SportsDo

Published by Matt Polaine | Filed under Uncategorized

I tend to ride alone, given my many other time constraints, and friends and family only see me ride off and then return hours later. I could have been down the pub for all they know. I also get told that if I was KSI’ed by white-van-man, no-one could find me. Thanks to my wife’s fanstastic Christmas gift this year, these issues are solved!

I now use SportsDo GPS tracking to keep a log of my training rides in 2008, to get speed, location, personal bests, calorie burn estimation data, and so that friends and family can also track my rides live in 5 minute intervals. Also to monitor/review some of my other cycle rides (children, family etc), and used if going on motorbike tours on my Africa Twin, especially over to Germany, so my route progress can be monitored :-)

I hope to use it to record the beating of my personal best over Mont Ventoux this summer, where I will also try to get as close to the magic 100kmh on the decent. Or record a trip to the hospital!

You can also view where I have been with MS Virtual Earth, which can give you a spy-plane view of my progress (lagging by about 5 minutes). To do this, select ‘details’ on the map window bottom right edge, and then select the little city blocks icon below the folded map icon, on the zoom panel. If this is greyed out, it is because you are zoomed out too far, or there isn’t map detail for that area.

You can get a flat aerial view however, and a hybrid view too.

Have a look at my SportDo profile.

To track my location (when I am sending live data) by text message to your phone, text the following text (shown in bold text) to 81025 (UK only?):

• sportsdo mattcambs for my current location.
• sportsdo mattcambs start for location every 15 mins.
• sportsdo mattcambs stop to stop sending my location.
• sportsdo stop to stop sending all location messages.

TARIFF Texts cost 25p plus your standard network charge. So if your standard network charge is 10p per text and you track me for two hours, that would cost you (25 + 10) x 8 = £2.80.

I now have a dedicated PAYG mobile phone to record all this GPS data through, which I rarely access/use except for the GPRS / MMS data. This number is 075 279 890 62 . I don’t carry my other main mobile phone on this rides.

You can view my progress live for free from my SportsDo profile if a small LIVE icon is next to my photo or the Live Tracking’ panel in on display (though there is a lag of around 10 minutes froom on/off tracking and this display).  You can have an RSS feed of my cycle training / rides. The colours of the lines represent a range of speeds within the maximum speed reached on that ride.

Red is the maximum speed in the ride Green Blue Black the minimum

If you call while I am on a ride, it is unlikely I will answer it. It is best to text, and I may look at the phone at a cafe stop or when I get back.