A post on another thread got me thinking about this. I think it was Dave Cutter, and he said that he switched to a phone app that recorded all of his rides, to track what he was doing. For any app idea, there are nay-sayers, and that's OK because I'm just speculating and asking for opinions.

I know that you can use Strava for this, RideWithGPS, or most any GPS mapping app. I don't use any of them except now and again for two reasons: I don't want to mess with the interface on every ride, and they all seem to be resource hogs particularly but not limited to the battery. But what if it was just a small program lurking in the background and intelligently managed location services, and automatically knew when I was riding and did all of that for me, including optionally sending it to Strava or another site? Or just kept ride and overall summary data locally.

What I want is for the app to do everything without bothering me with it, and not drain my battery or take up much resources while doing it. What do you think, does that functionality already exist? Worth pursuing? Technical issues will sink the idea?

My RideWithGPS does all that, all you need do is start it and stop it. Practically zero increase in battery use as long as you don't use "live" tracking...

My phone has Google Fit installed and it tracks my bike commute without me doing anything other than carrying my phone. I didn't even configure it, just did it on its own. I was a little shocked to see it knew I was biking. I have no idea if it will integrate with 3rd party site.

It doesn't know. It got lucky. It's wrong quite often when guessing your mode of travel.

You have to start it, and then I had to log in to the RideWithGPS website so apparently it needs wifi or cell data at least to start, and a login. Then I had to punch "Go Ride" and then I needed to punch the red button and watch to make sure it was recording.

After the ride/recording you have to pause (and hold to pause), then hit a confirmation check, then type in a name or leave it "Unnamed", and save.

If I recall correctly, if I want it on Strava I open up file explorer, find and copy the gpx file to an upload directory and use Strava, or use a Strava Uploader app and browse to the GPX.

I don't want to mess with all of that, or any of that. I'm thinking why doesn't an app do it all? No opening apps, starting and stopping rides, no browsing or uploading - just carry the phone in my pocket.

It (Google Fit) may be unsophisticated. I think that three simple checks could correctly identify all or almost all of my bike rides, and some feedback pattern learning could improve it beyond that if necessary.

It does seem like you should look more at the fitness tracking apps and not the cycling logging apps.

I've never looked into what my iPhone Health thinks I'm doing, but it's not using the GPS... at least the little arrow doesn't come on like it does for Google Maps or Strava. It seems to be working like a pedometer, and if it's picking up cycling it doesn't say so.

I'm pretty sure the reason Strava is such a pig is that it's loading maps all the time, same thing with Google Maps.

Motivated by this thread, I tried RideWithGPS today, it was a dismal failure, only showing a fraction of my ride. Perhaps having the phone in my coat pocket was an issue?

I keep my phone in my pocket running Strava and it's usually ok. But I don't think these things achieve their true potential accuracy until hooked up to speed and cadence and even power sensors.

And those are the things I couldn't care less about, and would be pointless complications. Time, distance, speed, elevation, and tracks are what I'm interested in.

If your phone's android there are apps that control other apps based on triggers. I had near field tags on my car phone holder and at work. Placing the phone in the car holder or work cradle triggered a mode specific to that location. Other apps trigger on location so you could have it start recording when you left home, and finish when you arrived at work. Back then I used "Trigger" - I've been IOS for years.

On android or IOS, you might be able to use IFTTT to do something similar.

I have used RideWithGPS for 2 years and it never failed me even where there was no phone signal or WIFI for days... Had it on all day on my bike tour up north (Yukon) and it showed me where I was, distance, speed, elevation,... All I did was turn it on and turn it off or pause it when I wasn't riding. When I got to a place where there was a WIFI signal it automatically downloaded to my account and I could see the whole days/weeks ride...

I had actually looked into IFTTT but it isn't immediately clear to me that I could customize it for my own "recipes" other than the canned options.

Another idea is using RFID on the bike, or a bluetooth trigger, so it's certain when you're physically on the bike and the phone would know that. That's probably the way to go if a software solution isn't satisfactory.*

The phone should be able to detect when I roll out of the house and into the parking lot without pausing - at a car for instance, and start travelling at 6-20 mph. It would be pretty clear that I'm on a bike. It's not quite that simple with exceptions, but using speeds and accelerations, location clues, and my own patterns it seems to me that detecting a ride, with beginning and end, shouldn't be all that difficult.

*It just occurred to me, reading your post about the holder in a car, you could even use a magnet in a case or holder to tell the phone where it is. As long as the magnet was located in a fixed position and your phone had the appropriate sensor. That wouldn't be a whole lot of extra hardware.

