Title: Cycling / bike trips and opensource | |
Author: Solène | |
Date: 06 February 2020 | |
Tags: biking | |
Description: | |
# Introduction | |
I started doing biking seriously a few months ago, as I love having | |
statistics | |
I needed to gather some. I found a lot of devices on the market but I | |
prefered | |
using opensource tool and not relying on any vendor. | |
The best option to do so for me was reusing a 6 years old smartphone on | |
which | |
the SIM card bus is broken, that phone lose the sim card when it is | |
shaked a | |
little and requires a reboot to find it again, I am happy I found a way | |
to | |
reuse it. | |
Tip: turn ON airplane mode on the smartphone while riding, even without | |
a SIM | |
card it will try to get network and it will draw battery + emitting | |
useless | |
radio waves. In case of emergency, just disable the airplane mode to | |
get access | |
to your local emergency call number. GPS is a passive module and | |
doesn't | |
require any network. | |
This smartphone has a GPS receiver, it's enough for recording my | |
position as | |
often I want. Using the correct GPS software from F-droid store and a | |
program | |
for sftp transfer, I can record data and transfer it easily to my | |
computer. | |
The most common file format for recording GPS position is the GPX | |
format, it's | |
a simple XML file containing all positions with their timestamp, | |
sometimes with | |
a few more information like speed at that time, but given you have all | |
positions, software can calculate the speed between each position. | |
# Android GPS Software | |
It seems GPS software for recording GPX tracks are becoming popular, | |
and in the | |
last months, lot of new software appeared, which is a good thing, I | |
didn't | |
tested all of them though but they tend to be more easy to use and | |
minimalistic. | |
## OpenStreetMap app - OSMand~ | |
You can install it from [F-droid](https://f-droid.org/) an alternate | |
store for | |
Android only with opensource software, it's a full free version (and | |
opensource) compared to the one you can find on Android store. | |
This is OpenStreetMap official software, it's full of features and | |
quite | |
heavy, you can download maps for navigation, record tracks, view tracks | |
statistics, contribute to OSM, get Wikipedia information for an area | |
and | |
everything of this while being OFFLINE. Not only on my bike, I use it | |
all the | |
time while walking or in my car. | |
Recorded GPX can be found in the default path | |
**Android/data/net.osmand.plus/files/tracks/rec/** | |
## Trekarta | |
I found another software named **Trekarta** which is a lot more lighter | |
than | |
OSM, but only focuses on recording your tracks. I would recommend it if | |
you | |
don't want any other feature or have a really old android compatible | |
phone or | |
low disk space. | |
# Analyzing GPX files / keep track of everything | |
I found Turtlesport, an opensource software in Java for which last | |
release was | |
years ago but still work out of the box, given you have a java | |
implementation | |
installed. You can find it [at the following | |
link](https://turtlesport.sourceforge.io/EN/home.html). | |
/usr/local/bin/jdk-1.8.0/bin/java -jar turtlesport.jar | |
Turtlesport is a nice tool for viewing tracks, it's not for only for | |
cycling | |
and can be used for various sports, the process is the following: | |
- define sports you do (bike, skateboard, hiking etc..) | |
- define equipments you use (bike, sport shoes, skis etc..) | |
- import GPX files and tell Turtlesport which sport and equipment it's | |
related to | |
Then, for each GPX file, you will be able to see it on a map, see | |
elevation and | |
speed of that track, but you can also make statistics per sport or | |
equipment, | |
like "How many km I ride with that bike over last year, per week". | |
If you don't have a GPX file, you can still add a new trip into the | |
database by | |
drawing the path on a map. | |
In the equipments, you will see how many kilometers you used each, with | |
an | |
alert feature if the equipment goes beyond a defined wearing limit. I'm | |
not | |
sure about the use of this, maybe you want to know your shoes shouldn't | |
be used | |
for more than 2000 km?? Maybe it's possible to use it for maintenance | |
purpose, | |
says your bike has a wearing limit of 1000 km, when you reach it you | |
get an | |
alert, do your maintenance and set the new limit to 2000km. | |
# Viewing GPX files | |
From OpenBSD 6.7 you can install the package **gpxsee** to open | |
multiple GPX | |
files, they will be shown on a map, each track with a different colour, | |
and | |
nice charts displaying the elevation or speed over the travel for every | |
tracks. | |
Before **gpxsee** I was using the GIS (Geographical Information System) | |
tool | |
**qgis** but it is really heavy and complicated. But if you want to | |
work on | |
your recorded data like doing complex statistics, it's a powerful tool | |
if you | |
know how to use it. | |
I like to use it in a **gamification** purpose: I'm trying to ride over | |
every | |
road around my home, viewing all GPX files at the same time allow me to | |
plan | |
the next trip where I never went. | |
# Miscellaneous | |
## Create an unique GPX file from all records | |
It is possible to merge GPX file into one giant one using **gpsbabel** | |
.I was | |
using this before having **gpxsee* but I have no idea about what you | |
can do with | |
that, this create one big spaggheti track. I choose to keep the command | |
here, | |
in case it's useful for someone one day: | |
gpsbabel -s -r -t -i GPX $(ls /path/to/files/*gpx | awk '{ printf | |
"-f %s ", $1 }') -o GPX -F - > sum.gpx | |
## Cycling using electronic devices | |
Of course, if you are a true cyclist racer and GPX files will not be | |
enough for | |
you, you will certainly want devices such as a power meter or a cadence | |
meter | |
and an on-board device to use them. I can't help much about hardware. | |
However, you may want to give a try to [Golden | |
Cheetah](https://www.goldencheetah.org/) to import all your data from | |
various | |
devices and make **complex** statistics from it. I tried it and I had | |
no idea | |
about the purpose of 90% of the features. | |
## Have fun | |
Don't forget to have fun and do not get obscessed by numbers! |