My 24 hour trip to the ANT+ Symposium

As many of you know, I was invited to speak at the ANT+ Symposium held yesterday about an hour outside of Calgary, Alberta in small ski & golf resort village and town of Kananaskis (no, I can’t pronounce it, and when I tried – locals just laughed at me).  The Symposium is held annually and offers a place for some of the 300+ companies that make up the ANT+ alliance to come together and plan and hear the future of ANT+, as well as meet amongst themselves around product concepts and development.

From a ‘who’s who’ standpoint, all the big names are here: Timex, Garmin, Saris, Texas Instruments…but it’s also an opportunity for up and coming companies as well, many you probably haven’t even heard of yet: Lap View, Mio, and 4iiii to name just a few.  As well as all the ones that you know and love today: Quarq, MapMyFitness, Addidas, Wahoo, Brim Brothers, etc…

ANT+ invited me to come out and speak on the topic of ‘The Athletes Digital Life’ – to give the over 100 attendees the perspective of not only an athlete that users their products daily – but also one to extensively reviews them as well.  While they did cover my expenses related to the trip, they asked me to share with the group my experiences across the board, as well as convey what I hear from you on a daily basis.  They didn’t want just an ANT+ picture – but rather wanted to understand the landscape as a whole.

So here’s my recap…a trip report of sorts, sorta like a race report – except without any blood or crashes.

I flew out late Tuesday evening, and landed just prior to midnight – though it would be nearly 2AM by time I’d arrived at the secret mountainous hideaway location (which thankfully freeway signs clearly pointed to).  I was also thankful to avoid the numerous deer that kept on trying to attack my car, though the moose stayed to the side of the road.

While I had pondered doing a morning run at 6AM, once I opened my rental car door up I found out just how cold it was up there.  Yikes, not t-shirt and shorts running weather at 6AM!  Plus, I needed the sleep.  So I aimed for 8AM wakeup instead. :)

Wednesday morning brought an 8:30AM session covering a number of different technical topics from ANT+ semiconductor overviews, to how device profiles work within the ANT+ protocol.  But, the real reason I was here was to present my session at 10:15AM.

(That’s me, above, giving my session!)

A lot of you asked if I was going to record it and make it available…and thus…ask, and you shall receive.

My presentation lasts about 30 minutes and starts with an overview of who I am and what DCRainmaker.com is exactly, before I profile each of the three sports technology-wise.  Then I go into a bit of the ‘Good, bad and ugly’ of sports technology today before finally talking about mobile devices and the future of sports technology.

You can watch it right here in a nifty little window below:

***Note: Video will be uploaded soon, just working on some bandwidth limitations***

Alternatively, if you’d like to simply download my slide deck – which I should note is nowhere as exciting as me talking – it’s here in PDF format.

From both my perspective, as well as that of a number of people – the presentation went quite well and I was excited to give not only my opinion – but really all of yours.  After all, I was here to convey what folks are looking for in sports technology products – and who better to know that then all the feedback you’ve given over the past few years.  I was also asked in the afternoon to briefly discuss a bit on social networking and sports marketing…which was just basically me rambling off the top of my head.

The rest of the day was quite honestly a complete whirlwind.  I was tag-teamed by company after company for private sidebars and meetings to discuss various topics.  Attempts to get to the bathroom meant I was stopped just about every 3-4 feet by someone else looking to chat.  Next year I’m just going to take diapers.

I spent dedicated time with every company I mentioned at the beginning discussing either future product plans or past product experience.  All in all, it was incredibly productive – both for me, and for them.  I was literally having meetings with folks until 10:15PM, less than two hours before my flight (over an hour away I might add…).

I even got to play with one of the first soon-to-be-publically available ANT+ enabled (yes, firmware and all) phones.  Check out the below pics showing it picking up a few ANT+ sensors that are out there.

The phone is the Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 Mini (Android), which should be available an an undetermined carrier near you in the next few months.  Yes, the platform will allow 3rd party developers to take advantage of the ANT+ chipset right from the start.  It’ll also be the start of a family of devices, for example the X10 Mini Pro, which has a built-in keyboard.

Also, on the 4iiii heads up display front, I had a good chat with them and should have some working product in my hands very shortly to check out.

One area that I outlined for a number of companies last night was what levels of product testing and/or review I get involved with.  I can best summarize it in the following three groups:

1) The first is products that are out and available on the market today that you can go and buy today (i.e. – a review of the FitBit for example).  You as blog readers see these most visibly.

2) The second is products that are publically announced by vendors, but not yet publically available.  An example being the Garmin Edge 800, I have one but it doesn’t release publically until November.  You as blog readers see these as well.

3A) The first portion of this last one is products which are in the prototype phase but not yet publically announced that they want NDA (non-disclosure agreement) type feedback on, but don’t want made publically quite yet.  They may be 1 day, 1 month or 1 year away from product release.  Eventually these products make their way to the category 2 above.

