Wow – What a Day!

Filed under: General — Tags: , , , — Alex Skelton @ 5:06 pm

Today has been just packed!

This morning I met with Baroness Sue Campbell (Chair of the Youth Sport Trust and UK Sport) to show her the Wattbike. Very positive meeting, we hope to work closely with Sue and her team in the next few months. The Wattbike will also be on display (in fact really for people to have a go on it) at the Sports College Conference next month. 

The rest of the day was spent working on the presentation for Schools and Cycling Clubs that can be found in the Downloads Centre of the website, and a meeting with Eddie Fletcher to look at the content for the Go Ride Coaches training and work on some content for the new Wattbike Brochure. 

Now, back to the normal work!

Road Trip

Filed under: General — Tags: , , — Alex Skelton @ 9:13 am

Well. Two days of no blog posts and almost all of those days spent travelling! Tuesday was a trip to Harrow to meet with the current and previous head of Physical Education. They were both very interested in the Wattbike and the opportunity to use it identify strengths and weaknesses of pupils to help with both their talent identification and injury prevention programmes. We will be returning to work with them in assessing the next generation of Harovians in February.

Yesterday was a trip to Reading and a meeting with Steve Ellis of Metia about how to develop the Wattbike online community. He has some good suggestions – watch this space for a progress report as we start to implement the changes.

Vista and Lichfield – how different they are!

Filed under: General — Tags: , , — Alex Skelton @ 11:11 pm

On the one hand the third round of the Lichfield Wattbike league has been a huge success (News article on it’s way). On the other, we have spent the last three days struggling to get Vista to do something that we want it to do. Frustrating, and lets hope Windows 7 is better. We will be launching another new version of the software shortly to combat a few of the issues that we were having with loading a software update onto Vista – nothing major just a pain, but worth fixing.

On a more positive note, the Lichfield event had another successful evening on Friday, now we need to replicate it across the country. The Ranking is also picking up some users. Will be interesting to see how fast people are – I heard a rumour that a rower friend of mine has averaged over 400 watts for 30 mins! I will get him to put his results in the ranking! At 6′10 he is not really a cyclist though, just very powerful.

The Wish List

Filed under: General — Tags: , , , — Chris Rowe @ 4:56 pm

Today we added three new ranking distances to the Ranking, after a request from TrackyTracky in the forum - we are yet to have anyone enter a time, but I am sure that will come! He has now come back and requested that it is possible to race over the internet, and as I said in the forum , it is on the list. With the new software update now released it means that we are ready to move on to other projects like the internet racing. We will keep you posted with the progress, but as we cannot think of everything please use the forum to provide us with your ideas so that we can keep the software moving in the right direction.

Tonight will see the third round of the Lichfield event and the first run with the new software and firmware for the performance computer – Eddie updated the software earlier today adn all the bikes are ready to roll. We will add a news report from the meet early next week.

New Wattbike Expert Software and Performance Computer Firmware

Filed under: General — Tags: , , , , — Alex Skelton @ 4:47 pm

The major change to the Wattbike Software is the addition of the angle of peak force being displayed in the Polar Graph and the rotation shown on the software starting with the left leg at the top and going anti-clockwise. The new polar view looks like this in the software:

 

 

Changes to the Polar View

Changes to the Polar View

 Two new parameters have also been added to the software taking the grand total to 29, these are efficiency and average efficiency. The efficiency is based on the percentage of a perfect circle the powerplot is. The interesting thing about this is that we have started with a circle as being 100% efficient, but we know that is not the ultimate shape, but no one in cycling can tell us what the perfect power plot should look like. We are  hoping that a PhD student or other research organisation will be able to do a study into what the most efficient shape is and how it depends on body shape, and we will then implement that shape as the 100% marker.  The efficiency values can be displayed on the software as follows:

 

Efficiency and Average Efficiency

Efficiency and Average Efficiency

The Performance Computer firmware has seen some major changes; speed is now available to one decimal place, average heart rate is now displayed below the heart rate:

 

Average Heart Rate is displayed in the bottom right hand corner

Average Heart Rate is displayed in the bottom right hand corner

There is also a major change to the Polar View which now includes percentage left leg and right leg, as well as bringing the firmware and software together in displaying the left leg starting at the top of the pedal cycle and moving anti-clockwise. This display now looks like this:

 

New Polar View on the Performance Computer

New Polar View on the Performance Computer

In the custom workout and reride displays there is now a pace bike that shows your progress against a desired pace. The pace bike is displayed on the bottom with a P denoting which the pace bike is and it also displays how far both you and the pace bike have travelled and how far ahead or behind the page bike you are.

 

Performance Computer showing the new pace bike

Performance Computer showing the new pace bike

The custom workout screen has a new view that allows you to view your pace, and when setting a custom workout it is now possible to select a pace for the pace bike for both timed sessions and distance sessions.

