Keep Track Of Your Progress And Share With Friends With Cyclemeter GPS Bike Computer For Road & Mountain Biking
Cyclemeter GPS Bike Computer for Road & Mountain Biking ($4.99) by Abvio LLC is an exercise productivity app whose GPS capability, working with Google maps, allows you to make a complete record of your course. It’s aimed primarily at cyclists, but will work just as well for walking, running, hiking or any other outdoor activity that covers several miles.
There are five buttons along the bottom giving direct access to the main features of the app. The Stopwatch is where you tell the app you’re starting or ending your journey and some basic stats are displayed such as Ride Time, Distance and Speed. The stats shown can be changed in the “More” section.
As you cycle along, the collected GPS data is plotted on a Google map where you have the usual options of Street, Satellite or Hybrid views. It’s one thing to open up Google maps to try and figure out where you’ve been by memory, but it’s really cool to have that information explicitly laid down for you.
Once you’ve decided where you’re going to cycle, you can create a new route within the app and give it some appropriate name. If you choose that saved route every time you cycle it, the app will develop a history of each attempt you made which you can access at any time by choosing the “Routes” menu.
That historical data is used to make a comparison of how well you did on that particular route on a given day. The comparison is represented by symbols shown on the Calendar. Those symbols range from a green upward triangle (for best) to a red downward triangle (for worst) allowing an at a glance look at how well you’ve been doing that month.
In addition to your course on a map, Cyclemeter also plots your speed and elevation in a graph found in the “More” section. Unfortunately the elevation map doesn’t seem very accurate. Apparently my house ended up in a higher location than when I started. Perhaps there was some tectonic plate shifting while I was away? In any case, the map seemed very accurate and that’s what matters most.
This app is amazingly versatile and extremely configurable. You can choose the stats that are most meaningful to you and which units to work in. You can also receive announcements on your progress with one of many voices to choose from in several languages (the first of which is free, additional voices will have to be purchased).
The app also encourages you to make your fitness a social event even when exercising alone with messages being sent to Twitter, Facebook or Dailymile (a social network used exclusively for exercise). All three can be connected so one message on Dailymile can be made to automatically show up on your Twitter and Facebook accounts. This is great for bragging, competing or just showing your family and friends how hard they should be working.
If you enjoy pushing yourself in an outdoor environment along multiple routes and want to keep track of your progress either for your own interest or for besting your competition, Cyclemeter is definitely for you.