I have this problem, I go on casual bike rides, and it keeps autolabeling as "Formula 1 Qualifying Lap". So annoying!

Yes the entire 2015 I ran Cyclemeter (Elite). I can't remember the purchase price (I think there is a free trial) it wasn't much... annual renewal is $4.99 (five bucks).

With the new iOS (9.2?) tracking is automatic (whether you wanted tracked or not). The provider can always locate the phone/user if required (thank you NSA). As far as battery drain I have no problem.

Cyclemeter (Elite) allows you to update to Strava and/or MyFitnessPal using settings you can do this automatically, or by choice. I only have stat copies sent to my email. From there I save the emailed data to an on-line folder. However... I do have to open the app and "click start" to begin the program before every ride. Then of course stop the app after I get home.

I do find that uploading pictures while running the cyclemeter app stops the app or slows the upload greatly.

For me... "dropping a pin" is a huge benefit if I was to need help. Once I did crash... and trying to explain to my wife where to find me... was nearly impossible. Using the map... I can "drop a pin" (text my wife a map location) and she can set her phone to navigate to me with voice prompts. We did a practice run!

I can use my phone to access my home cameras, control my lighting, I also get entry/exit alerts.... from other apps/services. There is SO MUCH more that can be done with these portable computing devices.

I believe society... (and more importantly the economy) is stuck just short of a technology revolution. Some think everything is on hold... just waiting for us boomers to die off. And that is just sad.

I am currently thinking of adding the RFID chips/tags/tiles to my phone/BIKE. It could make stealing a bicycle a lot more difficult. As once the bike is "reported missing" every other app/RFID user would also ID and report the location.

Nice, that's the kind of thing that can take the edge off a concerned wife's fears, there's been a couple of threads about that in the last few months.

I just brought up my Google Location History screen to see what was new there. It does try to guess my travel mode now but it's very haphazard. It usually gets it that I was on a bike, but the beginning and end are terrible. I think the problem has something to do with trying to integrate wifi location, cell location and GPS so as an experiment I'm running it on GPS only.

It leads me to suspect, if Google can't get it right then there may be may be some technical challenges lurking under the surface for a software-only detection of a cycling trip. Or maybe it needs a more serious look than Google devoted to it - it's hard to tell with Google sometimes. Either way is not very encouraging.

All that for a ride you do every day over the same route? To each their own.

Put me down as a Luddite who just likes to ride a bike while commuting with no phone, and a wife who is not worried about or interested in my exact location at every moment out of her sight. In 37 years of marriage and bike commuting during most of it, never had the need to call my wife for assistance or look at a map of any kind while bicycle commuting

I thought that it needed a clear view of the sky to use GPS satellites, even thick clouds might cause problems.

I use Velodroid (android app) to log the ride with mobile data turned off. When I get to a wi-fi location it loads easily to RideWithGPS for details and maps.

An app should have an auto pause. So, it should be able to detect movement under, say 2 mph, and block it out. Perhaps other patterns to differentiate riding from walking, for example taking a hill climb into consideration (if knows the change in elevation).

If tied to a cadence meter, or a power meter, then it should also know when one is riding, vs driving, vs not on a bike.

I'm not sure about the resource hog. It may depend a bit on the frequency of updates. For tracking where a person is, or where one went, perhaps one would just need an update every second, or few seconds.

Maybe some of this will come out with the next generation of more integrated apps.

No, my interest is for my irregular rides, but testing it on a known route such as my commute seems like a good way to determine if it works.

The desire for the information is only for my amusement, and curiosity.

Yes, this exists. It has been developed by multiple startups. Most of them are marketing the technology to auto insurance companies for purposes of passively tracking driving. The techniques used to detect trip start/stop are varied. GPS is a battery hog. The best programs rely very little on GPS.

Interesting, I've heard of a couple of instances in the industry where pilots are starting up for that (a little beyond the "black box" thing they've been offering to drivers to monitor driving and reduce premiums where applicable). It sounds like you have some knowledge about them. I can't really speak out of turn about that, but I believe that what I'm asking for isn't quite the same. To be analogous we'd need to install additional equipment on the bike to track movements (such as a Garmin).

I just want an app on the phone that does it all, without extra devices or having to mess with interfaces to run it. Unfortunately that means using GPS since cell tower/wifi location isn't really suitable. On the bright side GPS itself isn't the battery hog on Android that it used to be.

My wife didn't even follow the link the couple of times I sent her a Glymps text, which links to a real time location map. I think it's more useful in the imagination than in practice.

I set up Google fit on my phone, totally autonomous, rather accurate, and except for elevations it shows what I'm interested in.