Road Cycling - HAC 4 Plus

I just installed one of these on my bike, and got some time to work with it. This thing is way cool, and worth the money. I found that having a heart rate, with all the other features the Hac 4 provides, was a great tool in getting more out of my workouts. Very easy to use.

I have the HAC4 too. Been using it for 2 months now. I absolutely love it. Especially the gradient feature. Did you get the software with it? I didnt, I might try to pick it up though, would be fun to see my ride info on a graph.

I just installed one of these on my bike, and got some time to work with it. This thing is way cool, and worth the money. I found that having a heart rate, with all the other features the Hac 4 provides, was a great tool in getting more out of my workouts. Very easy to use.

I just got the HAC4+ also after using the 434 for over two years. I got the software but it did not come with a user manual for the software (only instructions for downloading it.) Has anyone used the software?

I just got the HAC4+ also after using the 434 for over two years. I got the software but it did not come with a user manual for the software (only instructions for downloading it.) Has anyone used the software?

If you have invested in a HAC4 you really owe it to yourself to get and use the software.... There's a world of difference between what you can learn from looking at the gross averages, max & minimum data on the watch display versus what you can learn from all the data that is collected by that very powerful little computer.

Back to the question at hand, Yes... I use all three programs... Hactronic (download manager & analysis), CicloTrainer (Training Diary) & CicloTour (everything under the sun)., although I haven't really invested the time to fully appreciate all the stuff you can do with the Ciclo-Tour program.

Here are two screen shots from just the Hactronic software:
Data Screen Shot: http://www.ciclosportusa.com/hac-demo4.htm
Graphics Screen Shot: http://www.ciclosportusa.com/hac-demo5.htm


The "manual" for these programs is delivered electronically in each of the programs and is accessed via the Help menus. I decided that it would be easier for me to work off of printed instructions and just used the Help menu (Windows XP) options to view and then print-out all the on-line instructions to create my own manuals.

It's pretty straight forward for the first two programs and you can master the software in about 30 minutes once you just sit down and go through the printed-out instructions with the software running on your PC with some data on the watch to work with. It's too hard to explain what all you can do with the data, but it suffices to say you can drill down on the data to look at a 1/4 mile climb in full page detail to look at the terrain and your performance and, if you want, to go back and compare (actually overlay the data) how you did on the same climb a week, month, year ago... assuming you keep those files stored. You can also take a week-long tour where you have 5 different data sets and merge them into a single file to evaluate your tour averages or to get the aggregate ascent / descent and mileage data into a single file.

The CicloTrainer allows you to import data either from the watch or from your Hactronic download file to build a training diary that accumulates and reports your daily, weekly, monthly, and annual mileage *** to date and a variety of other data. You can look at it graphically, sliced and diced by miles accumulated on your road bike, off-road bike, tandem, track bike, etc... if you choose to change the default categories. You can see your *** time in HR zones over the course of time and visibily see if you're making progress relative to working harder and both increasing your performance while lowering your heart rate.

Again, lots of options and possibilities. At the end of the day, I find that I only need to download once a week (assuming I don't ride for more than 64 hours in a week) to the Hactronic software, save that file, and then open up the CicloTrainer and do an import of the last week's data sets to update my training diary: about 5 - 10 minutes, including computer start-up and HAC4 download times. If I want to do any analysis I can.... and since I use the HAC4 with a laptop I just drag it out and fiddle with the data while watching SpeedVision.

The CicloTour instructions are a bit more complex, even printed out. Frankly, I've been able to get the information I wanted out of the first two programs and have only used the CicloTour enough to know that I'll need to find a rainy or snowy day to sit and fiddle with it. For example, in the Hactronic you can "delete" data from the tables where you know you were standing idle for prolonged periods of time which will correct your averages to show net on-bike performance and not elapsed-time performance. The CicloTour software will actually do this for you and parses out in data and graphic format your actual net ride time from "short standing time" (i.e., stoplights) and "long standing time" (i.e., SAG and store stops). Thus, you'll see that on a 3 hour ride you actually only "rode" for 2.2hrs, were stopped by lights and whatnot for .2hrs and spend another .6 hours "resting" off the bike.

Obviously, I could go on. However, hopefully you'll get the idea that there is a lot more to the HAC4 than what you can learn from the watch.

