FIGHT!
Over the past three seasons, I’ve become a total geek about my training data. What started with just a simple tracker sheet blossomed with my first really smart smartphone, and now has become an obsession. I’ve tried logging everything, from walking the dog and mowing the grass, to half marathons and 188 mile bike rides, just to look at the squiggles and see what they can tell me about my training. It’s been a useful exercise, as I’ve been able to study my splits and heart rate zones, and find out what I needed to work on, and what was working for me.
On a recommendation of a Facebook friend, I started out with MapMyRun, part of a GPS-enabled fitness logging suite (MapMyFitness) that is coupled with pretty useful and very intuitive route-creation tool online. But when I got my bluetooth heart rate monitor back in April, I was surprised to find that the app suite for Android had the bluetooth module disabled, thanks to an ongoing spat between MapMyFitness and Google over some technical details that I don’t really understand.
That drove me to try Endomondo, and for the past several months, I’ve been mostly happy. It’s tracked my workouts well, interfaced with MyFitnessPal, and allowed the use of my heart rate monitor. But lately, the app has been getting really buggy, refusing to connect to my heart rate monitor for no apparent reason, and locking up the GPS. It also lacks some of the analysis tools and social features of Strava and MapMyFitness, and is particularly naggy about signing up for a premium membership. More frustrating, the premium membership is in no way linked to the premium version of the app, so that you have to pay two different ways to get full functionality. What kind of ridiculous business model is that?
So recently I joined Strava, easily the most popular GPS logging app among cyclists. The migration was painful, since MapMyFitness doesn’t allow export of workout data at all (which is borderline criminal), and Endomondo only allows you to do it one workout at a time, unless you pay for their premium membership (which I won’t do, until I find a service that does what I need it to). Still, I uploaded the last several months of .tcx files from Endomondo into Strava with only a few little bugs and hiccups, and mostly liked what I saw from the import and analysis.
I was immediately impressed with the polish on both the Strava app and the online interface, as well as the increased accuracy of the GPS logging, despite using the exact same phone. But it’s still far from a perfect solution, as some of the functionality is downright wonky.
For instance, despite the well-known and pervasive tendency of GPS units to cut off sharp corners and occasionally skip, there is no provision to edit the total distance of a ride or run, such as there is in Endomondo. This is an enormous problem for me as a mountain biker, as even with the increased accuracy offered by their logging algorithm, I was missing two miles off a recent trail ride. For a program that places such emphasis on segment records and PR tracking, this oversight is unconscionable.
Even one of the better features, that of establishing “privacy zones” over your home and workplace, lacks the ability to customize the location an size of the zone, rendering it almost useless. The whole experience so far has reminded me of why I hate Apple products so much, honestly. It looks great, it’s very popular, but lacks access to certain features that are so obvious and crucial that I wonder if I can go on using it at all.
So I guess the search will continue. I’ll keep messing with Strava for a few more weeks to see if there are ways to make it better, but if not, there’s every chance I’ll have to use it along with Endomondo to get what I want, data-wise. How these three companies can have such a good concept, and screw it up so thoroughly, is beyond me.