Previously I reviewed an app for the iPhone which can be used to track/map your rides. Well, more recently I have found another app which covers the mapping that Map My Ride does and does so much more that it has blown my socks off.
Someone at work was actually telling me about Cyclemeter and mentioned that the export features of the app were very impressive. Indeed they are and given that this was something which I had real trouble with when using MapMyRide (not to mention the fact that I now have an iphone mount on my road bike), I thought it would be worth giving it a go.
Cyclemeter cost about $6 on the Australian app store when I purchased it a couple weeks ago, but I can honestly say I think it’s worth more than that. The app is made by a company called Abvio (but don’t let the slightly dodgy Italian sounding name put you off), their work speaks louder than their company name. The app’s website is also a rather off-putting shade of red, but again that can be overlooked when you start using Cyclemeter.
The primary interface that you see by default when you are using the app to track a ride is the Stopwatch view showing various meters which include ride speed, average speed, duration, distance traveled and calories burned. By default this screen lets you start recording a new route, though once you’ve ridden a route before you can reload that route and log the new ride against it, useful for comparing your progress as you improve your cycling or master a new ride.
The second screen lets you view the map of the ride so far. This is useful if you want to look at where you’re going or where you’ve been. Like Google Maps, you can zoom in or expand the map as required. You can also see it in street, satelite or hybrid mode. In this view you see your ride time and distance. While riding you can stop and start the stopwatch as needed. The app tracks ride time and also gives you total stopped time for the ride which is pretty impressive.
On the other screens you can see a calendar showing dates that have completed rides and on the routes screen, you can see a listing of all the routes you have saved. From the routes screen you can select specific rides by date and review the ride data for the selected ride. In order to do this, you need to mark the ride as done on the Stopwatch screen. The ride review screen shows an impressive array of data including the map of the ride, a graph showing speed changes and an elevation graph which tracks the elevation changes encountered on the ride.
From the ride review screen you can also export/email your data in various formats including a Google Map route, Google Earth data and numerous other formats. Here is an example of a Google Map Route (from a ride I did earlier today). What I love about this is that Cyclemeter periodically tags the route with average speed for that part of the ride. While I did notice that the average speed shown on the Stopwatch screen during the ride seemed to lag the wired speedo on the bike, unless you’re a real stickler for precision and accuracy, this probably isn’t going to bother most users.
Lastly there is a list of options with this app that will probably take me a good while longer to fully explore, but I think I can safely say this app is recommended. Hopefully you’ll download it yourself and give it a go while you hit the roads or even some single track. Happy trails!
January 29th, 2010 at 9:43 am
Also, I noticed that the Export functionality is different when used from the Routes listing screen or from a specific route listing. When you Export from the Route listing you get a simple CSV summary of the ride totals which I guess is good when comparing multiple rides for the same route. Considerably more options are available when exporting data from a specific route.