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Here are all the places you go running and biking with your iPhone
Strava is one of the most popular exercise apps on the iPhone, so after years of users recording their own running and biking habits, the company has a whole lot of data on its hands. Using nearly 20 million recorded exercise routes from its software across iOS, Garmin GPS devices, and Android, the company has created a gorgeous heat map of the world, showing exactly where people love to burn calories with their smartphones in their pockets. The map can be broken down into running and biking routes, with various color and opacity options, but its probably most valuable when used as a tool to find great exercise spots in your area. You can zoom in all the way to street level, which is invaluable if you're just not sure where to go with with your bike or running shoes.
Garmin's latest bike computer talks to your gear shifter
Bike computers have been connecting to an ever larger sphere of devices, ranging from fitness sensors to smartphones. It only makes sense, then, that they integrate with the bike itself -- and Garmin is doing just that with its new Edge 1000. The device can tell what gear you're using when paired with Shimano's Di2 electronic shifter, and ties that info to your ride; it's now easy to figure out if dropping gears helped you conquer that hill a little faster. There are a few big upgrades over the Edge 810 that don't require high-end bike components, of course. The 1000 supports new Garmin peripherals that include both a handlebar remote as well as cadence/speed sensors, and you can share ride segments through the company's smartphone app if you want to prove your worth to nearby cyclists. This flagship Edge will be expensive at $600 ($700 bundled with sensors) when it ships later in the spring, but that premium may be worthwhile if you just have to get a competitive advantage over fellow pedal-pushers.
Keeping your iPhone dry during a bike ride
If it looks stupid, but it works, it isn't stupid. [Photo credit: James A Artis]
Under Armour acquires MapMyFitness to boost its exercise tracking arsenal
One of our main gripes with the Armour39 fitness tracker was the lack of polish on its iOS app and inability to access stats via web. Well, it seems Under Armour is getting serious about improving in those areas as the outfit has acquired MapMyFitness. With over 20 million users, the software currently gathers data for a large collection of wearables that includes both the Jawbone UP and the Nike FuleBand alongside MapMyRide for those who prefer pedal power. "We will build on the community of over 20 million registered users that MapMyFitness has cultivated in the connected fitness space, and together we will serve as a destination for the measurement and analytics needs of all athletes" UA CEO Kevin Plank said. The company will continue to operate out of its Austin, Texas offices after the $150 million deal which is set to be completed by the end of the year. Who knows, maybe we'll see Under Armour tackle in-game tracking on top of consumer options like Adidas has. Only time will tell.
MYBELL keeps cyclists safe by blasting their MP3s of choice (hands-on)
Biking in heavily trafficked areas can be dangerous -- and few know this better than NYC cyclists. Peter Pottier is one of many in the Big Apple to survive a near miss while on two wheels, and that experience led him to develop a digital noise-maker to help keep bikers safe. The handlebar-mountable MYBELL, created by Pottier and his two colleagues, pumps out sound at up to 96dB -- the average mechanical bell tops out at about 70dB -- and features LEDs to improve nighttime visibility. Safety is clearly the focus here, but Pottier says he wants to improve the relationship between bikers and drivers as well. "I looked at what was currently on the market, such as air horns, but I didn't want to ostracize bikers." (Who wants to be accosted with that honking sound, after all?) To that end, the MYBELL is customizable; you can upload any MP3 file to the device via micro-USB, and you can choose different LED patterns in night mode. On top of the novelty value, hearing screaming techno instead of a standard bell ring will theoretically be safer, thanks to the wider pitch and range which make it easier to detect. And, if you're lucky, your taste in music might even earn the respect of that otherwise-hostile SUV.
Adafruit smart helmet guides bike riders with Arduino-based light shows (video)
Bike sharing systems like New York's Citi Bike may be taking off, but it's doubtful that many participants can find every station without checking a map. Thankfully, Adafruit has unveiled a smart helmet project that could help at least a few of those riders get to their destinations while keeping their eyes on the road. The DIY effort feeds locations to an Arduino-based Flora board and its positioning add-ons, which in turn use a string of NeoPixel LEDs on the helmet as turn indicators. Commuters just have to watch for blinking lights to know where to go next. While the system isn't easy to set up when cyclists have to manually enter coordinates, it is flexible: the open-source code lets it adapt to most any bike sharing system or headpiece. As long as you can get over looking like a Christmas tree on wheels while you navigate, you can build a smart helmet of your own using the instructions at the source link.
