Clydesdales/Athenas (200+ lb / 91+ kg) - Digital tools/apps used to help motivate you?

I got a cheap bell bike computer a few weeks ago (when I first started riding) and it has been awsome, because it lets me see progress. A trip that used to take me 26 min is now taking me 16 etc. Also would show average and max speed etc.

Well I was showing that to a buddy and he said that I sould check out Google Tracks on my andriod phone. I did and it was awsome was well, it would show me my trip on a map etc.

Well I just found a new app, and I think it is even better. It is called Noom, and it is also free on Android Marketplace. Not only will it show you your trip map, but it will give you your cal's burned, as well as some other really cool features.

Here is a review. http://www.androidtapp.com/noom-weight-loss/

What to you guys and gals use to keep you pumped about your rides?

Endomondo.com
This is the best app I could find for my windows phone 7, but they make a version for all platforms, and it is free.
The app tracks your ride (or any workout) then uploads to the website automatically.
The website keeps track of all your workouts (not just cycling) , tracks, and stats in a nice format. You can see a map of "people out now" near you. You can make "friends" worldwide, see their rides, and they see your rides so that is motivating. Your friends can see you are out riding and give you live "peptalks". They also have challenges, and that's another huge source of motivation.
Since I joined, my riding has increased from 60 miles a week to well over 100.
I gotta get out today and pound some miles because I've been kicked down to 17th place on one one of my challenges by a friend in Belgium.

Endomondo.com
This is the best app I could find for my windows phone 7, but they make a version for all platforms, and it is free.
The app tracks your ride (or any workout) then uploads to the website automatically.
The website keeps track of all your workouts, tracks, and stats in a nice format. You can see a map of "people out now" near you. You can make "friends" worldwide, see their rides, and they see your rides so that is motivating. Your friends can see you are out riding and give you live "peptalks". They also have challenges, and that's another huge source of motivation.
Since I joined, my riding has increased from 60 miles a week to well over 100.
I gotta get out today and pound some miles because I've been kicked down to 17th place on one one of my challenges by a friend in Belgium.


Oh very nice. Sounds cool.

I use my Garmin Edge 500. I programmed it to show percent grade, heart rate, altitude, distance, time, total ascent, and total descent. I love watching the display while on a climb!

I just got another fun toy, DashWare data overlay software. It lets you put the data from your Garmin on your ride videos. Here's my second video made with the data overlay. It's a 1.8 mile, 13% average grade climb out of the canyon in one direction, and an easier climb out in the other. I put the speed, distance, altitude, percent grade, and heart rate gauges on the video.

Most of the footage is from the steep side (of course!:D) and it is raw, so that means suffer sounds. If you have anyone within earshot you might want to advise them that you're not watching porn. Especially since I'm a female cyclist, so you can imagine what this video sounds like. :lol:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hfFz6LUgDNE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hfFz6LUgDNE

My favorite digital tools are my fingers.

Ive been using map my ride,but will have to check out the Endomondo. I really want a Garmin Edge 800, but don't want to spend that much right now. I need to hint around to the wife so maybe she will get it for me for my birthday lol.

I use a combo of all of those, maybe not all at once.

For my fitness tracking I use myfitnesspal, its a free android app. I like it because it has a barcode scanner that lets me scan food quickly. It then knows the calories, fat, ect.. and its just easier to keep track of things.

To map my rides, I've been using google's my tracks, endomondo, and just recently imapmyride.

I need to get a mount for my phone! I have been carrying it in a saddle bag.

I'm pretty much an Edge guy, too. I upgraded from a 705 to an 800 about a month ago and love it. Loved the 705 but the battery was about to go so I went ahead and sprung for the 800 to go on the new bike. I'll get the battery replaced in the 705 and use it as a back-up.

I like to say, since the advent of these digital tools, I get soooo much more out of my mileage.
I see a lot of love for the Garmin here on BF-killer data, not cheap.
I like MMR too, but went to Endomondo when I saw the beauty of not uploading.
Since then, the "community" there has drawn me in.

Since I don't have a fancy cell phone, I use mapmyride and I just manually map the path that I rode using my computer. Mapmyride lets you map your calories and weight also, but I like livestrong.com's My Plate much better for that.

