Australian Cycling Forums - Bicycles Network Australia

Hi

I now the year is not out but Christmas is just over a month away so maybe time to start thinking about challenges for 2011 and hence his posting. This is about a specific challenge for commuters and is not designed to take away from the Australian Cycling Forum Club at BikeJournal which will continue in 2011 albeit in different format. Rather this challenge is those of use that commute and for recording your commute rides to see who is the longest commuter in 2011.

I have set this challenge up in Endomondo rather than BikeJournal for a number reasons but mainly because Endomondo makes better use of technology (mobile phones, Garmin models) and social media orientated.

Endomondo has applications for various phones (not just iPhones) and allows for auto uploading from your phone including live tracking, uploading from your Garmin and of course manual uploading of ride data. You can share your ride with your Facebook and Twitter friends as well of course with us.

Endomondo provides a number of different data analysis points including split times (e.g., by the kilometre) so you can see how fast you where each kilometre of the ride, what your fastest kilometre was, your slowest and so on. There is other data analysis available as well.

It does not provide the level of equipment analysis that BikeJournal does so if you value this feature you might want to do what I will be doing and logging at both; your call of course.

Anyway please do check out Endomondo and sign up for the challenge which starts on January 1, 2011. Your feedback on this is appreciated.

Oh the only rule is please log on your commute rides, not your sporting rides.

Regards
Andrew

No point me entering. My commute is only 9km so I don't have a chance. I can report that Endomondo is easy to use and I can upload workouts from my Garmin FR60.

casual_cyclist wrote:No point me entering. My commute is only 9km so I don't have a chance. I can report that Endomondo is easy to use and I can upload workouts from my Garmin FR60.

Hi

Not all about winning .... would be nice to have you in there just being part of it and competing against your fellow commuters at your level.

Andrew

Aushiker wrote:

casual_cyclist wrote:No point me entering. My commute is only 9km so I don't have a chance. I can report that Endomondo is easy to use and I can upload workouts from my Garmin FR60.

Hi

Not all about winning .... would be nice to have you in there just being part of it and competing against your fellow commuters at your level.

Andrew

Good point. Will you post a link when the challenge is set up?

casual_cyclist wrote:

Aushiker wrote:

casual_cyclist wrote:No point me entering. My commute is only 9km so I don't have a chance. I can report that Endomondo is easy to use and I can upload workouts from my Garmin FR60.

Hi

Not all about winning .... would be nice to have you in there just being part of it and competing against your fellow commuters at your level.

Andrew

Good point. Will you post a link when the challenge is set up?

Hi

From the OP - http://www.endomondo.com/challenges/n52LBf9XyTE

Regards
Andrew

(at me being half asleep)

Anyway, good idea. I have joined.

I'm in!

Max

Max wrote:I'm in!

Max

Cool. Welcome aboard Max.

Andrew

I also have a short commute - but a great idea. I average about 5000 km per year.

Being a techno gumbie with my bike computer being a $15 big W one (works great and as a gift for Fathers day 2 years ago I am not changing it) is there a way simple to load the kms I do weekly?

I've signed up with only a short commute as well. My shortest route to work is 10.49km but I frequently take a scenic route if I have the time - I can easily get my commute up to 50km round trip.

Easily half my k's are transport; as well as commute I run errands, shop and cycle to meetings. What are the rules, is commute limited to home to office trips?

I've been using the BV RiderLog app to track my distances. I like RiderLog's ride distinctions, either Transport or Recreation. The Endomondo app has the same ease of use and uses the same format for distinguishing rides.

GPS device support is something that bikejournal is sorely lacking - I haven't looked at the BJ forums, does anybody know if they're working on apps?

westab wrote:I also have a short commute - but a great idea. I average about 5000 km per year.Being a techno gumbie with my bike computer being a $15 big W one (works great and as a gift for Fathers day 2 years ago I am not changing it) is there a way simple to load the kms I do weekly?

hi

Welcome to the challenge. I just did a manual upload with no map and it was a piece of cake. Really simple to add distance and other aspects as per your own choices. Minimum information required is the distance so you should be clear to go.

Andrew

RobertFrith wrote:Easily half my k's are transport; as well as commute I run errands, shop and cycle to meetings. What are the rules, is commute limited to home to office trips

Hi Rob

Thanks for asking. I would consider a "commute" to be any transport orientated ride, say any ride where it replaces the use of a vehicle private or public. Does that sound reasonable?

