try
http://www.gpsvisualizer.com/index.html

Almost all of the functionality of MB is still free. As far as I can tell, you don't get two things: (1) the analyzer screen, which is not that big a deal for me; and (2) you are supposed to be limited to viewing your last 10 workouts from your digest. However, you can still view your older rides/runs on the trail network. Just sort by user name and you can find all of your workouts. Am I missing something?

---

__________________________________________________
What a drag it is getting old. -- Stones

If I understand correctly, they do have a free version as well, it just doesn't offer as much as the pay version. If you aren't sure about it, use the free version for a while. Because I climb a LOT, their service, in combination with the forerunner 201/301, is invaluable to me. It's very helpful to know if I'm putting in 4000', 5500', 8000', etc. I also prefer to base my intervals on elevation gained, for instance, I prefer to do 1300' repeats instead of 20:00 repeats. That of course is something I'm able to do because of the forerunner though, not motionbased. They have also just updated their software, or whatever the proper terminology is, so that it's much nicer than it was just a month ago.

Sojourner,

It has been fairly well documented that the Forerunners ability to measure feet ascended and feet descended is significantly inaccurate. It can be off by a factor of more than 100%. It can overstate your feet climbed by more than 100% as well as underreporting your feet climbed by more than 50%.

At the same time the Forerunner is very good at consistently measuring the distance covered laterally very well with discrepancies of less than 1% from the actual distance covered.

My question is, does the MotionBased site measure the distance climbed or descended from the Forerunners GPS tracklog or do they measure based on topographic info from the route the GPS tracklog identifies?

If it is the former, the value of these measures is not very great, but if it is the latter, then its value would be much improved as a result of reduced discrepancy between what the Forerunner measured by GPS and vertical distance the Forerunner actually covered.

---

Ben Cline


Better to aspire to Greatness and fail, than to not challenge one's self at all, and succeed.

Ben, this really depends on what you consider "significantly inaccurate" and what type of ascents and descents you are making. If you ride primarily on flats, that a have a few small hills, then I would say the elevation gain/loss data might not mean much. If you are climbing mountains, you will get excellent data, I can assure you of this. MB (I believe) uses the tracking points that the FR's upload to it, and it has a logarithmic (or is it algorithmic?) formula to compensate for any extreme outlying points that are obviously errors. Let me give you an example of the accuracy of feet ascended and feet descended on some workouts where I start and stop in the same point.... (I couldn't copy and paste the data, and I'm not sure that you can go to my own digest page, so I printed the page and took a picture. The things I do for you Ben...)

You'll notice two or three of those workouts have large discrepencies between the elev. gain and loss, however, on those occasions I either forgot to turn the device on before I started, or I had gone too many days without re-charging it and it may have died (only happened twice, as they last about 15 hours and I'm usually more conscious of battery life) You'll also notice that on the other workouts, where I was more prudent, many of the elev. gain and loss numbers are within .04% - 1% of one another. That's plenty accurate for me, I mean, whether I climbed 7000' or 7080', does it really matter?

Topofusion is pretty good. It does essentially the same thing as motionbased. Download the demo version from www.topofusion.com to try it out.

greg

I agree - the Forerunner 201 is not always accurate with elevation, although usually it is right on the money or within a few feet. I read a while ago on the MB forum that they were going to add a feature that would recalculate your elevations using actual cartographic data instead of relying on the FR's data, but I don't think they've done this yet. In the meantime, the only way to get really accurate elevation data is to use a barometric altimeter, not GPS (although I believe the GPS devices that use WAAS, like the Foretrex 201, are much more accurate). You could get a HAC 4 or Suunto and put it next to your Garmin, but that might be overkill.

---

__________________________________________________
What a drag it is getting old. -- Stones

Sojourner,

Here's the reason I ask.

I was a beta tester for Mick Chawner who wrote the program for the BackUpFRunner, a feature pack logbook for the Garmin Forerunner. One of the features he added was total feet climbed (Ascended) and total feet descended. This was calculated from the GPS trackpoint log.

In evaluating the data produced, we discovered that the difference in these totals from the same information generated from the identical route (trackpoint log) using topographic mapping software was almost always in disagreement by at least 25% and more commonly 30-45%. On generally flat routes the discrepancies were even greater dispelling the presumption that perhaps tree cover and/or steep narrow routes were affecting satellite reception.

One of the specfic rides I analyzed was the first day of The Columbus Fall Challenge which was slightly less than 100 miles from Lancaster, OH to Marietta, OH. This was not the most extreme example but a good example of uneven terrain. Over the route, there was a general downward slope or drop to the Ohio River Valley at Marietta of about 450 feet.