Google Maps brings biking navigation to six European countries
Summer is the prime season for European cyclists, whether they're racing the Tour de France or just embarking on voyages of self-discovery. It's a good thing, then, that Google Maps' biking directions have reached six more European countries. Those in France, Ireland, Germany, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg and Poland can now plot pedal-friendly routes using their phones and the web. Google may miss a hidden trail or two when it's crowdsourcing the data through Map Maker, but the upgrade should still help riders avoid the inevitable crush of tourist traffic.
RFLKT and Runmeter: It's basically Pebble for your bike
People love the idea of the Pebble watch. It's an iOS-compatible display that sits on your wrist, so your iPhone can stay in your backpack, purse, or pocket. It's a great way to keep light track of your notifications, and what's going on in your life. It is, however, not a particularly good match to bike riding, where constantly checking your watch for fine detail might end up with a bad case of road rash, small screaming children who you just hit as you checked your inbox, or even the less dramatic wobblewobbleohdear. For years, bikers have used small handle-bar mounted computer systems to keep track of their speed, cadence, heart rates, and distance -- among other OCD-friendly metrics. In the more recent past, vendors have produced iPhone mounts, so you can watch all this data directly as you bike. This also has several negative side effects. First, keeping the screen on and well lit kills your battery quicker than Steve Sande goes through nachos at a Rockies game. Second, when your bike goes down, your iPhone goes crash, and there are few insurance policies generous enough to cover the case of "Oh, I stuck my multi-hundred-dollar-phone onto my bike handlebars" with good humor. Enter the Wahoo RFLKT. It's a Bluetooth Low Energy (BTLE) display that mounts to your bike and keeps your iPhone out of the way. It offers a way for your favorite apps to keep you supplied with data while you ride. Tuck your phone in your sleeve, your back pocket, or your pannier, and you're ready to go. I assumed the RFLKT would blow my cheap Avenir bike system out of the water. Turns out the reality is much more nuanced. Let me start with the hardware. The RFLKT is about a quarter of the size of an iPhone 5, so it's about double or more the size of most bike computers. It can be mounted to stem or handlebars. It has a low-energy screen, runs off a coin battery and in theory can be removed from that mount every six months or so to change that battery. (In practice, I completely stripped the pop-out section and could not, for the life of me, get that darned thing off my bike. I basically ended up destroying the back, using the manufacturer-supplied metal pry bar.) I first ran the RFLKT using the free Wahoo-supplied app. In my preliminary outing, I quickly realized how much I wanted to go back to my standard exercise app of choice, Runmeter. That's because of several things. First, none of the output selections really appealed to me. I like to see current speed, max speed, elapsed time, current time and I couldn't get that on one screen. Second, the app kept making rookie mistakes -- and I knew they were rookie mistakes because I've written GPS apps. These are things that Abvio's Runmeter has long long since figured out and fixed. By rookie mistake, let me give you an example: max speed. When working with GPS, you often lose sync. The quality of the data you receive can vary all over the place, from accuracy within miles to within tens of meters. You have to keep this in mind as you calculate the current speed. When you bike, you earn your max speed. You "walk" that bike up the big hill using your granny gear and you soar down like an eagle. (In my case, that eagle is fat, slow, and middle aged, but it's still an eagle, damnit.) Your max speed should reflect that. With the Wahoo software, I was doing 43 MPH while trudging along on the flat. I may be a persistent cyclist, but I am not a good one and there's no way I live in Lance Armstrong territory, even in my most addled cold medicine dreams. While Wahoo was delivering the right hardware, it wasn't giving me what I needed in terms of software. The second I returned from my initial test ride, I started googling to see if I could use Runmeter with the hardware. Fortunately, I was within days of Runmeter's releasing their new RFLKT support. I contacted Abvio and they set me up with their latest version, complete with RFLKT integration. This is just a $4.99 in-app purchase for Runmeter Pro (which is what I use), Cyclemeter, and Walkmeter owners. I should warn you that Runmeter is clearly an app written by engineers instead of artists, but it's one that has served me