• Added support for high capacity SD cards. (4GB, 8GB, etc.)
• Improved power and speed data recording to minimize spikes.
• Added 3 and 30 second moving average power data fields.
• Fixed issue storing empty/unnamed speed zones in user profile.
• Fixed issue where viewing a Scheduled Advanced Workout causes it to be deleted.

copyright Trek

I haven’t been writing for long time, so now it’s time to catch up with some backlog. Not much happened on the GPS for cyclists market recently, but we are just after Tour de France and the biggests are starting to show products for 2010. Trek with Lance as its main marketing weapon presented a new series of Madone bikes. Bikes are cool, there is a lot of newness and changes in construction of carbon frames, but I focused on one detail.

This is a speed sensor and cadence sensor in one device, so it’s the same as Garmin GSC 10 sensor. It’s a really cool idea. On paper it means you must just put Edge 705 on your handlebars and nothing more. However, the main advantage is  no additional components mounted on a bike and, in theory, better guard against weather conditions. I heard that GSC  10 can stop working in the rain, but fortunately I didn’t experience this.

As you see Contador doesn't need to know cadence copyright CyclingNews

The next step will be for example standard built in crank Ant+ Sport powermeter, but this is task for Shimano and I’m sure they are working on something like that. Of course, there are already such things. But if  Shimano integrates powermeter with one of their  component group, the price will fall ‘cos of the scale of production and availability will increase and that is what I still dream about. For now Power Tap hub is $1000 in the cheapest option and it is still too much, at last for me…

* Restructured activity logging to reduce the number of invalid TCX files.
* Corrected issues from 2.70 that could possibly corrupt the ‘History’ directory.
* Removed potential spikes in the power data after periods of coasting.
* Increased the allowable digits in the ‘vertical to point’ field to 4.
* Increased the allowable digits in the ‘calories’ field to 5.
* Updated translations.

- Improved data recording in once per second mode
- Added ability to set averaging method for power and cadence
- Removed cadence filtering for power meters
- Made improvements to try to prevent spurious Auto Pauses
- Fixed distance and bearing display to work on Saved Rides list
- Fixed issue with trying to read files that start with ‘.’ that caused problems with Mac communication
- Fixed issue where random characters were displayed in list before course names loaded
- Fixed issue with speed targets not working properly in Advanced Workouts
- Fixed occasional issue where a corrupted history file could be created
- Added Venezuela and Australia-Lord Howe Island time zones
- Updated automatic Daylight Saving Time for Auckland, New Zealand, time zone

You must have a tcx2hrm converter to carry out such operations.

There are several programs that are able to do so, but none of them takes into account the fact that Garmin saves data in non-steady arranged before intervals in case of  SmartRecording function. (On the other hand recording every second causes that from time to time wrong speed and distance reading appears in tcx file at least in the 2.6 firmware version). So I decided to write a converter that will be devoid of this disadvantage.

When we have already converted file, we need Polar software, which we will load the data in.

We have 2 options:
Polar ProTrainer – software included in the Polar device – free 30-day version and payable version.
Polar Precision Performance – an older version of the predecessor, which is available for free.

Both programs are count calories with the same algorithm, which takes into account our HR max, HR rest, VO2max and our weight. This way we can omit the problem of calories counting.

Links to software:
* Polar ProTrainer
* Polar Precision Performance
* Free Online tcx to hrm converter

The converter doesn’t take into account laps or stopping time yet , hence there is a slight difference between exercise time in the Polar and Garmin software.
Maybe some day it will take that into account
So, now I’m recommending you to use it:

Free online TCX2HRM converter

If you have any remarks or you notice some outage, please comment below this post.

]]> http://gps4sport.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=106 2 http://gps4sport.com/blog/?p=100 http://gps4sport.com/blog/?p=100#comments Sat, 14 Feb 2009 09:10:29 +0000 admin http://www.gps4sport.com/?p=100 Continue reading →]]> Since I started using my Garmin Edge 705, I noticed that the amount of calories burned during training has significantly increased. It’s weird and I didn’t know how to explain energy expenditure increased by 40% because the receiver doesn’t weigh 20 kilograms and air resistance is not increased as much after the installation of Garmin GPS receiver. Then I realised, that probably Edge counts those calories wrong. So I did a test. I wore for my training 2 heart rate monitor bands and took both – Garmin GPS and Polar CS 400 with me too. And what turned out after the training? It was 1100 kcal in Polar and 1800 kcal in Garmin! There must have been something wrong about it. I browsed a bit the Internet, I asked Garmin forum users and I learned a few things: Not only did I notice that Edge counts too much of calories by about 40%. There are also people whose Edge counts well! Someone wrote that Edge doesn’t use a hr to measure calories but weight, distance and speed! I was intrigued very much by this last affirmation. Because it is possible to check! So I installed my Garmin on road bike which was installed on Tacx trainer and I rode one hour. Unfortunately, I was able to ride up only 4 kilometers! What is interesting is that I haven’t got speed sensor on the wheel and I was staying in one place. After a while it appeared that I hadn’t switched of GPS which caught by the window some satellites and tried to measure speed and distance. And what is the most interesting is the number of calories. 1770! But I was pedaling very lightly and I know from my experience that this isn’t usually bigger energy lose in my case than about 500 kcal. Next day I did second test with GPS receiver switched off  and it appeared that if you don’t move, even when pulse record  is on, the number of calories in Edge equals ZERO. What did I do it all for?
Most of people who use Garmin are planning just a training. But there are people planning also a diet with device and I think calories counter in our GPS Garmin isn’t the best counter/indicator of burning especially for those who want to lose weight.

What exactly is it?

Suppose that we train some uphills and we have to ride this loop five times. Usually it happens after some repetition, we forget which lap we are riding at the moment, in such situations we can keep track on repetition number with help of lap function. Each training device has got such function. Edges has it and Polars too even some Sigma cycling computers has lap counting function.
It works in such way that when we start another loop, we press LAP button. By dint of this we can see on the screen which time we ride the loop, after training we have the data partitioned in laps and we can compare yourself, when we did well and when we did not so well.

What is all about?

In the Edge you can do it in this way that you haven’t to press the LAP button. Garmin Edge do it itself by GPS position when you pass the start of next lap.
A small thing that makes you happy

How to do it?

1. A the beginning we must to have a course with one lap run. We have two ways how to do it:
   We ride whole lap once with active stopwatch to write the track.
   We draw a run in MapSource and process it to the course – it can be done on the site bikeroutetoaster.com or with any other tool which makes tcx file from gps file.
   When we have already this course with one lap, we copy it into device.
2. In the Training/Courses menu we choose Create New , we choose Saved Rides or immediately we select uploaded earlier course without creating a new course.
3. In the Training/Auto Pause/Lap menu we select automatic laps counting -> By Position and lap when ->Start and Lap.
4. After activating such course all laps will be count automagically.

When we pass this procedure, Edge will count laps be itself. Obviously it isn’t necessery to do it in this way, we can still press the LAP button like before. But it’s nice to know that this option exists