SportTracks 2.0

For anyone wondering what software is used to keep track of rides here at The Incidental Cyclist it is SportTracks by ZoneFiveSoftware.

Coupled with a GPS receiver, power meter and/or a heart rate monitor SportTracks will automatically track the distance, time, pace, power output and exercise intensity of your workouts. You’ll be able to take a high level view and track your progress over time, or dive into the details of a specific exercise to analyze your pace, elevation, power output or heart-rate performance. Activities can be organized into categories, or summarized by location.

SportTracks supports many popular data import formats and allows you to easily export your exercise data for manipulation or viewing in other software programs. You can even add activities manually and edit GPS tracks to correct for poor satelite reception or the dreaded mid-run dead battery, and much much more.

SportTracks is free to try and if you like it and use it they accept donations for the continued development.

The software is currently at version 2.0, but for many the 1.0 version may be enough. Also since the 2.0 is a work in progress there are features in 1.0 that do not exist in 2.0 just yet. The big bonus of using 2.0 is the architecture allows the addition of plug-in modules. These plugins extend the functionality of SportTracks and make it many times more useful.

Plugins that I use include HTML Export, used to get the ride info posts for this blog; Elevation Correction, used with the Garmin Edge 205 that we use on our tandem (we don’t correct Edge 305 data as it has a more accurate barometric altimeter); Power Track, very useful until such time as I get a power meter. It uses some assumptions about ride position and you selection of tires along with weather data to calculate a power track for your ride. All these among others are use to assist me in analyzing my workout data.

You can download the latest version from here. There is also a discussion forum located here.