3B) Finally, the last portion is products that are purely in the conceptual stage or early prototype stage where they are looking for feedback on market validation and/or thoughts on direction.  These products may or may not ever see the light of day (or even be made), but ideally they eventually get to category 3A or 2 above.

The goal of what I do is primarily to act as both a sounding board, but also as a athlete advocate for what you all want in products.  I attempt to do this via the three-point-five groups above.

Moving on…

While there certainly many technical announcements that were made (open-sourcing ANT+ for example and announcement of combined ANT+/BT chipsets, just to name a few) – I wanted to touch on how impressed I was at the coordination and dedication of everyone there.  I spend a LOT of time with techy groups for work, and also a LOT of time at various conferences, symposiums, ‘off-sites’, and things of the lot.  I’ve never seen such a well organized and well run summit before.  I was pretty amazed that even though it was Day 3 of the symposium when I arrived – everyone was just as engaged as you’d expect to see on the morning of Day 1.

I was also impressed to see the level of collaboration between companies.  People here legitimately wanted what was ‘best for the goose’.  I think some of it comes from the fact that if you peeled away their company names and titles, most everyone is an athlete of some sort.  Everyone shares a common bond – whether it be a product designer of 10 years from Garmin – or the same from Timex.

So I was impressed there with that aspect.  Plus, I’m really excited about many of the products that will be coming out over the next year – from all of the parties mentioned in this post.  Garmin best probably summed it up in our sidebar when they said: “Hopefully you have a lot of time next year…’cause we’re gonna be releasing a lot of awesome products.” – but Timex echoed the same sentiment as well.  To be clear however, I don’t have any specifics on either of those at this time (beyond what I posted in the Timex interview).

I was also impressed at how well this lot partied.  Not ‘drunk partied’, but just simply a good relatively clean time.  While I missed the horseback riding of the previous night, I did get to partake in a bit of put-put golf, mini-pool golf and golf-ball spoon races.  All with the spectacular backdrops of the mountains right outside Banff.

I nearly forgot to mention late-afternoon before the put-put, I got to get in an amazing run outdoors doing about 7 miles worth of mile-ish intervals.

Plus, I nearly ran over a dear while running.  I was quite literally admiring the views and mountains around me when I came within maybe 6-8” of broadsiding a dear just standing there on the path.  Luckily he sidestepped out of the way before I ran straight into him.  He then turned around and gave me an annoyed look that simply said: “Really?!?”

I was moving along pretty well at about 6:08/mile for the interval portion  – but thought it was odd I was working a bit harder than I expected.  It didn’t occur to me how high up I was until afterwards…turns out 5,000 ft!  Dang!

So with that, I boarded a plane that departed at 12:05AM – just a hair over 24 hours later…onto my next destination I go!

P.S. – I can now take credit for giving cycling legend Greg LeMond bunny ears in a photo…that will soon be posted…

An interview with Barry Redmond of Brim Brothers

Last week while at Interbike I had the chance to sit down with Barry Redmond of Brim Brothers and talk about where they as a company stood in their quest to develop a cleat based power meter.  There’s of course been a whole lot of talk lately about power meters in the general vicinity of the foot. 

First there was MetriGear going it largely alone for quite a while with their pedal-based system.  Then there was the late August EuroBike announcement of the Polar/Look pedal-based power system.  And finally, MetriGear and Garmin tied the knot last week on what will be the Garmin Vector pedal based power system.

Thus…effectively…leaving the guys at Brim Brothers as the last one to speak.  So…speak we did.  Here’s a recap of our nearly hour long conversation.

The System Basics & Design:

Barry originally got into power meter design back a few years ago merely as a way for him to “scratch my own itch”.  He was out cycling with a bunch of regular riding partners when he realized that nothing on the market really fit what he was looking for – nor offered a versatile solution that fit the many different cycling genres.

So…he did what all engineers do: Built his own.

Let’s start with where the system is based – which is the cleat.  What’s the cleat? Well, that’s the part that’s screwed to the bottom of your cycling shoe.  It’s this piece that snaps into your pedals (and snaps out when you crash).  So, in this respect, it’s different than the pedal based power meters of Garmin and Polar – even if only by a few centimeters.

Now, there isn’t one particular type/manufacture of pedal cleat that they’ve decided to use (as there are a number).  In fact, in his testing it works with all the mainstream ones – though he noted that the egg beater types make it more difficult to pack everything in – but not impossible.

In in the cleat design, the force sensors have to fit fully within the cleat on the bottom of the shoe, which allows the system to measure the riders output without strain gauges.  This is key because it also makes the system less susceptible to temperature drift or aging of the gauges.