One last thing to keep in mind: The HAC4 has a 3 year warranty and you can get software updates online. Do yourself a favor and be sure to exercise your warranty and to keep up on any software updates. My CM414 has worked flawlessly since day 1 as has the HAC4. However, a good friend who we met on a California coast tour bought a CM414 and it has never worked quite right. I asked him how long it's been that way and he said for nearly a year! Good grief... it's got a two year warranty and they'll either fix it or more likely replace it if you'll just call!! Part of what you pay for is the warranty and support and the more complex a piece of equipment is the more you'll need to do just that.

Bottom Line: The HAC4 as well as the Polar units are very sophisticated computers with lots of software programming backing up those functions. As such, they demand a certain amount of attention and periodic care. Also, when batteries run down send the units back in to authorized service centers for "tune-ups" to ensure they will continue to perform the way they should.

I've been using the HAC4+ for a few weeks now. There's so many aspects to it, I'm still learning new things. This is one of the best gizmos I've bought in a long time. I doubt I'll ever utilize it to its full potential, because the unit and the software do so much.

I use the CicloTour software. I don't know if there's a user's manual, I just poke my way through it. The help system is fairly complete, although some of the translation from German to English is pretty confusing.

One of the great things about it is that it provides an accurate profile of the route. I like to have these, and previously, I used to draw the routes with DeLorme Topo USA 4. This software is pretty cool and makes it fairly easy to get a profile, but the elevation gains calculaions were always WAY off. So I bought an Avocet Vertec II altimeter (hiker's model) to get the elevation gains. Now I have the HAC4, and the 2 units are usually within 3% of one another, so I think the reported figures are pretty accurate.

Another cool thing about the HAC4+ system is that you can get snapshots of your rides to show other people. This is what I did Saturday:

http://www.cmwebsite.com/images/Angeles_Crest_Century_2004.jpg

(The heart rate graph is all over the place because I didn't have the strap tight enough and the unit kept losing contact. It doesn't really fluctuate that badly. I also noticed that when I cooled off on the descents, it would stop registering.)

Thanks for the reply's. Well of course now that I have the thing I can't use it cause I'm sick. I'm hoping to be well enough by Wed or Thurs to go out and gather some data. I'm leaving for SoCal on Sat and I plan on doing Angeles Crest (Foothill-Big Tajunga) on Sun that should be a nice profile.

I used to draw the routes with DeLorme Topo USA 4. This software is pretty cool and makes it fairly easy to get a profile, but the elevation gains calculaions were always WAY off.

I'll second that... I have TopoUSA 4.0 as well as the % grade and elevation data are always hosed-up by about 10% - 15%. Nice profiles & 3D route maps though.



I bought an Avocet Vertec II altimeter (hiker's model) to get the elevation gains. Now I have the HAC4, and the 2 units are usually within 3% of one another, so I think the reported figures are pretty accurate..

Went through the same technology progression... SigmaSport BC1200, added Vertech to wife's handlebars on the tandem in '00 for elevation gain, discovered Ciclosport CM414 in '02, and then made the jump to the HAC4 this year when I finally found a price that I could live with. LOVE the HAC4.

I believe the Vertech is actually a bit more accurate than the Ciclosport due to sampling rate. The Vertech is a much more simple device with far fewer processing functions and has the memory capacity to update altitude changes on an at or nearreal-time basis whereas the Ciclosports use a 20 second sampling rate to record data which gives it the 64 hour data capacity. So, what happens is that the Ciclosport misses the first few feet of ascent and descent and other non-linear altitude changes that the Vertech will accurately record. Thus, in places like North Georgia where we have undulating terrain the Vertech will often times show anywhere from 5% to 10% more altitude gained than the CicloSport CM414 or the HAC4. If your terrain has more gradual changes in altitude that are pretty linear I think the accuracy differences are a bit less. Regardless, the HAC4 is close enough for performance and trip analysis.

Sampling rate on the HAC4 is becoming more than a nit as the Polar S720i and S725i allow users to select from a table of samping rates based on how much time they will collect the data over, i.e., .5 seconds for 8 hours, .10 seconds for 16 hours, .20 seconds for 32 hours, etc... If Ciclosport would add this option you could easily get .5 second sampling and still collect up to 18 hours of data before the watch began overwriting. Perhaps this will be a future enhancement along with wireless cadence which is rumored to be just around the corner.



The heart rate graph is all over the place because I didn't have the strap tight enough and the unit kept losing contact. It doesn't really fluctuate that badly. I also noticed that when I cooled off on the descents, it would stop registering.