 

Setting Pace in a timed session

Setting Pace in a timed session

 

 

Setting Pace in a Distance Session

Setting Pace in a Distance Session

 One change that I have been pushing for is the display of the recall of data immediately after the end of a session, so when you are in Just ride, Standard, ReRide or Custom workout the Recall of the workout is displayed automatically and three new lines have been added, Peak Power for the session, Peak cadence for the session and percentage power from left and right leg. If the session is one interval within an interval set then the time remaining in the rest is displayed in the top left of the monitor screen. 

 

The New Recall view, displayed automatically at the end of each workout

The New Recall view, displayed automatically at the end of each workout

 

 

 

The new Recall view as displayed in an interval with the time left in the rest period counting down in the top left corner

The new Recall view as displayed in an interval with the time left in the rest period counting down in the top left corner

The new software is now available on the Wattbike.com downloads page and the performance computer firmware update will be available there soon (with instructions about how to install). Happy Wattbiking!

Wattbike and the Military

Filed under: General — Tags: , , — Alex Skelton @ 2:03 pm

In the last week a trial of teh Wattbikes has started at the Defence Medical Rehabilityation Centre at Headley Court and the Regional Rehabilitation Centre at Aldershot. The Wattbike ticks all of the boxes for a rehabilitation tool for the military and the initial signs are good that the bike will be adopted within the rehabilitation programme across all Military Rehabilitation Centres, but that will depend on the findings of the Joint Services Commitee for Rehabilitation Equipment. 

 There are 25 bikes in place  at ITC Catterick. and will be put into action in the Pre-Conditioning Programme with recruits. This is an attempt to improve fitness of recruits which is currently well below the required levels.

Wattbike reviewed on Independent Minds

Filed under: General — Tags: , , — Alex Skelton @ 12:29 pm

The Wattbike has been reviewed on the Independent Minds website ( news stories taken from the Independent newspaper).

The author (Simon O’Hagan) is just the type of person that the Wattbike is perfect for, someone who is keen on cycling but has never used a heart rate monitor or monitored the time that they are training. The Wattbike could have a serious impact on the fitness and performance of a rider like Simon. I will be interested to see how is training progresses when he tests himself again later in the year, and am sure that with regular use of the Wattbike the impact on his performance in the Etape would be considerable. We will get in contact and see how we can help.

Read the article here 

Barack Obama, Inauguration and Training

Filed under: General — Tags: , — Alex Skelton @ 4:20 pm

Today could be the biggest day in Barack Obama’s life, it could for that matter be the most important day in all of our lives, time will tell. Policies and statesmanship asside, one thing is for sure, there will be a huge change in the attitude of the predisent to exercise and health. Obama has exercised religiously since he was 22, and now tries to get six 45 minute sessions in per week. His aides build his workout into his day, even if when he is on the road and might have to get into the gym before opening hours or after closing. He also likes a pickup game of basketball and tries to get one in per week. Put it all together and you get a physique that gets you on the cover of Men’s Health, and splashed all over the press. 

If the pres is doing it, what excuse do the rest of us have?

Barack Obama’s training in the press:

Fox News, ABC news, Huffington Post, The Telegraph

Round 2 of the Lichfield Wattbike League

Filed under: General — Tags: , , , , — Alex Skelton @ 6:01 pm

Round 2 of the Lichfield Friday Night Wattbike League was again a huge success with the organisers having to borrow 2 additional Wattbikes from British Cycling to cater for the increased numbers. 33 riders raced in the six round event, including two new events, the Keirin and the Course de Primes. It is a credit to the organisers Phil Kelly and Nigel Capewell that the track events are being run successfully on the Wattbikes. The racing was fast and furious and after two weeks the top 15 riders are all very close in the standings. Check back for the news item that will be posted with pictures on the Wattbike website tomorrow.

Also tomorrow we will have two additional Blog entries, one welcoming the incomming US President Barack Obama with a short look at his training schedule – if he can do 45 minutes a day what excuse does anyone else have, the second post will feature information about the newly released software and performance computer firmware update.

Wattbike University Project Training

Filed under: General — Tags: , , , , , , , — Alex Skelton @ 5:08 pm

Today saw members of the staff at Roehampton, Plymouth, Nottingham, Manchester and Bristol Universities (and some visitors from British Cycling)  come together for the first set of training for the delivery of the Wattbike Universities project. The training lasted from 10 to 3, with a two and a half hour practical session including an attempt at a power test, 200m race and 1000m race. After lunch we introduced them to the ranking and we are expecting to see them appearing on the ranking soon with their scores. The rest of the afternoon was spent sharing our ideas for delivery of the project. It is an exiciting project and will see members of Wattbike travelling to all parts of the country to assist the Universities with delivery of their projects. 

Thanks to James and Chris from Birmingham, Nigel, Steve and Paul from Nottingham, Bridgette from Roehampton, Helen and Chris from Manchester, Kate from Plymouth and Geoff, Steve and Nicola from British Cycling for coming for the day, and of course to Eddie, Ben and Steve for delivering the course.

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