In the current prototypes the cleat then connects via a small wire to a tiny box that’s located on the top of the shoe – not unlike that of a running cadence sensor today. You can see a bit of this overall design in the image from them below (sorry it’s super small), including the wire slinking around the edge of the shoe:

Barry had a engineering prototype of the top box in his bag (actually, he had all sorts of prototype goodness in his bag, but was guarding it like nuclear weaponry).  Though he wanted to be super-clear that this is simply an ugly box, and that a finished product would be far smaller and more elegant.

I asked how the shoe-wire system works in the real world.  He said it was actually better than they expected – but that he understood the need to really flesh out that part of the design for durability.  I asked if wireless between the clean and the shoe box was possible, and he said it’s something they’re looking into.  The major issue is really the battery to run the system.  With this design, the top box is rechargeable, which then drives the power required by the cleat.  The current system is getting about 15-20 hours of battery life per charge.

Details around calibration and measurements:

One of the advantages of a cleat or pedal based system is the ability for it to measure numerous forces that the rider exerts – such as Left/Right power, torque, cadence, angle of pedal, force for the inside of the pedal versus the outside of the pedal, etc… While some of these wouldn’t necessarily be useful for the ‘home user’ – some could be used in lab environments looking at aspects such as bike fit. 

One of the areas that Barry is pretty adamant about is that “The system should adapt to the person, and not the person adapting to the system”.  To that end, the system doesn’t require any end user calibration beyond the initial factory calibration.  I then asked about the ability to zero the system or otherwise reset it to account for any changes in the bike/rider/system setup and he said that at this point it shouldn’t be required, but remained open to the possibility down the road.  It’s also important to note that the system is measuring and re-measuring it’s state, position and configuration every few milliseconds, not every few hundred milliseconds as has been noted everywhere.  For those not familiar with milliseconds, 1,000 milliseconds = 1 second.

One area he used as an example of this was crank length.  He pointed out that if you look at the Look/Polar pedal design, they require the user to set via a small switch on the side of the unit the crank length.  In the Brim Brothers product, this isn’t required – as it’s automatically computed.  Same goes for cadence – unlike the Polar/Look system, this doesn’t require the use of any magnets.

Finally, the system is based on ANT+.  This is due to a variety of reasons.  He said when they were first looking at protocols it offered the cheapest and easiest path forward.  He said development of their own protocol would have required significant investment – not only on the transmitter side, but also then developing a head unit for the power meter.  His main point could be summed with his comment that “There was no point to re-inventing the wheel”.  He also noted that they’ve found the ANT+ technical team “very knowledgeable and extremely eager to engage” – which is something I’ve heard from a few other ANT+ vendors as well.

Where they stand today:

Of course, the next logical question one has to ask is where they stand today on the road to market.  I started with the simple: Can you go out today and ride a bike down the road and get usable data?   The answer is Yes.  But…the system is still a bit of a prototype, and as such “Can’t yet stand up to the Irish rains” that routinely drench them in Dublin, Ireland.  But he said the final production systems will absolutely be able to ‘stand in a foot of water’ – which is logical when you think about where you might put your foot, especially in mountain biking.

For them, the next step is really finding a partner to bring the product to market.  In other words, they’re looking for a dance partner, especially now that both Garmin and Polar are out on the dance floor shakin’ that thang.

He said they’re ideally looking at an organization that can assist with manufacturing and marketing resources…essentially with “clout”.  And luckily for him there are still plenty of big companies in the cycling world that could fill such glass slippers.  It’s just a matter of finding the right one.

I asked what the impact of the Garmin acquisition of MetriGear the day prior meant to him and other power meter vendors.  He said that everyone was looking at it with mixed emotions.  He noted on one hand, it might force Garmin to deliver better focus with respect to power meter metrics.  On the other hand, everyone was nervous what it might mean with the existing relationship and ownership over ANT+ – the protocol that all of these vendors (except Polar) use to communicate.  He compared it to some degree to having “A lion next to you, unsure if it will bite you, or just sit there”.

Price & Timelines:

Finally, the big question is timelines.  He acknowledged upfront that no power meter company in the market has been able to deliver on their stated timelines – big or small.  And some of that he said was just due to the complexities.  He noted that it’s incredibly expensive to develop and design a power meter.  Even for a small company such as his it’s in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.  This in turn requires selling a pretty significant number of units in a niche market in order to recoup even the time spent, let alone any capital costs.

That said, he hopes to be producing pre-production units in 2011 and be in the marketplace at some point in 2011 as well– but he’s also realistic that could slide to 2012.

And last but not least – pricing.  He noted that it would be competitive in the market.  He pointed out that the cost of the power meter itself (materials) is actually relatively small, it’s just recouping the R&D costs that drives up price….but again re-iterated that it would be ‘competitive’.