+1 For endomondo.com

Only downside to endomondo is the elevation data is not read properly from the gps data nor is it possible to use the elevation data from google maps.

I used to use ridewithgps.com which is great for manually mapping rides - unfortunately there is no smart phone app for this site.

+1 For endomondo.com

Only downside to endomondo is the elevation data is not read properly from the gps data nor is it possible to use the elevation data from google maps.

I used to use ridewithgps.com which is great for manually mapping rides - unfortunately there is no smart phone app for this site.

The GPS data seems to be a problem they cant fix-I've written many complaints
The altitude of most rides starts below sea level
The auto pause doesn't work on WP7
Manually mapping is a PITA-but you can do it on Endo
Endo has it's probs but it is free:thumb:

I don't really use tools to motivate me... biking is motivation in itself.


That being said, I use tools to track my progress because I'm a huge math nerd and I like to be able to quantify my progress. I use:

Garmin Connect + Edge 500 to map out rides that I am currently riding
MapMyRide.com to plan out potential routes that I may ride in the future.



I have to say though, these things have a downside. In the past I would simply take my bike out and see how far I could go. In effect I loved not knowing where the hell I would end up. But now, I feel very regimented, in that I know exactly where each ride is going and how long it'll take to get back. It seems my elderly prudence has overtaken my youthful adventuring spirit. That makes me sad, in a way.

Truth of the matter is however, that I now know this county, and the surrounding 5 counties, well enough that I know exactly where every road will take me, so maybe the tools aren't really the cause of this. I think I am going to start touring next year... see if that won't break this non-adventurous spirit :D

I don't really use tools to motivate me... biking is motivation in itself.

+1......I'm using a 6 year old $14 computer on my bike. Nothing digital motivates me to ride. I use my cameras and recorder only to document rides and the people we meet. If I were to ditch the cams, I'd more than likely be more motivated to ride more and harder haha!:D

My digital scale that I don't like the numbers on. If I start getting complacent I just get on there every morning when I get up. On my commuter I don't have anything but lights and it is the bike I ride the most.
The biggest help for me is finding multiple routes I enjoy riding so I can change up my ride and enjoy it no matter which way I go.

I didn't put a computer on my CX bike and I rubber-band a piece of black plastic over my computer on my road bike most of the time. I have way more fun when I'm not concerned about my numbers while riding.

To track weight and bodyfat percentage I threw together a spreadsheet in Excel, made a "projected loss" category vs. my actual measured (by analog scale and handheld impedence meter) and track my progress against projected on a graph.

I think I am going to start touring next year... see if that won't break this non-adventurous spirit :D

It might. But if you'll take a tip from a regular tourist, don't plan your route too carefully. Obviously you'll have places you definitely want to see, and a date by which you have to get home. But beyond that, improvise. The worst thing you can do n a tour is become the prisoner of your pre-determined schedule, it turns the experience into a chore. If you improvise you'll find yourself seeing things you never knew existed, because a chance conversation with a stranger has caused you to change your route. Magic.

I only use my Garmin on climbing rides. The rest of the rides down here in the valley I don't use a computer at all. I'm really only interested in the data from climbs.

Garmin Edge 500 and MapMyRide.com

Keeps track of everything for me so I can see even the smallest improvements towards my goals. Besides I'm a little kid when it comes to electronic toys.

+1 For endomondo.com


I used to use ridewithgps.com which is great for manually mapping rides - unfortunately there is no smart phone app for this site.

My wife uses her iPhone with the Cyclemeter app and ridewithgps. Simply email the file to your home computer after the ride and toggle to "enter manual file" (or something like that) and BAM - you're in business. Very fast and easy to do.

I've tried a few of the iPhone apps but they really drain the battery and a lot of my rides are 2+ hours.

Got an Edge 800 this last February and love it. Gives me more data than I need, but it's interesting to look at. As a heart patient, I especially monitor my heart rate--which my beta blocker keeps below 115. Love to be able to download rides other cyclist have done, especially when I'm on vacation and don't know the roads.

I am using Runkeeper and myfitnesspal on my DroidX.