Yup. Of course, this is true of all HRMs. You have to have the sensor pulled tightly against your chest and you also need to have either some moisture or a salve (Bu-Bump Cream) between the sensor and your skin to get and keep an accurate signal. High power lines and HID bicycle headlights will also create enough electro-magnetic interference to screw up your HAC4 and other wireless devices. I've notice a few places where the HRM drops out and it's usually right next to those big steel towers with the very-high voltage main distribution lines (which are also quite often right along side railways) and my HID headlight can't be mounted on the handlebars with a wireless computer. Instead, I must mount the light on my helmet to eliminate the interference which, as it turns out, is a better place to put a bicycle headlight anyway.

A nice cheap replacement for Bu-Bump cream is hair gel. You can buy a huge vat of some cheap brand of hair gel and it will work great and melts away with sweat. Here in Austin the humidity is high enough that I'm allready sweating buy the time I finish streatching so I don't need it!

Mark, thanks for the comprehensive posts.

I think you're right about the Vertec being more slighty more accurate than the HAC4. It certainly seems that way when actually on the ride. There's a steep hill I like to go up around here that's only a block long - the Vertec measures it as 85 feet, whereas the HAC4 is substantially less. They somehow seem to even out mostly over the entire ride.

So, since we're going by the Vertec's measurements, my Saturday ride was 10,330' of climbing, not the wimpy 9,928'. lol

Maybe you know the answer to this oddity I've noticed: My house is at 700', but I usually start my rides elswhere. I always check the altitude of the starting location in Topo USA, and set the HAC4 to that elevation right before the ride. But no matter what I set the altitude to, the graphs, as the one above, start at 700'. The ride shown above started at 1200'. Last week, I did a ride that started at sea level, yet the graph started at 700'. Do you know what the trick is to correct this? I use the CicloTour app. I'm going to see what the other 2 apps report, but I'm thinking they'll be the same. Any ideas?

Here are two screen shots from just the Hactronic software:
Given your heart rate and cadence in that first screenshot, I'd say you put out mighty impressive power. :p

... and set the HAC4 to that elevation right before the ride. But no matter what I set the altitude to, the graphs, as the one above, start at 700'. Do you know what the trick is to correct this?

Off the top of my head -- since my laptop and the HAC4 stuff is out of reach at the moment -- I believe there are two different altitude defaults on the HAC4: the "current" altitude and a "home" altitude. You might want to check the instructions on those functions and make sure you're adjusting the right one and/or are targeting the right one during your download. I seem to recall that if you use the Home Altitude there are some other things you need to do when changing ride start locations or downloading your data.

However, all that aside, you can pretty much disregard the actual elevation checks and resetting the HAC4 for each ride and make a re-calibration after you download the data in the software on your PC. You just go into the data tables view and do an edit on the first altitude reading to plug in the actual starting altitude. The software will ask you if you want to recalculate all the subsequent data. If you select that option, your starting point of 700' becomes 1,200' (or whatever else you use to establish the actual altitude) and all of the subsequent data points will be recalculated based on the correct altitude starting point.

Off the top of my head -- since my laptop and the HAC4 stuff is out of reach at the moment -- I believe there are two different altitude defaults on the HAC4: the "current" altitude and a "home" altitude. You might want to check the instructions on those functions and make sure you're adjusting the right one and/or are targeting the right one during your download. I seem to recall that if you use the Home Altitude there are some other things you need to do when changing ride start locations or downloading your data.

Right - I've been using the Home Altitude setting, and I guess the actual altitude has always been off. I'll just make sure these are set properly when I ride, and see if the graphs come out any better. If not, I'll look into how to specify which one to use in CicloTour.



However, all that aside, you can pretty much disregard the actual elevation checks and resetting the HAC4 for each ride and make a re-calibration after you download the data in the software on your PC. You just go into the data tables view and do an edit on the first altitude reading to plug in the actual starting altitude. The software will ask you if you want to recalculate all the subsequent data. If you select that option, your starting point of 700' becomes 1,200' (or whatever else you use to establish the actual altitude) and all of the subsequent data points will be recalculated based on the correct altitude starting point.

Right again - but you have to right-mouse-click with the altitude data field selected. I tried to do this previously by just changing the value, which of course didn't work.

Adjusting this works sorta well, but sometimes changing the value in particular places skews the profile in strange ways. I hope having the altitude set properly will eliminate the need to do this.



Thanks for your help.

Information overload!