Wrap-up:

As we finished up we chatted a bit about whether or not such a system could be adapted for running power.  There’s been some interesting articles and papers published recently around the idea of a formula for generating a ‘power’ number for running, and perhaps a shoe-based system would be practical.  He said that while he’s aware of some of those efforts, it’s not something that Brim Brothers is focused on today.  Today, all of their focus is 100% on getting a product to market.

Response: What has USAT done for me lately?

There was an article published back a few weeks ago from EverymanTri with the title ‘What has USAT done for me lately?’, you can go ahead and read it over there. In short, it highlights some of the structural changes that have occurred at USAT over the past few years, and in particular – the top dog leaving that week as well.

The post essentially notes that for the average age group competitor – USAT does very little.  And with that…I generally agree.

However, I think it’s worthwhile talking about what USAT does do.  That’s not to say there are TONS of things I agree with them on.  For example - I too dislike how little I (Ray) personally get out of my money, well, besides that cool sticker.  I dislike the fact that they don’t truly enforce sport/rule standards across all events that are supposedly ‘USAT Sanctioned’.  And I dislike the fact that USAT is very much a clique of a small group folks – with few open doors into the organization.  And I hate the lack of alignment between them and WTC (who runs Ironman/Ironman 70.3 races).  Yes, blame is on both sides…but get a room and figure it out.

But, let’s talk about the primary mission statement:

“Our mission is to encourage, support and enhance the multisport experience in the United States”

And, to the degree that’s possible – I think they are accomplishing that goal.  There has to be an organization that sets rules, policies and procedures – and USAT is that organization.  Are there more inclusive organizations?  Yes.  Are there less inclusive ones…yup.

But the real question one has to ask itself is: Do we want American’s on the podium at the Olympics?  After all – that’s fundamentally what all the elite and junior elite programs aim to accomplish.  And if we look at the ability for an organization to foster interest in the sport, at some point that has to happen at a younger level – the same younger level that gets kids engaged for a lifetime of sport, perhaps even at the world class level.  Because the end goal of these development programs is to put an American on the podium with a gold medal around their neck.

(I say American because while I recognize that all you reading out there are from every country imaginable, it’s not USAT that’s going to help your athletes out.  Though – virtually every country that has a triathlon program faces the same issues.)

In the case of USAT, they have one of their six ‘programs’ dedicated to this cause – the Sport Performance group, which covers all of the following areas:

Regardless of what sport federation you’re talking about – almost all of them have the goal of getting youth into the sport, and then moving them along through a series of gates, eventually making the cut into a ‘World Stage’ type competition or team.  In the case of USA Triathlon, that destination is the ITU series (not the Ironman events, btw), which is based on the Olympic Distance (International Distance).  Unlike the races that you and I race, these are draft legal races.  If you’re not familiar with that format of races, read up on that post.  Like it or not, the ITU series is the gateway it the sport of triathlon to the Olympics.

Of course, the goal of such youth development programs would be to nudge and follow along the progress of prospects at a young age and ensure that the right steps are taken to end up with a well rounded triathlete.  Not just a swimmer or a runner (let’s be honest, nobody ends up as just a cyclist).

The problem is…we suck at this.  No really, we suck at this a lot.

There’s no clear path from being an 8-year old that enjoys all three sports, to the podium in 2026.  There are clear paths for all three sports individually that make up the sport triathlon – but not triathlon as a whole, it’s a hodge podge of events and a disparate series of gates to try an achieve.  It’s no wonder we (the US) only have a single bronze medal in the sport – despite having arguably the largest triathlon base by an exponential factor compared to any other country.

When I was growing up in Seattle I ski raced pretty competitively.  Competitively enough that in high school I as a racer could very clearly identify each step and milestone along the way to making the US Ski Team, and thus eventually the US Olympic Team.  There wasn’t a fog around how to get there or what races you had to be at or who your coach had to be.  All of it was (and still is) crystal clear.  It simply became a matter of skill and dedication.

But that’s not the case with triathlon.

And USAT even acknowledges this very fact in their annual report:

So – one must ask not – ‘Where does your money go?’ – but rather, ‘Is it enough money to make the process work?’.  Only a sliver of your $40 goes into trying to make the dreams of athletes come true, after years of brutally tough workouts. 

In the past, your only glimpse into world class athletes was the little CBS human interest segment done between events during Olympic coverage every four years.  But now, you can follow along on the blogs of many Olympic hopefuls.  You can read daily as they suffer setbacks in both training and racing, as well as victories in racing and sponsorships.  But the reality is that while triathlon is undoubtedly a ‘rich man’s sport’, it’s also an incredibly tough sport for young up and coming athletes to make work financially. 

USAT attempts to bridge that financial gap and offer folks a shot through stipends and financial assistance.  But I don’t think today USAT is either funded or organized to do that effectively.