Topographic software measured the feet ascended as 8,293.6 feet, whereas the Forerunner measured the feet ascended as 6083.9 feet, a divergence of 26.6%. This ride was broken up into 4 legs whose divergence range between -19.2% to 44.0%

Topographic software measured the feet descended as 8,754.4 feet, whereas the Forerunner measured the feet descended as 6,315.8 feet, a divergence of 27.9%. The divergence over the four legs ranged between -20.2% to -33.3%.

However, the linear distance travel is measured with a consistent accuracy that varied between +0.08% to +0.88% and was +0.44% for the entire ride.

What was discovered by comparison and analysis was that not only was the Foreunner consistently divergent in its readings vs topograpic mapping software regarding elevation changes, it was also similarly inconsistent in relative measurements of elevation data.

The conclusion drawn from these comparisons and analysises over a number of rides over flat, rolling and hilly terrain, was that the Forerunner's measurements of elevation data should be taken with a large grain of salt. If one desires relatively accurate information regarding elevation changes over a GPS trackpoint route, especially one logged by the Forerunner, one is far better off measuring this data using topographic software rather than the Forerunner's GPS trackpoint record.

This is what I termed as "significantly inaccurate." This is also the reason I raised my first question, how is the elevation calculated? These discrepancies are not the result of points being "off route" as one can determine from viewing the route overlayed on a road map. The trackpoints are consistently and almost without exception dead on the road. Your assurance that the algorythm used discounts any erroneous GPS trackpoints does little to reassure me in light of the data and analysis I have personally done. If anything, it leads me to believe that we have been bamboozled by MB and their assertion that their calculations are accurate because their calculations drop out GPS trackpoints that are decidedly off route. My personal experience, testing, data and analysis tends to demonstrate very clearly this is not the case with a GPS trackpoint record.

What is your reference that reassures you that the elevation data you have accumulated during your rides is accurate? The MB assurance regarding their algorythm and their calculation of this data? I contend it is merely relative and consistently inaccurate as my full data record has demonstrated to my satisfaction and the satisfaction of the developer I was working with.

If you have ever noticed on most handheld GPS units that offer altimeter information, they use barometric altimeters in the GPS unit to perform these calculations rather than GPS information. This is the case for even the WAAS enabled handheld GPS units. The reason for this is due to the significant (gross) inaccuracy of GPS records of this data.

Your data chart is impresive looking, however, as accurate or as inaccurate as its data may be.

Just my two cents, FWIW.

---

Ben Cline


Better to aspire to Greatness and fail, than to not challenge one's self at all, and succeed.

Motionbased is a fantastic tool in my opinion. I really recommend it. I think it is a bargain.

---

Tom Demerly
The Tri Shop.com

You seem to be projecting what you want to see. Maybe I am too. The fact of the matter is that I do many climbs from point to point and back and get extremely similar readings, again, generally within 1% and often much closer. My reference? Elevation signs on the side of the road. When I do climbs that have basically no descents, such as Highway 39, Mount Baldy, or Palomar, it's pretty easy to see that these devices, as well as MB, are right on the money. If I was getting very large discrepancies I would expect that the wattage my Powertap tells me I averaged and the wattage estimated at analyticcycling.com would be pretty far off, and they are not at all. Again though, I don't do much of the rolling terrain gig, it's usually up up up for a couple hours and then back down.

Sojourner,

Thanks for your reply and more precise explanation of how you arrive at your statements regarding accuracy and the kind of cycling that generates your data. This is interesting and will need to be taken into consideration.

The disparity of our two experiences is very surprising.

Again, I point out that for linear measurements, distance traveled, I have found the Forerunner very close in approximation to more precise measurement of the same route/distance, consistently less than 1% in divergence. It was the vertical measurements that were all over the board.

---

Ben Cline


Better to aspire to Greatness and fail, than to not challenge one's self at all, and succeed.

I think that's because you aren't or weren't doing any serious climbing. You could hit start on your forerunner and not move an inch, let it run for 30' and it'll probably end up telling you that your elevation gain and loss was something totally ridiculous, like 300-1000' maybe, as it samples so often, and if the measurement is only accurate to within 100' then it'll be jumping up and down more than likely. Also, atop Mount Baldy, there is a plaque that reads 10,064', and the 201 told me it was at 10,065' when I first set it on top. Then, over the next minute it would go up and down about 5-10' from there.

Here is the info on Mt. Baldy from socalvelo.com

Total Climb 12.63 mi. 4615' ascent 7% Part 1 8.0 mi. 2505' ascent 6% Part 2 4.63 mi. 2110' ascent 8.6%

Here is the ascent info from my FR201 via MB on Nov 18 '04: Elev Gain 4779, Elev Loss 4782

Those are pretty close.

Then there is my bread and butter ride from the west fork on Highway 39 up to the closure at mile marker 39.97. Here is some data from different times doing the exact same ride.

