isadorah

What software do you use with your SRM? What do you like best and what do you wish the software would do that it doesn't do?

I am the technical brains behind a particular cyclist (ie, I keep the computers working) and could use some input to figure out which software would work best. We are Mac people, but Parallels is an option if needed.

gsteinb

huh boy, and the motor running

kensuf

I've got a mac.

I don't have an SRM.

I use golden cheetah with my quarq. It works "well enough" for analyzing my rides/figuring out threshold/performance manager.

It's supposed to be able to read in files from the power control 7 (SRM) just fine, both the golden cheetah and srm people say that.

https://goldencheetah.org/

gsteinb

Without getting involved in this thread, which will unquestionably be over my head....I think part of the question is what's the gold standard for software (which undoubtedly won't work on mac) and what makes it functionally better than anything else out there. Is there anything for a mac platform that approaches that? And, sub question, since I'm clearly an idiot (though isadorah isn't), what do I really need? That is to say, are there bells and whistles that are easy to go without? Since I've been having pretty good success just doing what I do. Someone will be looking at my data though, so keeping that in mind, what might someone want to see as far an analysis.

ok. I'm out of here. good luck.

wfrogge

WKO+ is the standard

kensuf

Gold Standard: WKO+, but runs on Windows only.

GC now has MOST of the features that make WKO+ the gold standard. It's easily a 90% solution, and it runs on your mac, and it's free.

wfrogge

Should have bought a PC... You would have had enough $$ left over to buy WKO+ and still came out ahead

gsteinb

what does WKO+ do that others don't?

The concern with golden cheetah is I only have a powermeter on one bike. I do a lot of of other stuff, and if she read correctly there's no manual data entry for GC.

MDcatV

this https://www.physfarm.com/inside/raceday.html runs on a mac and has all the performance metrics and predictors that WKO+ has. I tried it on a free trial basis being a mac guy and got confused because the terminology is different that WKO+, which is what the majority of people use. therefore, i became confused. phil skiba is the guy who did all the math and what not in developing he metrics for the software, if you call physfarm, you talk to phil, which is kind of cool. but, i gave in, bought in inexpensive laptop and got WKO+.



golden cheetah is free and runs on a mac. i tried it for a while too. i didnt find it any more useful than the poweragent software that comes on a powertap. so, see above re wko+

MDcatV

performance manager chart. it calculates 3 metrics that i've been using to govern my training, these are acute training load (atl), chronic training load (ctl) and training stress balance (tsb). i dont use 90% of the other things wko+ does, but I watch these closely to monitor both macro and micro training cycles and to balance the difference between being fit/fresh/tired/etc. on race day.

kensuf

manual entry?

MDcatV

^when i was dabbling with GC, i would see the xPower, which i understand to be a concept similar to normalized power, but RI, bikescore were always 0 and i've never seen the daniels points or aerobic decoupling (whatever that stuff is).

isadorah

yes, from what i read, you cannot enter anything in manually with GC. My understanding is the same goes for Raceday. I was thinking we should go with Raceday for the SRM and then combine it with some other program to track the non-SRM activity. That seems complex and convoluted though, so am trying to figure out if we're better off getting parallels and using a PC based program, but can't find enough info to determine which PC based program is the best option. One of the musts is to be able to enter workouts/activity in manually as well as retrieve the data from the SRM.

kensuf

Performance Manager?



note: SB="training stress balance", LTS = "long term stress" (CTL?), and STS = "short term stress" (ATL?)

The period for calculating those is all configurable.

isadorah

are you able to enter non-cycling workouts manually as well or does it only calculate ride data?

ericm979

Manual entry was the first thing I contributed to GC- my powertap wheel is broken too often for me to go without that.

If/when I get time, or someone else does, the manual entry will estimate BikeScore using TRIMP if there is HR data, rather than a simple linear equation based on distance/time.

Performance Manager was the second thing. With those two it's a decent WKO replacement, at least for my useage.

V1.4 should be out soon. It's got a lot of cool stuff, some of which WKO does not have (i.e. mapping if you have GPS data). The developer builds are pretty stable, and if you don't want to build it yourself you can search the mailing list and look for where people have posted binaries for your platform.

kensuf

cycling only. I'm not sure that WKO can handle non-cycling workouts either, though. I think PhysFarm can handle other stuff because it's for "try" athletes (i.e. can handle swimming/running as well).

ericm979

You can add in any activity but if the distance or time are zero then there won't be a BikeScore estimate (which is based on the previous 30 day's power files, so it's for riding). BS =~ TSS so if you have a way to estimate TSS you can use that.

kensuf

I didn't realize you're the guy who did the performance manager. Thank you, it's awesome and helped me plan and execute a podium finish at the state TT. I owe you a six pack of your choice.

ericm979

yes. and the names are configureable too, if you like CTL and ATL instead of LTS and STS. I used those because CTL and ATL are trademarked, they are based on TSS instead of BikeScore, which is close but not identical, and because I can never remember if chronic is short or long.

ericm979

Cool! Knowing that something i wrote helped someone is all the payment I need... that'll make me happy all day.

kensuf

Also: GoldenCheetah doesn't lock your data into a proprietary format. I can go to my "~/Library/GoldenCheetah/ken" directory and copy all the TCX files to another place.

kensuf

Daniels Points is another formula for calculating TSS. BikeScore is Phil Skiba's formula for calculating TSS. xPower is basically normalized power. Aerobic Decoupling is supposedly based on Joe Friel's Aerobic Decoupling work, but in my experience it seems to be mostly bullpucky.

Ygduf

That's awesome.

ericm979

Bikescore of 0 would be a bug of some sort. Especially if there was xpower, which means that GC sees the power data. You might try a newer release.