For example – how much money do you think USAT as an organization works with today?  Turns out (after reading their exciting financial report), it’s $11 Million Dollars (US).  Of which, only $75,000 goes to ‘Stipends’.  Sure, other related money categorized slightly different fills bits of other buckets – such as grants/sponsorships coming in at $137K.  But to put that in perspective, they spend 20K on telephone bills.  The remainder of the expenses is spread across numerous cost centers and initiatives.

So – to wrap up – if I ask: “What has USAT done for me lately?”

The answer is..well..not a lot. 

But if I ask “What has USAT done for people that need it?”

The answer is: Some…but there’s always work that can be done.  Lots of work.

What do you think?  Should USAT focus on trying to get folks on the Olympic podium, or should the money continue to be more heavily weighted towards the bulk of the population – Age Groupers?

(Interesting side note: Their business plan document is incredibly fascinating.  Basically a 29-page ‘what we learned this past year’ divided up by each organizational component.  I’ve got to do an entire post just on all the nuggets in there.)

A brief tour of ANT+ enabled Fitness/Gym Equipment

Continuing the day’s trend of posts indoor bike related equipment, I’m going to cover a bit of ANT+ equipment that’s been making it’s way onto the market.  The primary reason is really that I thought it’s actually super cool when you look at the results you get at the end of the day on Garmin Connect.  And the ancillary benefit is that it may already be at a gym near you with you realizing it.

There are actually a handful of indoor fitness equipment manufacturers already working on ANT+ products destined for the gym (aka: commercial use), but there was only one vendor at Interbike that had ANT+ enabled gym products that I could play with in person.  That said, I did get to briefly stop by two other vendors at the show – LeMond Fitness and Octane Fitness and talk with them about the future of exercise equipment, which I’ll probably loop back around to in the future when they have more to share.

However, the real hands on fun came when I got to try out this stationary bike from Schwinn (no, it’s not technically a spinning bike).  At first glance the bike looks like any other bike you might see in a gym…except that that is has two water bottle holders – making it doubly as cool as any other bike.

But once you sit on it and get beyond the double-water bottle holders concept you’ll notice the fancy LCD console that has the tell-tale ANT+ logo on it.  It also has the USB logo too, but that’s sorta like eating your vegetables – expected, but not exciting.

Next, we give the bike a few spins to get the LCD turned on.  From there, the guys in the booth ask me for my watch.  At first I think this might be a mugging…but turns out – they just want the ANT+ enabled Garmin Forerunner 60 I happen to be wearing.  Since I first got this watch last year, it’s become my standard watch that I wear day in and day out as a regular wrist watch.  It looks like a regular watch, but also has all the advanced capabilities of a fitness watch, including ANT+ integration.  The only thing it doesn’t have is GPS.

(A handy photo I had of the FR60)

Once they’d successfully stolen my watch, they went ahead and brought it close to the LCD display console near the ANT+ logo:

Apparently they thought some sort of magic was going to happen here, like a McDonald’s commercial. 

Turns out…after a bit of beeping, it was magical.

From this point forward, everything you’d do on the console would be mirrored on the FR60.  Meaning, it was kinda like having a remote control for you watch.  When you started spinning, the FR60 would automatically start displaying data and recording – and it even knew based on the ANT+ device profile of the bike that you were ‘cycling’ and changed the mode on the FR60 to a cycling mode.

Device profiles allow ANT+ enabled devices to categorically process data from a given type of device.  For example, a cycling device would have data such as power, speed and cadence.  While a rowing device would have different parameters.  There’s even ANT+ device profiles for e-bikes, including data streams for things like exactly how much motorized assistance it is giving you.

In the case of this stationary bike, it can actually transmit power data to the FR60, despite the fact that the FR60 doesn’t natively support it.  Power (watts) on this particular unit is measured via determining the angle of the resistive unit within the bike itself.

If you click on the below picture to expand, you’ll note that the speed (bottom of FR60) says 17.66MPH, while at the same time – the speed on the bike itself is also 17.7MPH (the FR60 overachieves in giving exact speed).

Further, if you press the ‘Interval’ button on the trainer, which triggers a standard lap – it’ll do the same on the FR60.  Once pressed on the console, a split second later the FR60 beeps just as if you had pressed it on the watch itself, and then shows the usual lap summary information.

What’s cool about this is that you don’t even need to pay attention to your watch during the workout – you just simply wear it like normal.  And if you’re wearing an ANT+ HR strap, then both devices will pickup and record the data.  Also, if you stop pedaling long enough that the wheel stops – then the console and watch will auto-pause as well.

But if you don’t have an FR60, fear not – the device will still record all the data to a USB stick that you can attach on the back of the console.

But the real kicker here is still to come.  See, once you’re done with your workout it’ll automatically be recorded on your Garmin FR60.  And after coming within range of your computer and its ANT+ USB stick, it’ll upload as it normally would to Garmin Connect.

