Cycling - Fitness, Tech and Statistics - There's more to it than you might think.

Hey everyone,

Before today it had been 6 months since I had been on my road bike. Many reasons had driven me to this level of desertion of my trusty steed. A lack of motivation, bad weather, fear of injury (I had a bad accident on my commuter bike in the ice that affected me quite a bit) are the main reasons. However, today, the sun came out, the clocks shifting forward made the days a bit longer and I decided to dust her off and straddle that saddle.

^{The trusty steed}

The Bike

My bike is a Giant Defy Advanced 1. Full carbon fibre, apart from the wheels. It has the Ultegra groupset, 22 speed in total, mechanical disk brakes and a small Tony The Tiger figure strapped to the seat post. (I have a thing about Tony The Tiger). I bought it back in 2015 and it's been brilliant, I've cycled around a lot of the UK on it and it hasn't missed a beat.

The additional bits.

In order to gather the statistics and all the geeky stuff, I have added a few bits and pieces to the bike. The first thing is a speed and cadence sensor made by Wahoo (Model is the Blue SC. There's a little magnetic attachment on the rear wheel that gets detected by a sensor on the chainstay to see how fast the wheel is turning and therefore how fast you are going. Theres also a sensor on the pedal crank to see how fast you are pedalling. I also have a Wahoo heart rate monitor - it's pretty obvious what that does!! All of these sensors work using Bluetooth or ANT+ protocols to send data to a connected cycle computer. More on that below.

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Stats on the move.

So I've got all these sensors on the go, but how do i view them on the move.? That's where a good cycle computer comes in. Garmin has the market share in this regard, but not being one to follow the crowd, I went for something that functionally works more than 50% of the time (unlike most Garmins) - the Wahoo ELEMNT. This is an absolutely fantastic bit of kit. You configure the connections to your Bluetooth sensors using your phone, as well as configuring as many different displays as you like. The computer mounts on your handlebars or stem to give you an easy view of your stats as you cycle. I personally display things such as my current speed, average speed, distance to go on a planned route etc. Any stat you can think of can be displayed in any configuration. I have a specific config for hill climbs that shows cadence, hill profile, current altitude and how many more feet of climbing are left on the hill.

The battery on this thing lasts over 12 hours, which is great for longer rides.

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Route planning

I mentioned in the last section that you can show the distance to go on a planned route. So how do you plan such a route and add it to the ELEMNT, and how does it help you navigate. Well, it's about as easy as it gets. Create a route with Ride With GPS, connect your ELEMNT to your Ride With GPS account and your favourite routes will automatically sync to your ELEMNT.

^{A RideWithGPS Route planning session}

So, once that route appears on your ELEMNT, and you choose to ride that route, it's pretty straightforward. The unit beeps at you before a turn, lights flash to indicate if you should turn left or right and you get guidance on the screen as to the direction to go in. It is pretty much foolproof. You also get a full mapping function if required

One other really great feature of the ELEMNT is that when it's connected to your phone, it can send your location in real-time to your other half so that they know when you are a few miles away from home and get the kettle on (and see where you are if you get into trouble of course)

A great video of the ELEMNT is on the Wahoo site...

Gathering Data

So once all of this data is gathered, what happens to it?

I use a number of sites.

• Strava
  This is pretty much the industry standard and go-to social site for all sorts of exercise statistics. The good thing about this (although some would say it's not that good), is the competitive element. You can compare yourself to your friends and anyone else who has ridden on the same "segment" of road. If you are the quickest, you get the fabled King of the Mountain or Queen of the Mountain accolade. The stats on Strava are pretty basic as shown on this link to my latest ride, but that's where Veloviewer comes in.

• Veloviewer
  This is the statistics platform that some of the Tour De France coverage uses. For a meagre fee of about £10 a year, you get an immense amount of stats that are generated from a connection to your Strava profile. I mean, spend a few minutes looking at this link. I don't understand half of it myself, although I do think that the 3D views of rides are awesome.

• Relive.cc
  This really clever app maps a google earth flyby onto your ride. Check this link out for a view of the ride displayed in Veloviewer above
  https://www.relive.cc/view/966357865
  Pretty cool stuff eh? This is all done automatically on completion of a ride and sends a link to you when it's been generated.

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Why do I collect these stats? Wel,l the only reason really is to monitor my progression (or regression). There's an element of showing off and banter with the guys that I often cycle with too; who is the fastest on the segments that we all ride together, who has the most King of the Mountains on Strava. It's all good clean fun. Competitiveness is useful in cycling; with the desire to always improve, you push yourself further.

As spring comes into full flow, I'm hoping to get out more and get some good images and maybe even some video of myself cycling around my local area. Later in the year, my mates and I will have our yearly cycling holiday where we spend 3 days in pain for fun.

Thanks for reading and I hope it's provided some useful information if you are interested in getting more involved in cycling.

Mark