BikeDash – an app for cycle training
BikeDash – an app for cycle training
A new workout
app for thousands of keen and competitive cyclists has been
developed by Hamilton-based cycling enthusiast, Antony
Gardiner. The new iPhone app is for cyclists who want to
monitor and record their indoor training sessions.
Antony, a senior app developer at MEA Mobile in Hamilton, says he created the app to do the things he wanted for his indoor training sessions.
“With family and work commitments it’s not always possible to get outdoors especially in winter so I regularly train on my road bike at home,” he said.
“I wanted an app on my phone that would do the two key things I was looking for – so I built it.”
What he wanted was an app to monitor and display real time data while he was training and to be able to upload the data to training websites TrainingPeaks.com or Strava.com.
He’s just uploaded the app, called BikeDash, to the iTunes app store where it’s available as a free download for a limited time.
“BikeDash is really set up to monitor external devices with Bluetooth connections such as Woohoo Fitness and Powertap systems,” says Antony.
The app will measure heart rate, power, cadence, speed, time and calories by ANT+ and Bluetooth connections to sensors which need to be purchased separately.
It also allows you to set up your favourite music playlist for your training sessions.
During a training session the app displays a preferred personalised setting of graph combinations which give real time read-outs of the connected sensors.
The app also calculates averages and maximums of the data. And over time the sessions are grouped in months to give total number of sessions, total time and total distance for each month.
Antony is a former ironman competitor and is still a top competitive age-group cyclist.
“Cycling became my main sport out of the three ironman sports and I still love to compete,” he says. “This app gives me the freedom to train and home and monitor the key performance data as I train. It also lets me share the data with friends on Strava.”
Antony started developing for mobile platforms in 2008 in the early days of apps.
He can be seen each day on his bike towing his 5-year old daughter to and from school in Grey St.
ends