The first thing you might notice once arriving on the Garmin Connect scene is that the activity is automatically tagged as ‘Indoor cycling’ – based on the ANT+ device profile of the indoor bike:

Then you’ll probably notice all the detail you now have on your ride:

It wasn’t a terribly long ride, and I didn’t have a heart rate strap with me – so you don’t see the HR data.  But if I did have it with me, that data would be there too.

But – what’s the one piece I’m really really really excited about?  It’d be the one in purple…as in Purple Power!

Yes – despite the fact that the FR60 can’t actually record power (watts) data normally, in this case…it can.  You now see all the power data from the ride, recorded at 5-second intervals.  Yes, it’s not quite as perfect as 1s intervals – but it’s also better than smart recording in some cases.  Also, with an indoor stationary bike and no gearing, your power output data is likely going to be a bit more smooth on average than outside or with gearing.

And just like any other activity on Garmin Connect, you get all the lap and split data as well based on the laps you pressed on the console or your watch:

And, you also get the usual activity player to relive your gym glory minutes/hours as if you were an ESPN sports star:

If you want to look at the data more in depth – feel free to check out the raw Garmin Connect activity file/page here.

Now the fun part is that you don’t have to wait for anything new to come out to use this stuff today.  It’s already there in a handful of Gym’s and Rec Centers across the country.  And of course, the FR60 has been out for about a year now, which also integrates with the wireless ANT+ scales such as the Tanita BC-1000.  You may remember when I reviewed both the FR60 and the BC-1000 it this past winter.

You can lookup a listing of all of the places/gym’s in the country that are ANT+ compatible via this link here.  Though the list is somewhat small today, there are a few major chains such as Equinox and Life Time Fitness which have them – making them a bit more accessible.  Or, I suppose if you were really dedicated to the cause, you could just plunk down a few grand for a machine of your own.

In the meantime, hope you found this sneak peak a bit interesting.  I think as gym (commercial) machines advance, we’ll continue to see more and more integration with devices – be it over ANT+ or other protocols, as well as to both dedicated devices like the FR60, and also to multi-use devices like cell phones.

Spending time with the LeMond Revolution Fitness ANT+ Trainer

There were/are very few non-bike vendors at Interbike that actually show up at BOTH the Outdoor Demo, and the Indoor Expo.  In fact, I think PowerAde was probably about the only other one.  But perhaps that shows something about the guys from LeMond Fitness.  For a group of Western Washington folks to willingly stand in the heat under a dark tent in the middle of the desert…and try and lure people onto a trainer instead of the open road…well…that takes some guts.
(Note: I’m from Western Washington, I understand their sun-aversion).

But after they managed to get you on the trainer – I quickly realized why they were so excited to pull you into that non-heat friendly black tent.

The LeMond Revolution trainer has been getting quite a bit of press as of late – and not just because they have the LeMond name attached, but rather because it has a very unique natural outdoor feel to it – while also being pretty much the first ANT+ enabled home-use bike trainer out there.  And it’s this ANT+ piece that got me interested.

So, what’s it like to ride it?  Well, let me get to that in a moment.

First up…

The Trainer Itself

If you quickly glanced at the trainer you might not realize how different it is compared to most trainers.  But once you stare closely at it you’ll notice one key item - there’s no rear wheel being used:

Unlike traditional trainers, the LeMond fitness trainer replaces the entire rear wheel and cassette with its own.  Why do this?  Well, aside from cutting down on the wear and tear on your tires, it also cuts down on the little black tire/rubber dust that ends up coating anything nearby.  Double bonus!

But more importantly, this helps to address one key area missing from many bike trainers: The feeling of actually riding on the road.  Typically on a trainer, if you coast (stop pedaling) – the resistance on the tire will very quickly stop the wheel, so much so that it generally feels unnatural and doesn’t feel as though you were just coasting to a stop as if you were normally out on a ride.

But, with the LeMond trainer, it’s probably one of the most interesting indoor trainer experiences I’ve had.  After pedaling up to speed, I just simply stopped pedaling and let the trainer just along, slowly coming to a stop naturally as if I were out on open flat road.  There’s a lot of math and science behind why and how all this happens, which this article from NY Velocity does a good job at covering – so I’ll have you head over there if you want all the deets on exciting mathematical wind resistance curves.

Suffice to say, it felt like no other trainer.  And that was the general feeling from a few other folks that stepped into the booth while I was there as well.