Runkeeper does my ride tracking, and will provide audible cues to distance, time and pace throughout the ride if I want it to. Additionally, I can marry a Polar HRM to the bluetooth of my Droid to get that information merged into my rides.

myfitnesspal is soooooo easy. I have never counted calories before. Now I faithfully enter each meal because it is so easy.

I don't really use tools to motivate me... biking is motivation in itself.

That being said, I use tools to track my progress because I'm a huge math nerd and I like to be able to quantify my progress...

I have to say though, these things have a downside. In the past I would simply take my bike out and see how far I could go. In effect I loved not knowing where the hell I would end up. But now, I feel very regimented, in that I know exactly where each ride is going and how long it'll take to get back. It seems my elderly prudence has overtaken my youthful adventuring spirit. That makes me sad, in a way.

Truth of the matter is however, that I now know this county, and the surrounding 5 counties, well enough that I know exactly where every road will take me, so maybe the tools aren't really the cause of this. I think I am going to start touring next year... see if that won't break this non-adventurous spirit :D
I too use mileage as my prime motivator to ride more than I would otherwise allot time for, and I'm also wonky about graphing my mileage. I'm a year-round commuter at 14 miles one way and in the nice weather I train for Centuries. I'm also very busy with work and family activities. For training I follow a well-defined 10 week Century schedule with daily mileage quotas. My training is virtually exclusively done by lengthening my commute, including a long ride on Saturdays to go into work for a few hours. So my usual 70 mile week during the winter expands to almost 200 miles per week at peak in the summer.

Without these mileage goals, I would be pretty content just to do my simple commute. So in my case, I embrace my quotas and graphs, and the additional cycling and added fitness is the payoff.

My earlier cycling days were as a tourist, including a cross-country trip, and the novelty of new routes certainly is a powerful motivator to ride. However I am tied down to the Boston area. As great as the cycling is here, it's hard to find novel routes after all these years. FYA, I posted to a recent thread you might find interesting on the Fifty Plus Forum, “Dealing with BOREDOM”:


I frequently deal with that situation too…Virtually all my riding is done from home as my starting point; no driving out to new routes…

I'm on endomondo but don't care for it, I just use RunKeeper and all I count are the distances.

My wife uses her iPhone with the Cyclemeter app and ridewithgps. Simply email the file to your home computer after the ride and toggle to "enter manual file" (or something like that) and BAM - you're in business. Very fast and easy to do.

Does Cyclemeter allow you to post your results on their website? Like other apps such as RunKeeper and iMapMyRide do.

+1 for Endomondo. I really like it, and the auto upload feature. It's not perfect, but is free and works on most phones with GPS

My wife uses her iPhone with the Cyclemeter app and ridewithgps. Simply email the file to your home computer after the ride and toggle to "enter manual file" (or something like that) and BAM - you're in business. Very fast and easy to do.

Unfortunately, I am a blackberry user. It sounds like a great option though.

Unfortunately, I am a blackberry user. It sounds like a great option though.

People still use Blackberries? :D

SportTracks. It creates a map and puts a little red square everywhere I've started a bike ride, hike, paddle, or something else outdoors. I like filling the map in.

People still use Blackberries? :D

Surprisingly they are still around - RIM is in my backyard so I feel I should try and support my local economy.

Only aids I use other than my bike :-)

http://www.amazon.com/Schwinn-SW654-6PK-17-Function-Computer/dp/B000DZD3FQ/ref=pd_sbs_sg_2 My bike computer - basic - Just use the MPH and the distance traveled that I reset every ride.

Then I mark the time and distance according to that meter and post it to: http://www.bikejournal.com (http://www.bikejournal.com/)

Specially with me being a tech guy I am trying to not get to caught up into things other than me and my bike. Knowing me I would spend more time buying fancy garbage to attach to my bike instead of riding. bike journal though allows me simple access to how many rides and my distance/speed. I can see the progress I have made even if I don't feel it in the saddle that day.

i just bought a Garmin forerunner 305 and did a ride, garminconnect is super pimp. its not a motivator but will help me improve and may eventually motivate me on "blah days" to push harder to beat last ride.

I'm really wanting a Garmin 800, but I know as soon as I buy it a new , better more improved model will come out. Guess I will wait Garmin out and see what they do. A new model would also bring the price down on the 800 so guess I will wait it out.