well for years and one I'm wildly enthusiastic about. It does everything I need in terms of tracking my exercise. With RFLKT, it let me select one of about a dozen pre-designed templates and customize it to show exactly the statistics I wanted to see. Sure, the menus to do this tweaking were a bit antidiluvian, but if you're a tech geek to start off with, you shouldn't have too much trouble picking and customizing one of the choices shown here. I had to reset the RFLKT (there are instructions right inside the settings of Runmeter on how to do this), enable Bluetooth Sensors, and upload my custom screens. It wasn't particularly painful, although it did take some time to figure my way through the menus. Using a RFLKT display isn't exactly like using a bike computer. You gain some things, you lose others. Take speed for example. Because of the GPS sync problem, your Runmeter speed will always lag unless you use an external sensor. That means you can be flying down that mountain and still register 7.7 MPH for a while. For speed and distance measures to be accurate, they need a wider range of sampling time. Side by side, my Avenir bike computer knew my speed changes as they happened. I found myself referring to that much more often for MPH versus the RFLKT monitor. You can, however, integrate other sensors into the Runmeter/RFLKT experience to fix that. If the Runmeter app can integrate with the sensor (they have posted a list here), you can add it to the RFLKT display -- this includes digital speed and cadence from Garmin and Bontrager, negating any issues of GPS sampling. You can also add heart monitors, giving you some extra performance feedback. Regardless of speed, the distance portion of the solution was wicked accurate. There's no need to measure your tire or estimate its pressure and multiply the circumference to calculate how far you've gone. Need to go 3.7 miles? The RFLKT/Runmeter combination gets exactly that. It's brilliant. Other measures like date and time and max speed are also super-precise. I have no intention of buying new sensors so I found that I liked having both displays -- traditional and RFLKT on my bike, even though I had to sacrifice one of my night-riding lights to fit it there. I have small girlygirl handlebars, which don't offer a lot of real estate. I also had to pad the RFLKT with not one but THREE layers to get it to fit the bar and stay firmly mounted. Speaking of displays, I really do wish the RFLKT offered a lip the way my Avenir does, giving a little shade and offering glare protection. The RFLKT is pretty obviously a 1st gen device, and I expect it to evolve to be a little cleaner, and less boxy over time, but even as is, I really fell in love with it. On Monday, I had a chance to sit down and talk with Steve Kusmer of Abvio, the man behind Runmeter to talk about RFLKT, its technology and how the app has integrated itself with display. The relationship is longstanding. "Wahoo has provided the technology we've used for over two years to access Bluetooth devices. With the RFLKT, Wahoo provided the hardware, a wonderful design point, and we built from there. We've been demoing the RFLKT since September and just now released support in our software." The RFLKT took a lot of its design influence from the Palm Pilot. "It had to run on a simple battery and last forever. The RFLKT works with a coin cell battery, can be alive for months if not a year, and powers down on idle, when nothing is being used. Plus, it uses BTLE with minimal bandwidth. It has buttons and it's programmable. It's very simple but effective." Kusmer talked about integrating the device into riding. "Once I put the RFLKT on my bike, it becomes a different experience. It's providing a lot of value that enhances my experience." Making Runmeter work with the device helped leverage the app's underlying features. "We've been spent more than four years deployed -- started back in 2008, and we have spent a lot of time on the underlying data architecture for storing and displaying application data. It's very hard to do this right. One spike of data and your Max Speed is toast. We went through a year or more of iterations on trying to figure out the heuristic so bad GPS data doesn't whack your data. "We love RFLKT because we could take our data architecture and match up with anything you want to do on RFLKT. We can display 148 different statistics -- from your current speed to your previous interval average heart rate --- all readily accessible during your rides on the RFLKT." What you get in the end is a terrific combination of software (from Abvio) and hardware (from Wahoo) and one that I was really happy using. You can pick up a RFLKT for $130 at Wahoo. Runmeter is free with a $4.99 in-app upgrade to Pro, and another $4.99 in-app upgrade for RFLKT support. Cyclemeter and Walkmeter are $4.99 each.