Also, because it uses a replaceable cassette, you can swap just about any bike you can find in your garage onto the trainer – from road to triathlon to mountain bikes, as you can see here on the three different trainers:

ANT+ Power Pilot Console:

Ok, before we get into the actual console – I should mention a point of minor cycling importance.  While at the booth I stumbled into Greg LeMond…who was busy signing some guy’s 24-deep jersey collection…thus because I’ve now sorta met a celebrity – that might somehow raise my celebrity status like 1/90th of a point:

Ok, with that important note out of the way…onto the device…

The next piece of the LeMond Revolution Fitness trainer is the ANT+ components that make the whole setup capable of of measuring your power output via ANT+.  This requires two parts.  First, is the less exciting piece – the small silver attachment for the back of the trainer:

But next is the fun piece – the ANT+ Head Unit, which displays and records your ANT+ data – including HR, Power, Speed and Cadence:

This works via that little silver component on the back of the trainer taking into account the current temperature, humidity, altitude and then the speed of the fan blades to determine your actual power output (watts).  In addition the unit can determine your speed & cadence.  Then it takes all that information and displays it up on the power pilot head unit.  Think of the whole process like a giant calculus equation…except all without strain gauges (even if it does strain your brain to think about).

While the power pilot is a bit bulkier than your average cycling computer, it’s also important to note that you aren’t going to ride away from your living room with it – so size isn’t too much of a concern.  Additionally, they’ve designed the mount system so it can actually mount it straight to your front wheel.  Which, once you think about it – is actually a pretty logical place for it – especially if you’re doing aero-position training.

Also, no components of the trainer require power plugs or wires – it’s completely wireless.  The head unit runs on battery, and the main ANT+ transmitting portion connected to the trainer itself uses the power you output to generate the required electricity.

Finally, when it comes to getting your data, you simply attach a USB stick to the Power Pilot to grab the data.  From there you can then connect that to your computer and upload the data.  The data files by default are in CSV format, and can be easily uploaded straight to Training Peaks or into WKO+ (or any other program that support CSV files…which…is basically all of them).

While today you can’t go straight from the trainer to another 3rd party ANT+ head unit like a power-friendly Garmin Edge 500 – it is something that LeMond is working on based on the feedback they’ve heard.

However you can transmit the data wirelessly via ANT+ to an enabled watch that supports ‘Fitness Equipment’, like the Garmin FR60 – which will upload all that data straight to any program compatible with the Garmin fitness units (Garmin Connect, Sport Tracks, Training Peak, etc…).  Inside the data files you’ll find speed, cadence, HR, calories, power (watts) and time.  I’ll actually show a working demo of this concept in my next post.

On the workout front, you can also download workouts to the Power Pilot, including the ability to ride workouts from Training Peaks as created by your coach (or yourself).  The console will simply beep at you at the appropriate times telling you what to do next.  You can control all sorts of options such as Power Zones, % Threshold Power, HR Zones, % Threshold HR in the workout files.

One thing that it’s important to note is that this trainer won’t control wattage, but rather just report it.  Meaning, it’s up to you to control your own workouts and change gearing to meet your wattage requirements.

It’s also worth nothing that while you can use the base LeMond Fitness Trainer without all the attached gadgetery – I think that it’s just well worth the extra incremental cost at that point, especially if you don’t already have a power meter.

The trainer itself is $499, which is admittedly a bit steep for a trainer.  But the Power Pilot piece costs an additional $349US.

A bit of time playing with the Tacx VR Trainer

Over the past few months I’ve received more and more e-mail asking what I thought about the Tacx trainers, and how I thought they compared to RacerMate’s CompuTrainer.  And it wasn’t until I started poking at the Tacx trainers that I became more and more impressed with their capabilities.

Thus I was looking forward to being able to dig into them a bit more in person down at Interbike in order to understand what the product platform offered, as well as how it stood up to the ‘gold-standard’ CompuTrainer.

So, let’s dive into it!

The Hardware:

There’s a few (well, actually a ton of) different sub-models that Tacx offers.  But, sorta like cars, they can all be rolled up to two basic models.  First, is the VR Trainer – which is pretty much their top of the line product:

Then, there is the Bushido trainer.  This has almost all of the features of the Tacx VR trainer (aside from steering), except that it doesn’t require cables of any sort.  Instead, it actually uses your power, to generate its power.  Sorta like the gym equipment you see sometimes.

(Look ma!  No wires!)

In both cases, they leverage ANT+ to communicate…though in my discussions with them, it sounds like they’re not quite leveraging the technology to it’s fullest potential.  For example, while the Bushido transmits ANT+, the folks at the booth noted that you can’t actually have your Garmin device pickup the power or cadence data from it directly, as it has to be decoded using power tables on the head unit.

Speaking of head units – there are two options depending on the model your using.  First up is the VR trainer one:

Then we have the Bushido one power via ANT+, featuring a fully integrated display…again, note no wires:

Finally, the last piece of hardware to note is the Fortius VR Trainer’s steering system – which allows you to actually steer the bike and have it steer the screen.  While I see this of more value in ‘entertainment’ scenarios than true die-hard training, the geek in me still thinks this is fun…even if it has no training benefit.