Yup. Of course, this is true of all HRMs. You have to have the sensor pulled tightly against your chest and you also need to have either some moisture or a salve (Bu-Bump Cream) between the sensor and your skin to get and keep an accurate signal.

A little spit is all I've ever needed with my Polar belt.

I'll add one more source of faulty readings... flapping jersey. When decending in the summer (dry days only) some of my jerseys flap against the chest belt and the resulting static charge causes the HR to go 220+.

It took me a few rides to figure that one out.

I've had the chance to use the HAC4 now and I've found a few odd problems. On todays ride the computer shows a max speed of 55 mph and an average of 23mph. The ave watts were 271 with a max of 575.

The down load shows a max speed of 38.5mph and an average speed of 21.5 mph. The watts are at 171 average and a max of only 283. Now I know that my wattage output was way higher than 283 because I saw it reading in the mid 400's for most of the climb so what gives? Am I down loading the info incorrectly?

Thanks in advance.

I've had the chance to use the HAC4 now and I've found a few odd problems. On todays ride the computer shows a max speed of 55 mph and an average of 23mph. The ave watts were 271 with a max of 575.

The down load shows a max speed of 38.5mph and an average speed of 21.5 mph. The watts are at 171 average and a max of only 283. Now I know that my wattage output was way higher than 283 because I saw it reading in the mid 400's for most of the climb so what gives? Am I down loading the info incorrectly?

Thanks in advance.

I usually just look at what the downloads tell me - never correlated it with what the watch says as far as max/min, etc.

When your unit records it records the instantaneus readings every 20 seconds and that's what gets downloaded to your computer and that's what the calculations are based on. Look at the tab that has each individual reading and see if you see a bunch of watts at your high. If you don't, that means when the reading was taken, you weren't outputting that much.

I'm not sure how it does this internally in the watch itself.

Finally, the formulas it uses in the program vs. in the watch may be different.

Anyone have any insight on this?

If you don't have the latest version then try downloading it and opening the raw files in the new version and see if it makes a difference. I haven't explored the CIcloTour and CicloTrainer to find out if they show the same details (max, min, etc) and if they use the same/different formulas to calculate averages, etc..

Consider that there are at least 2 ways to calculate an average:

Data:
1, 2, 4, 500

Average 1 = (1+2+4+500)/4 = 126.75
Average 2 = 4th root of (1*2*4*500) = ~ 8

And so on... There's lies, damn lies, and statistics ;)

wow very cool unit, might have to get one someday when I can afford it

To the owners of the HAC4, how good is the transmission of the heart rate?

I have a CM414 Alti, and I love it. I also have a HR monitor from CicloSport, a CP23, but the HR transmission is so lousy that I have switched to a Sigma Sport. (I tried everything from electrode gel to sending it in to the company--who replied it was fine.)

I would love to have everything in one unit, but I don't want to shell out a couple of hundred smackers for another bad HR monitor.

Bad experiences anyone?

Cheers,
Jamie

The HR transmission is great. No problems for me. Just remember to keep the chest strap snug. I've lost a few lbs. over the last two months, so the strap was sliding down my torso a little and the transmission was being interrupted a a few seconds. Also, if you ride at night as often as I do and you have a HID light, get a helmet mount. HID lights and wireless computers don't mix well.

No problems for me either. A few drops under each electrode (or just wait till you start sweating in a minute) is.

The HR transmission is great. No problems for me. Just remember to keep the chest strap snug. I've lost a few lbs. over the last two months, so the strap was sliding down my torso a little and the transmission was being interrupted a a few seconds. Also, if you ride at night as often as I do and you have a HID light, get a helmet mount. HID lights and wireless computers don't mix well.

Once I tightened up my strap, mine works great with no dropouts. In fact, others that I ride with sometimes pick up my signal. This generally freaks them out for a minute, because my normal working HR is 180, and theirs is much less.

I have a new HAC4 Plus and cannot figure out why the data will not display in the Trainer software. I've connected via the USB port, the data is transfered (I can watch the progress bar) and no data is represented other than the date it was recorded. Thoughts?

did you tell your hac4 to start recording?

to do that you need to press the upper and lower left buttons simultaneously and hold them down for about 3 seconds until the mountain icons start flashing telling you that its recording. when you're done you need to do the same thing to tell it to stop recording. then put it in the cradle, download, and view double-click on that line and it'll show you a graph that you can play with in hactronic or the other sofwares.