oz25

Can anyone give advice on a good training software program? What sort of features are most useful, etc.

SSP

Well, I'm a big fan of CycliStats but, as the author of the program, I'm 110% biased .

CycliStats is designed as a ride log and training diary for avid recreational and competitive cyclists. It will automatically estimate calories burned and average wattage, and also tracks your bike maintenance and personal health stats. It also allows you to enter your cycling goals (centuries, races, goals for monthly distance, etc.), and track your progress. It's been designed to be easy and quick to use, and comes with nearly 50 built-in graphs and reports.

You can download a free, fully functional 30-day trial version from the CycliStats website to see if it meets your needs. And if you have any questions about the program, feel free to post, email, or PM me.

NomadVW 

Cyclistats rocks. It's not exactly "training" software. I'm not sure what you're looking for. If you want something that helps design programs, Cyclistats isn't for you. If you want something to keep track of what you've been doing in every possible fashion, Cyclistats is exactly what you need. In fact, it now tells me my heart beats per kilometer - a number I'm not sure what I'm supposed to do with.

At the end of the day, my ride logging has gotten a lot more consistent since I started using Cyclistats, as does my ride scheduling. Things I use for sure from cyclistats are:

Ride scheduling
Ride logging
- heart rate (avg, max) and customizable zones
- speed, distance, weather, notes routes
- saved route information
- saved bike information, for which I have "bikes" for my FSRxc, roubaix, spinning and rollers so that I can track each one separately.
- all sorts of stats that go backwards as far as you want.
- Goal setting ****** This is one of the most vital uses of the program for me.
- Maintenance logging - I know how many miles I have on almost every part on my bike
- Health monitoring, resting HR, weight, blood pressure

Anyway, I can't imagine anything doing more than Cyclistats does unless you want it to interact specifically with a training program. Ie. if you're using Carmichael, I'd use their software.

Anyway, that's my plug.

VW

rjjasick

Can you download your HR/Speed/Altitude information from a Polar 720 into the software?

SSP

Not directly from the watch (Polar treats all of their interfaces as proprietary, and intentionally makes them difficult to figure out).

However, I was able to figure out their HRM file format. This means that you can drag and drop your Polar HRM files onto the CycliStats Calendar or Rides list to initiate an automatic Import of the HRM file data.

derath

If it supported the Garmin products (edge, forerunner) it would be cool for me. Otherwise it would be just another data entry task.

Otherwise it does look nice.

-D

SSP

Garmin is on my list of interfaces to support in a future update. Fortunately, their file formats use standard XML, which should make it a fairly straightforward task.

I'm currently working on a bunch of new features for version 5.0, and hope to include support for the Garmin units in version 5.1.

Greg180

Keep us posted on the new versions. I am interested in a software interface that will work with my edge 305. I don't like the web based option that MotionBased provides.

HobartDave

Hi,

Just wondering if the HAC4 was on your list of supported, or future computers?

Cheers,
Dave

SSP

Unfortunately, the HAC4 appears to use a proprietary binary format for their .tur files, and I've not been able to find a "decoder ring" for that file format. If you're aware of one, please let me know.