Scosche BoomBottle ships for $150, just in time to serenade fellow cyclists (video)
Scosche promised a soundtrack to our biking and hiking when it unveiled the BoomBottle back in January; conveniently, it's shipping the Bluetooth speaker right as the spring thaw lets us give the peripheral a proper workout. The outdoorsy among us can now spend $150 to get a dust- and splashproof stereo system that fits into a bike's water bottle holder, or on a backpack through a carabiner, and plays for 10 hours on a charge. We'll have to wait, though, if we want a dash of color while we bombard other travelers with our taste in music. Gray versions are available now or very shortly at Scosche's site and Walmart, but more season-appropriate blue, green, pink and yellow hues will only sell through Scosche in May.
Wahoo Fitness' RFLKT iPhone bike computer now up for grabs at $130 (video)
Last September, Wahoo Fitness' RFLKT iPhone bike computer appeared on our radar poised for a December release, but it's only just gone up for sale. As of today, the iPhone 4S- and 5-compatible device is available for $130 from Wahoo's website and is shipping out to door steps. If you're in need of a refresher, the RFLKT (pronounced reflect, if you're curious) sits on a bicycle's handlebars and displays ride information slung to it over Bluetooth 4.0 from cycling apps running on a paired device. RFLKT is expected to support a number of apps in the future, but it currently plays nice with just two: its maker's own Cyclemeter application and the Wahoo Fitness App, which monitors everything from speed to heart rate, with the help of another peripheral, of course. Cyclists can also push buttons on the contraption's side to change tracks on their iDevice's playlist. Ready to infuse your ride with at-a-glance stats? Check out the source link and the video after the break.
Engineering a better bicycle with DBC City Bike Design
My day with Dan Sorger was winding down and the photographers were out joyriding on his bicycles when he beckoned me to look at something on his tiny, age-stained LCD monitor. Nestled in between a curling collection of Post-It notes was an anecdote about a wealthy Italian man which he began to read aloud, "Once upon a time, long ago ..." According to the story he had spent an exorbitant sum of money to modify his prized Alfa Romeo. As a result, his family tried to have him declared insane and wrest control of his fortune. As the trial got underway, the judge asked to see the vehicle in question and, once he set his eyes on the custom-crafted aluminum body, he dismissed the case, declaring, "The search for beauty is the most natural thing in man." The tale is allegedly the origin of storied automobile designer Ugo Zagato, but it's the judge who is the real star and it's his words that struck a chord with Dan, the founder and owner of DBC City Bike Design.
Wahoo Fitness introduces RFLKT: an iPhone-powered bike computer that lets handsets stay in pockets
Sure, you can turn your smartphone into a bike computer, but if you'd rather not put your pricey piece of tech anywhere near harm's way, Wahoo Fitness' RFLKT Bike Computer offers an alternative. Instead of packing all the brains, the device sits atop a bicycle's handlebar and displays data it's fed via Bluetooth 4.0 from cycling apps running on an iPhone 4S or 5. At launch, the hardware will support the firm's own Cyclemeter application and Wahoo Fitness App which can monitor ride information ranging from location to speed, in addition to heart rate with an additional accoutrement. Aspiring Alberto Contadors can page through data and even sift through tunes on their playlist with the help of buttons on the device's side. Gently tipping the scales at 2 ounces, the RFLKT measures up at 2.4- x 1.6 x 0.5-inches and boasts a one-year battery life on a single coin cell. Wahoo's gadget is slated for a December launch, but there's still no word on pricing. For more specifics, take a gander at the full press release below.
