I did another long ride last night, this time as something of an experiment. Two experiments in fact, one was quite simple and was to work out if my feet being cold on later (in the day) rides was due to the trainers I cycle in or not. It does.
The other slightly more interesting experiment and the subject of this post was to try and work out the best (for me) ride tracking app. I have broadly speaking been using the OS Maps App for some years, I pay to use their premium service which not only allows me to use a larger variety of layers (like topographical) without paying for each map, but also to create .GPX files (a type of XML file that is used to program GPS devices like a Garmin, it’s about the best way to share route information as it can be imported on any number of devices, yet is essentially a human readable format text file (XML is sort of human readable anyway).
But it doesn’t do so well when I use it to track my rides (and prior to riding so much, walks). Yesterday’s ride covered around 25.3 miles (40.72km), according to my bike’s computer (the tripometer on the Yamaha controls). I have it set to miles as I can visualise mph better than I do kph, everything else for the sake of this post will be in Km/Metre/etc (metric).
I used three apps OS Maps, Strava and Komoot. I have used all three in the past at various times, Komoot recently as I have read good things about it, and I want to start tracking my rides a little better. Strava last year when I started getting back into cycling as I had heard it was a good way to find cycling groups (if it is I have yet to work out how), and the aforementioned OS Maps App. Lets start with Strava:
Strava is the main app for people to track their physical activities if Google and various social media posts are to be believed, it is supposed to be better at tracking actual physical activity than the other two. I’m only using the free version as I don’t really have the money to spend just to test it out (and I think I already used up my free trial). I don’t plan on using any route planning options as I prefer OS Maps (on my desktop) for route planning.
It provides some useful information, I do need to work out if it has a more visually appealing export, I know it does a simplified social media sharing option, though I’m not 100% sure what it outputs for that. I was hoping for things like speed while climbing and the figures it outputs (via the app) are broadly speaking the same as the Komoot.
And the differences can probably be explained by how each app tracks each statistic. Komoot seems to be aimed more at people who want to track their journey, it actually asks for the user to add images. I do like the addition of colour coded difficulty to the Elevation Profile, Strava may have something like this but if so it’s not immediately obvious. Lastly OS Maps:
Which doesn’t track anywhere near as well, or at least doesn’t seem to offer a separate Moving Time, which then skews the Average Speed. I did stop a few times, so I know I wasn’t cycling for the whole 3 hours. Below I have the output from the OS Map Desktop App as the route is planned.
The output from the app shows actual distance travelled (according to the app) while the lower image is merely what it was planned as and there would be differences between the two even if I planned and ridden the same route exactly.
Conclusion: I think I will stick with Strava, it gives the most useful information when I am actually tracking a ride, Komoot works and is fine for what it does, but I don’t need it’s actual features (route planning and social media linking), I’ll continue to plan routes with OS maps but not bother tracking activities with it. It might be the most accurate, but given that the other two apps report very similar distances and moving times, and both are close to what is reported by the bike I suspect that the OS Maps App isn’t terribly accurate.
Next I just need to teach myself to use all of the features I actually have access to within Strava – and see about getting the premium features. (Or if I even need/want them.)
Going to ride this approximate route some more, it’s one of my favourites, the section down the valley from Ribblehead toward Ingelton is just gorgeous.