Data driven cycling with GPS and Google Earth

In the spring of '09 when I finally bought my new road bike, I also budgeted for some cool accessories. The coolest one by far was a Garmin Edge 205. This handy little unit has fundamentally changed the way I ride and where I ride. It has also become the catalyst for reflecting on my rides with friends and total strangers via online social networking tools (Facebook and Twitter) and online route sharing sites such as Everytrail.com and Mapmyride.com. I also import all of my rides into Google Earth, which lets me do a virtual flyover or tour of my ride.

The Garmin Edge 205 is the entry level bike GPS unit. While its capabilities are limited in comparison with to pricier models, it was more than sufficient for my needs. While the main function for car GPS units is to keep from getting lost and find the fastest way to a specific locale, I use my Garmin to monitor my speed, distance, average speed, calories burned, and most importantly, my altitude, percentage of grade on my climbs, and my cumulative vertical feet climbed.

My Garmin accompanied me on most of my rides this year, and really gave each ride a life of its own. Sometimes I would bring a small camera along as well. My typical post-ride routine is to download my GPS data, then use an online converter tool provided linked off of Everytrail.com to convert the file into KMZ format. Then I upload my ride to Everytrail, write up a description, add pictures if available (sometimes I add screen shots from Google Earth), then share the ride with my Facebook and Twitter friends. After that, I upload the KMZ file to Google Earth and view the flyover (tour). I have also started posting videos of my Google Earth tours with narration to YouTube.



Why do all of this? I actually love it, and it allows me to connect riding with other activites that I'm interested, such as blogging, mapping and video editing. I get a chance to reflect on the ride, study my data, try to beat my best average speed on a given ride, and study the maps to look at new possibilities for routes. This has all made me a better cyclist, without a doubt.

This summer I participated in the Le Tour Challenge, an event sponsored by MapMyRide and others. I rode every day that I could that coincided with a Tour de France stage, then uploaded my ride data to MapMyRide. I could see how my data compared with other participating cyclists as well as the Tour cyclists. I ended up with some pretty satisfying results, which drove me to ride even harder. I also won a really nice Polar cyclocomputer with heartrate monitor, which brings me to thoughts about what I'll do with this in the future.

While I like the Polar cyclocomputer's heartrate monitoring function, and really see the value of assessing heartrate data, it seems silly for me to ride with two separate devices (GPS and Polar). It would be hard to justify this, but an upgrade to an Edge 305 (or better) would allow me to capture heartrate data and eliminate the need for the Polar unit. Also, the heartrate data could automatically be added to the Everytrail posts.

I loved watching all of my rides accumulate in Google Earth—it provided very tangible evidence of my progress, and prompted me to explore areas less traveled. In the spring I'll hide all of my rides in Google Earth and repopulate the map all over again.