FreeWheelin helmet system delivers noise-resistant Bluetooth audio
Richard Solo's FreeWheelin audio system (US$150 street price) allows you to add stereo speakers to your bike helmet. As the picture to the right shows, it consists of three small boxes that use a high-powered variant of Velcro to mount to the helmet's back and sides. It's about as dorky looking a product as you could imagine but dang if it doesn't deliver really fabulous sound. I hooked up my test unit to USB power for a few hours before taking it all for a spin on my bike. Charging is really easy, but you either have to hook up your entire helmet or dismount/remount the speakers and control box from their attachment areas. It's not a big deal either way, I found. Pairing the Bluetooth was also super-easy. The speakers sit on the outside of your helmet, so they limit interference with your normal hearing. That's an important consideration when biking in traffic. You can hear your tunes and sense the motor of the idiot driver that's about to pass you and then turn to the right directly in front of you (This is entirely a theoretical example). Many cyclists avoid ear-based audio entirely or use one-eared speakers, but FreeWheelin delivers a full stereo experience. Moreover, the sound surrounds your ears instead of being directly aimed at your ear drum. I'm not an audiologist, but I'm guessing this is generally a safer prospect. I made sure to test the unit in reasonably heavy traffic. I picked a road with three lanes of traffic in each direction, going at 45 MPH (posted speed limit) at about 7:00 PM -- when rush hour has finished but road use remains high. I rode the adjacent bike path , which is essentially a city-purposed sidewalk. To make things really difficult, I put on an Audio Book, the best test of listening clarity. As expected, there were occasional times when I couldn't distinguish sounds mostly because there were a lot of loud, busy cars out there, but overall I had little trouble listening to my book. During a quarter hour of biking along that stretch, I could easily follow the story and missed very little audio. The sound quality was excellent. It's when I turned off the main road and started a quieter trip home that I encountered the flip side of my helmet sounds. It wasn't about the external noise I could hear through, it was about the noise my helmet itself was generating. In some ways, my helmet became the cycling equivalent of one of those cars blasting their speakers along the road. Although directed in towards the skull, the audio bounces off and is clearly audible a number of feet away (I tested this using a spare child). It's not a huge deal, exactly, because you tend to move away from other people rather quickly when you're on a bike, but the FreeWheelin system is a bit, well, noisy for others. The speakers were much lighter in use than I feared. I had expected them to weigh down my helmet a lot -- but after a few minutes, I really didn't notice them. There is the "dork" factor (as well as the broadcasting your audio factor) of having these boxes stuck to the side of your helmet. You'll need to decide if the benefits of the audio system outweigh the fashion faux pas. In the end, I found FreeWheelin a really exciting product to use. It nicely balanced safety against entertainment and offered well-built high-quality design.
Wahoo KICKR Power Trainer lets iPhone cyclists feel the simulated burn (video)
Wahoo Fitness' BlueSC cycling sensor is well and good for iPhone owners that always have fair weather and friendly roads to ride. For everyone else, there's the company's just-unveiled KICKR Power Trainer, a bike training system that uses a Bluetooth 4.0 link with Apple's device (or an ANT+ bike computer) to come as close as possible to the real thing. The KICKR can change resistance as soon as third-party iOS apps like Kinomap Trainer and TrainerRoad give the word, either arbitrarily for a routine or to replicate that on-asphalt feel at up to a 15 percent hill grade. Wahoo claims the super flywheel and wheel-off design improve the sensation of the virtual road and keep the measurements for both power and speed accurate over the long haul. If there's anything holding back indoor athletes, it's the launch. The KICKR will only land in US basements and living rooms come November, and while we haven't been quoted a price, we'd wager that it's much more likely to fall in line with the cost of a regular bike trainer than a sensor like the BlueSC.
Google Maps for Android adds turn-by-turn biking navigation, helps pedal-pushers in 10 more countries
Google's cycling directions have been slowly expanding their reach to the mobile world and other countries, but the only option for navigation so far has been to memorize the route. As of today, you won't have to stop every five minutes to get your bearings. Google Maps for Android has received a low-key update that adds spoken, turn-by-turn Google Maps Navigation for riders in every country where biking directions exist -- if you can clamp your phone to your handlebars, you can find your way. Many more riders are just seeing mobile support of any kind in the process. Both navigation and regular directions should now be live in the Android app for 10 more countries, including Australia, Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland and the UK. Cyclists just need to swing by Google Play to keep their two-wheeled adventures on track.
