GPS / route tracking

craigatkinson
craigatkinson Posts: 38
edited October 2010 in MTB general
Does anyone have suggestions for this? At the moment I have a cateye for numbers and the runkeeper ap on my phone, which is very accurate for route tracking but I'm not sure for calorie burn!

Comments

  • rudedog
    rudedog Posts: 523
    Do you already own a smartphone with built in GPS reciever?
  • craigatkinson
    craigatkinson Posts: 38
    Yeah just wondering about options
  • bluechair84
    bluechair84 Posts: 4,352
    I use Viewranger on my phone - an app which allows you to download ordinance survey maps, tracks your route, graphs your speed, altitude and time, can open .GPX files and you can create routes on it. I use this in conjunction with bikehike.co.uk to plan routes and then save them to viewranger to follow on trail.
    Much cheaper than a dedicated GPS device.
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  • rudedog
    rudedog Posts: 523
    It would help if had said which smartphone you had....
  • zeroseven
    zeroseven Posts: 347
    Cardio Trainer is not bad, there are loads of free ones on Android
  • craigatkinson
    craigatkinson Posts: 38
    Android battery wouldn't last the length of the ride I don't think! Htc at least.
  • zeroseven
    zeroseven Posts: 347
    edited October 2010
    craigatkinson wrote:
    Android battery wouldn't last the length of the ride I don't think! Htc at least.

    Good point. I get 5 hours with HTC Desire running Cardio Trainer, Second Hi Amp Battery costs £15 but of course you log as two separate rides. (Eat your hearts out Iphone boys). Some of the programs you can set the frequency of the GPS plot, so set to once a minute and I think you'd probably last 6/7 hours on a single battery. I'll try it tomorrow
  • craigatkinson
    craigatkinson Posts: 38
    I have an iPhone, had the desire for a while but the battery thing was annoying. Runkeeper is ok I suppose.
  • MountainMonster
    MountainMonster Posts: 7,423
    I would never use my phone for running any programs like that, battery life just isn'T good enough. I struggle enough with only using a few small apps to check updates on things, and task killing them afterwards and phone still dies late afternoon.
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  • bluechair84
    bluechair84 Posts: 4,352
    never really had a problem with the Nokie boys :lol:
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  • futuresbright
    futuresbright Posts: 56
    I'm using motion x on my iPhone, no calorie count but is spot on with route summary, never missed a beat, records every movement very accurately,

    I use it whilst nightriding on my own as it uploads my position to twitter so if anything should go wrong the missus knows where to find me.

    Lite version available but I think full Is only a couple of quid, well worth a look.
  • zeroseven
    zeroseven Posts: 347
    futuresbright wrote:
    .... so if anything should go wrong the missus knows where to find me.

    Bugger that.... 8)
  • futuresbright
    futuresbright Posts: 56
    zeroseven wrote:
    futuresbright wrote:
    .... so if anything should go wrong the missus knows where to find me.

    Bugger that.... 8)

    What I meant to say was that when I go for that bit of downhill that no one even attempts in the daylight never mind in the dark, the air ambulance knows where to find me!!

    Sounds a bit better 8)
  • Bar Shaker
    Bar Shaker Posts: 2,313
    I also use Motion X. I have tried several and MX is definitely the best. Cyclemeter was the worst as the GPS function must have been designed by Fischer Price. It was so inaccurate it was useless and the maps were only street maps. Because it only polls the GPS chip every 3 seconds, the battery life is good but turning it off would give an even longer battery life with no down side. It does gives calories but I suspect they are as accurate as the rest of it.

    Cyclemeter screen shot from my first ride with it. This was in open country so no GPS signal problems.

    ZiETZ1I5.png



    The Motion X terrain maps are excellent, showing footpaths, contours, lakes and rivers.

    This screen shot is a ride in Epping a couple of weeks ago. You can see that it tracked us closely compared to the footpaths but, more importantly, it gave us confidence to ride the single track without worrying about getting lost. It was our first ride there and it was unaffected by the tree cover.

    xGPCn373.png

    Motion X is battery hungry as it is constantly polling the GPS chip. It will eat a full battery in about 3 hours. I have an external battery and a 'dock extender' lead which gives me 6-8 hours use of Motion X for longer rides.

    You can import GPX files to follow routes and you can export to sites like Ride With GPS to see the data and stats over laid on your route, on a laptop.
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