The Software:

The real cool stuff though (aside from the lack of wires) isn’t the hardware – but actually the software. And this is what I was really interested in.  For me, I’m incredibly familiar with CompuTrainer’s software suite – both their current/legacy software, but also their newer software previewed at Interbike.  So I was interested in seeing how they would compare.

The first thing you’ll notice is that like RacerMate One, the TACX software suite is consolidate into one application with a number of different modules that cover different free and paid components.

On the left hand side of the screen you see the major components, the upper toolbar is for importing/exporting and general configuration, and the right side of the screen is for module-specific configuration.

Since the above screenshot is focused on the ‘Real Life Training’ mode, we’ll start there.  This mode could realistically be relabeled ‘Google Earth Mode’ – since that’s exactly what it is.  But the concept is pretty cool.  In this mode you can create your own routes using a ride editor built into the app, as well as import in GPX/KML files from other sources (like your last long ride).  The system will then go ahead and allow you to virtually ride the route on the spot.

While this in concept sounds similar to the GPX/KML file import that CompuTrainer does – it’s in fact very very different.  CompuTrainer isn’t allowing you to ride against satellite/3D data from Google Earth, but instead using the elevation data to generate a topography that’s identical to the route.  in effect, with the CompuTrainer you’re riding the elevation chart with turns, whereas with TACX you’re riding real satellite imagery.

Now, riding the satellite imagery can be a bit quirky. And it’s hardly like riding down the street.  The guy in the booth went ahead and zoomed in and created a short course in Washington DC.  Not knowing much about the area he choose the White House and went from there.  Aside from the obvious implications of probably getting shot while trying to bike across the front lawn of Obama’s pad, the concept itself is cool.

Here’s a video I took of the whole creation process and riding across the front lawn:

The next component is the Real Life Video’s piece – which allows you to ride actual courses/routes filmed in HD in the real world (not a virtual world).  This is best compared to CompuTrainer’s Real Course Video’s. When you pedal/go faster, the video plays faster, when you stop – it stops.  This allows you to ride an entire course – such as an cycling race – without ever having to leave your house.

You can buy tons of these different Real Life Video’s, here’s just half of the pile of different titles they had in the booth:

What’s cool is that like the 3D and Google Earth simulations, these also include altitude/elevation details as well.

Further, the VR edition can actually simulate the downhill portions as well.  Typically trainers (including the CompuTrainer) are only able to offer resistance, but the TACX trainer (not the Bushido however) can also spin your wheel as if you’re truly descending.

In addition to real life and virtual reality, you can also play train across the Internet with friends via Multiplayer mode – even putting together online races:

Finally, via the Catalyst software mode on the left panel you can train just like you would in CompuTrainer’s coaching mode…which is simply without any of the flash or fanfare of the other modes.  Just simple and easy to consume data around power, speed, cadence, HR, etc… Which honestly, is where I spend most of my time when using my CT.

Once you’re done in that mode (as well as any other mode), it’ll allow you to view your data using a fairly flashy graphs, tables and summaries within the Analyzer mode:

After fawning over your bike skillz, you can go ahead and export it out to a few formats that in turn can be uploaded to different sites, such as Training Peaks…or you can just go to town on that CSV file in Excel.

Finally…the pricing:

To say the software suite is cool would be an understatement.  But, cool also comes with a price tag – and like the CompuTrainer, it’s not cheap.  In the case of the full VR trainer, it’s coming in close to $1,200 – before you start adding in any Real Life Video’s (though notably cheaper than CompuTrainer ones).  But the full VR trainer is also cheaper than the CompuTrainer – so that’s a consideration as well.  Also, you should be aware there are numerous different variations in exact trainer model versions – so you’ll really want to do your homework and especially note some of the comments in the above review link above regarding different vendors including different pieces – as you can save a bundle (no PUN intended).

As for its comparison to CompuTrainer – it’s a bit hard for my to truly judge based on 30 minutes spent on a show floor with TACX.  If TACX were to send me a trainer to poke at for a few minutes I’d have a better feel for it.  The software did crash three times while I was in the booth – though I was told it was also running a new build that’s still in beta – 3.0 – which will be released in November 2010.  But by the same token – I’ve seen the CompuTrainer software crash just as many times as well in the same timeframe.

With that caveat out of the way – if I had to go out today (no, not two weeks ago…) and buy a new computer driven trainer – I’d probably be very seriously looking at the TACX VR trainer.  Even with the CompuTrainer updates in RacerMate One – it’s still a significant leap behind the TACX from a software standpoint.  I’d even go as far as saying I’d probably go TACX over CT if I got a bit more hands on time with it.

Now until someone drops a trainer on my front doorstep…I’d definitely love hearing TACX owners opinions on it!

Thanks for reading!