EcoXPower charges a smartphone, bicycle headlight and tail light with pedal power
Bicycle rigs for charging cellphones have lit up our radar before, but now the EcoXPower is being billed as the first device of its kind that can simultaneously juice up LED lights and a smartphone with the power of your pedaling. Packing a headlamp, a red tail light and a lithium-ion rechargeable battery, the contraption attaches to a bike's front wheel hub with the help of a universal mount. When clamped on, the apparatus' clutch engages between the velocipede's spokes so it can generate electricity. A USB adapter cable runs up the two-wheeler's fork to a water-resistant, touchscreen-friendly case that can house iPhones, Android handsets and "all major GPS devices" perched atop the handlebars. Cyclists yearning to charge their electronics with the dynamo can pick one up for $99.99. Roll past the break for the full press release.
Google and Sustrans join forces, bring bike navigation to UK Maps
Pedaling your way through the streets of London Town and eager to avoid giant hills or dangerous traffic? Well, Google Maps is about to become your new best friend. The (still kinda-sorta) search company partnered with Sustrans to bring cycling directions to UK users of its mapping app. Now, alongside your typical driving, walking and public transit options you'll see an adorable little biking icon. Really, there's not much more to say, it's a feature we in the US have been enjoying for quite some time and we're happy that our friend across the pond are finally joining the party. There's a celebratory video and some PR after the break, if that sort of thing intrigues you.
Wahoo Fitness BlueSC bike sensor ships for iPhone, fixie owners rejoice
Summer cycling is about to get a lot more... precise. The Wahoo Fitness BlueSC sensor we saw back in April is now shipping, giving iPhone 4S and new iPad owners a Bluetooth 4.0 tracker for a bike's pedal cadence, speed and long-term performance through a trio of sensors. As you take that victory ride down the Champs d'Élysées -- or more realistically, take that fixie bike down for a cappuccino -- data feeds either into Wahoo's own app or to alternatives from Cyclemeter and Strava Cycling. If Spandex is considered part of your daily routine, $60 is what it takes to get the BlueSC following your every pedal push.
Magellan Switch, Switch Up GPS watch hands-on (video)
It's hard not to think about personal health when you're at the Garden of Eden that is CES -- which is why we were especially keen to get our hands on Magellan's new Switch and Switch Up GPS watches. Designed with runners, cyclists and athletes in mind, these wearable devices sport a 1.26-inch display, which you can use to keep track of your distance, speed and a variety of other metrics. Both are also available with an accompanying heart monitor, and the Switch Up, in particular, comes with a Multisport Mounting Kit, which should help ease those triathlon terrain transitions. We got the chance to spend some time with the Switch and Switch Up, and we've got the video to prove it. Watch it for yourself, post-break.
Magellan unveils Switch, Switch Up GPS watches for runners, swimmers, extremists
Magellan is tossing its hat into the sporty ring today, with the Switch and Switch Up -- a pair of GPS watches designed for number-crunching runners, cyclists and other endurance enthusiasts. Boasting a petite, 1.26-inch display, these petite devices allows joggers to monitor and record their distance, pace and elevation, thanks to a sensitive GPS receiver that promises an accuracy range of between three and five meters. Its onboard ANT+ wireless technology, meanwhile, provides biometric and performance data culled from an optional heart rate monitor or a variety of other accessories, including bike sensors and power meters. Swimmers can take solace in the fact that the Switch is water resistant at depths of up to 50 meters, while truly hardcore Ironmen and women will be happy to know that they'll be able to store up to 60 hours' worth of data on the watch, which promises up to eight hours of battery life while in workout mode. The Switch Up, pictured above, offers many of the same benefits, but features a vibration-based alert system and ships with a multi-sport mount for bikers and triathletes. Magellan has yet to announce a release date for these watches, though the Switch will be priced at $250, or $300 with the heart rate monitor. As for the Switch Up, it'll cost you $300 (including the accompanying Multisport Mounting Kit) or $350, if bundled with the monitor. Head past the break for an extra image of the Switch.