Regards
Andrew

Aushiker wrote:

RobertFrith wrote:Easily half my k's are transport; as well as commute I run errands, shop and cycle to meetings. What are the rules, is commute limited to home to office trips

Hi Rob

Thanks for asking. I would consider a "commute" to be any transport orientated ride, say any ride where it replaces the use of a vehicle private or public. Does that sound reasonable?

Regards
Andrew

Sounds reasonable to me. Where the line blurs for me is where I do a training ride on the way home from work. My "commute" is 9km but some Friday afternoons I do a training ride home of 40km. I would be inclined to count those kilometres too.

casual_cyclist wrote:

Aushiker wrote:

RobertFrith wrote:Easily half my k's are transport; as well as commute I run errands, shop and cycle to meetings. What are the rules, is commute limited to home to office trips

Hi Rob

Thanks for asking. I would consider a "commute" to be any transport orientated ride, say any ride where it replaces the use of a vehicle private or public. Does that sound reasonable?

Regards
Andrew

Sounds reasonable to me. Where the line blurs for me is where I do a training ride on the way home from work. My "commute" is 9km but some Friday afternoons I do a training ride home of 40km. I would be inclined to count those kilometres too.

Hi

So would I. If you classify it as "Cycling, transport" in Endomondo I would consider that is what it is. I really want this to be fun and avoid really narrow definitions of what counts. I will like to leave it up to the individual to determine themselves what rides broadly apply and if they are happy to record them as such then that is good enough for me. Of course if someone has a ride which they feel is very grey they are welcome to ask for input.

Andrew

I'm in, another one with a short commute (just under 6ks for the shortest route, or just over 10 for the preferred route).

Would have to agree with the verdict so far on taking the long way home, whether it be to do some training or just to enjoy the ride more I'd just call it an extended commute, I just wish I had time to do them more often.

[quote="Aushiker"]Thanks for asking. I would consider a "commute" to be any transport orientated ride, say any ride where it replaces the use of a vehicle private or public. Does that sound reasonable?/quote]

Yep, sounds good, looking forward to day 1

Aushiker wrote:

westab wrote:I also have a short commute - but a great idea. I average about 5000 km per year.Being a techno gumbie with my bike computer being a $15 big W one (works great and as a gift for Fathers day 2 years ago I am not changing it) is there a way simple to load the kms I do weekly?

hi

Welcome to the challenge. I just did a manual upload with no map and it was a piece of cake. Really simple to add distance and other aspects as per your own choices. Minimum information required is the distance so you should be clear to go.

Andrew

Thanks Andrew - I'm in - I will give it a try and ask for help if I need it. It realy is a great idea

Aushiker wrote:Thanks for asking. I would consider a "commute" to be any transport orientated ride, say any ride where it replaces the use of a vehicle private or public. Does that sound reasonable?

would a tour count as a "commute" then?

Anyway, signed up. Guess I'll have to stop being lazy and logging absolutely everything as transport .

Don't have a smart phone or GPS so I'm out and not planning on getting one so I'm out.

Martin

martinjs wrote:Don't have a smart phone or GPS so I'm out and not planning on getting one so I'm out.

Martin

Hi

You can log your rides manually. I posted this earlier in the thread ....

I just did a manual upload with no map and it was a piece of cake. Really simple to add distance and other aspects as per your own choices. Minimum information required is the distance so you should be clear to go.

Andrew

Opps, that's what happens when you skim read.
Still may not be in it as it means double logging, have to think about it.

Martin

Joined.

Will be commuting to work and uni next year, will be very interesting to see hwo much road i cover in a year.

I'll have a go at signing up. My commute is only 11KM each way but I can aim for 5,000KM for the year. Since I don't own a mobile phone I figure I can manually upload once a week or so.

OK, I set it up, now how do I input the KMs I ride when it starts nest year? Hah, think I found the answer, you go to new workout and type in the details. I figure this will automatically add to the stats in the challenge when it starts in January.

DS

DavidS wrote:I figure this will automatically add to the stats in the challenge when it starts in January. DS

Hi

Yes it does.

Andrew

Aushiker wrote:

DavidS wrote:I figure this will automatically add to the stats in the challenge when it starts in January. DS

Hi

Yes it does.

Andrew

Any chance of running a trial in December so we can all figure out how it works?