Oct 25, '04 ~ Gain = 4,293 ... Loss = 4,321
Dec 13, '04 ~ Gain = 4,260 ... Loss = 4,344
Oct 13, '04 ~ Gain = 4,235 ... Loss = 4,219
Oct 28, '04 ~ Gain = 4,201 ... Loss = 4,151
Nov 6, '04 ~ Gain = 4,201 ... Loss = 4,278
Nov 24, '04 ~ Gain = 4,184 ... Loss = 4,191
Oct 6, '04 ~ Gain = 4,133 ... Loss = 4,033
Oct 8, '04 ~ Gain = 4,129 ... Loss = 4,153
Oct 14, 04 ~ Gain = 4,082 ... Loss = 4,061


Again, these are all pretty close to one another as well.

"Motionbased is a fantastic tool in my opinion. I really recommend it. I think it is a bargain."



Tool for what? Aside from the obvious, what is the value that is brings to your workouts? Do you run faster knowing your pace/speed (realtime) or how do you use that data once you view it on MB (datalogger). How is this different/better than before MB?

Thanks for the (2) links above for "software". I've enjoyed using MB and put up some pretty data in their development. However, if there is client-based applications with similair functionality around the cost of a yearly subscription, I'll jump all over that.

I've learned quite a bit about my workouts from MB.

1) Long bikes when stops/stop signs/lights effect overall pace (Thus chosing better non-stop routes)

2) How my running pace slowly increases/decreases throughout a long run even though my heart stays the same.

3) Strategically pacing myself (weekday 10k runs) Sometimes start hard or finish hard and then run the virtual race to determine which/where each strategy is best....and thus finding the weak spots

4) Bike elevations (although that seems to be an area of question from the posts above)

5) Bike pacing - simliar to #2

6) Real time pacing - although I HATE looking at my "speed" (Not a MB feature, just a Forerunner tool)

7) Ability to see a map of where I rode for those adventurous days.

8) The "additional info" is cool on MB...temp, wind, etc. Nice track of workouts.

9) Ability to chart miles and general reporting overtime will show strengths/weakness...assuming you use it.

1) Quite honestly, the thing that I REALLY like(d) about MB is the ability to share workouts with friends/coaches/etc. "Hey...checkout this ride!".



The beta-tester 2fer is quite disappointing. It should have been free for 6 months (once it went paid) and ability to get discounts based upon referrals. (i.e. 5% of each referrals committment) I understand they need to make money, but it shouldn't come at the expense of your beta team. They need to work on volume (demand) now and work on value later.....

 
In order to use http://www.gpsvisualizer.com/index.html you need xml files.

I don't see an option for xml files in the new Garmin Training Center software that came with my Forerunner 301. Am I missing something here?

---

=====================================
It's ALL about the bike!

asd99,

You are not missing anything. This appears to be intentional. There appears to be a defined barrier between the 201 and the 301. Sharing workouts, software, etc., did not appear to be desirable to the manufacturer.

It may have been Garmin's belief that doing so would have reduced sales of the 301 by permitting 201 owners to enjoy 301 software. This fails to recognize that to get the software, one must purchase the 301.

All that being said, I too, feel disappointed that I cannot merge all the training information I have accumulated on my 201 into my 301 database.

There are many ingenious programmers who are 201 users. Being tech and gadget freaks, I'm sure that many of them will become 301 users as well. Having been involved with the development of shareware for the 201, I'm excited to see what they develop in terms of shareware to overcome these hurdles. Give it a little time, I'm sure they have the capability and capacity to surprise us.

---

Ben Cline


Better to aspire to Greatness and fail, than to not challenge one's self at all, and succeed.

Download a tool called GPS Utility. Save your tracks as gpx and upload to gpsvisualizer. GPS Utility is free so its worth a try.

greg

You can extract your 301 file from the Training Center using a little utility written by Brad Culberson

http://www.bradculberson.com/...catid=4&blogid=1

It puts out a GPX file which you can upload to GPS Visualizer. Once you've got the GPX file you can do a lot with it, I've converted the GPX file using another utility and pulled the GPS data into Topo USA 5.0.

kido99,

What is the other utility you are using to convert the GPX file so you can import the GPS data into Topo USA 5.0? I, too, use Topo and I've also used Brad's DayBreaker.

---

Ben Cline


Better to aspire to Greatness and fail, than to not challenge one's self at all, and succeed.

Ben, I used G7toWin. You can find it at:

http://www.gpsinformation.org/ronh/

I converted the gpx file to an sa8 format and then pulled it into Topo USA 5.0. Worked just fine.

Ron

Kido99,

Thanks for the help.

---

Ben Cline


Better to aspire to Greatness and fail, than to not challenge one's self at all, and succeed.