The second indicator you can use that a cyclist is ‘hitching a ride’ in the peloton is by looking at the riders cadence. One of the cool things you’ll notice if you watch enough of the race side by side is how often the riders are conserving energy, primarily by staying within the peloton or within another riders draft zone. The heart rate strap is measuring the riders heart rate in beats per minute (bpm). The second component is the ANT+ capable heart rate strap. Of course, you’ll see pulls at much higher values along the way as well. You’re typically going to see steady-state power values of between 275w and 325w for most of these guys. An attack for example will have a much higher output than one coasting within the peloton. They are using SRM’s ANT+ power meter to measure power and cadence, which is an indicator of how much ‘output’ the rider is generating.
This is accomplished via ANT+ sensors on each riders bike. Here’s a quick diagram of the whole deal:Īs noted above, the first step is measuring the data. The stream can then be consumed by a number of other sites/organizations as they see fit. Then in real-time, the data is uploaded to Google servers which receive the data stream and host the site. While the ANT+ bike sensors are continually transmitting the data to the HTC Legend, an application called MyTracks runs on the phone and parses the data.
#Mytracks google plus update#
The Team got a special firmware update to enable the functionality, as it’s otherwise disabled. The kicker here is that this phone actually has an ANT+ receiver chip built into it.
Each bike is outfitted with an SRM power meter with cadence support, an ANT+ speed, and an ANT+ heart rate strap.įrom there the sensors wirelessly transmit the data to the HTC Legend phone running Android. The story essentially starts out just like any other cyclist would if you used ANT+ sensors (all Garmin Fitness device users for example).
#Mytracks google plus android#
The system basically has four major components:ġ) ANT+ Sensors on the bike (just like the ones you and I use)Ģ) An ANT+ capable HTC Legend Android phone in a bike pouch/bag below the riders seatģ) MyTracks application running on the HTC Legend phone So, let’s get into it… High Level Overview: Now however, we can not only watch them live on TV, but we can also snoop in on their actual heart rate, power and other bike sensor data – all in real time.īut, how does it all work? Well, I had a chance to get all the details from the different team players in a number of organizations, including Team HTC-Columbia, ANT+, and Google. While similar efforts have been done in the past, they’ve never quite reached complete coverage of the race like this year – nor has there been the accessibility to people like you and I. Over the past week and a half of watching the Tour de France, you may have stumbled upon a site that allows you to track Team HTC-Columbia’s riders power, heart rate, cadence and speed data in real-time from your computer live.