatively few hilly sections.  It was a bit of a bummer saying goodbye to the mountains.

Goodbye Mountains

Riding on the border was a trip.  This section is populated and mainly farmland.  There was a road on the US side, a small ditch, and a road on the Canadian side.  It was like riding down a split highway.

Don't Jump That Ditch!

I saw quite a few border patrol cars, but it’s interesting seeing the big border crossings built up, and riding roughly 20 miles where one just has to jump across an open ditch to be in another country!  Along the boundary roads, I came upon another rando rider who blew a sidewall and needed a spare tire (not tube).  I told him that I hadn’t brought one, but may start packing one on future rides.  He told me it was the first time it happened to him in 20 years.  After wishing him good luck (and making sure he had a phone), I continued on.

Nice Border, Canada!

When I arrived in Blaine and saw the water again, I really knew I could do it.  It seemed so close now.

Puget Sound At Last!

At one of the controls, I met up with a couple riders who were fueling up, so I rode with them on an off for the next 20 mile or so.  It was getting windy now, and the forecast northwesterly winds turned out to be southwesterlies.  The paceline helped us get through the headwinds down to the Lummi ferry.  Riding in the Lummi nation was pretty cool.  I waved to a lot of folks on the way, and they waved back.  This was definitely friendly country, and not the hostile city environment I’m used to.

Ferry to Lummi Island

Lummi Land

At this point, there was all of 15 miles left – my typical commute.  I felt like I was in ok shape, but I definitely wanted to get back.  I started out faster, and quickly lost sight of my drafting friends.  There was a nice tail wind heading back north up the peninsula.  Lots of great views across the water of the final destination.  This was great motivation.  I was down to my last bit of water, and still had plenty of food, so things were looking really good.

Final Destination Just Over There...

Not Much Farther

Wild Tidal Patterns

The last 10 miles went by quickly, and I soon found myself in the final control with a group of happy Randonneurs congratulating me on finishing my first 200k!  Wow – it turned out really well, and I have to thank all the folks that encouraged me on the way.  This was a fast crowd.  I came in at 11 hrs 4 minutes, but the majority of the riders were in under 10 hours.  There were only 5 DNFs, and one that didn’t make the cutoff, but I was surprised that so many folks kept going with all the snow from the first half of the ride.

Back at Last

Consequently, my spare summer gloves came in handy.  I changed out my soaked winter gloves halfway through, thinking that the new ones would quickly freeze my fingers, but my hands and feet remained toasty after the rain stopped.

Now that I’ve done this distance, I can see doing a 300k, but 400 and up looks mighty challenging.  I definitely have no illusion that folks that pull off a 600k or 1200k are truly tough individuals!

Made it Without a Mechanical

Happy 200k'er

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