In the past few weeks, I've looked at the Sportstracker software program, tied to the
n95's internal GPS system. I drove around one day after telling the Sportstracker I was cycling. It fell for that lie and clocked my cycling speeds at well over 60 mph. I'll bet it was impressed :)
The day before yesterday, I tried it but forgot to hit "Start". No luck there :)
Yesterday, I tried it on a real cycling route, and it didn't work correctly; for some reason it kicked in after five miles. I'm guessing I didn't give it time for the GPS to lock on..
But today, I gave it plenty of time before the ride, then hit start, and off I went.
I have to say, I was quite impressed.
I'm an avid cyclist, not an athlete or a competitive cyclist, so a lot of the features are not something I'd use much; but I could see a serious athlete could get a LOT out of this application...
If you can find a way to mount this to your handlebars, for instance, you can use the big clear numbers to track time, speed and distance as easily as off your cycling computer ... and as accurately. My fifteen mile cycle came back with less than two hundredths of a mile discrepancy between my cycling computer and the
n95. Not bad.
Additionally, the SportsTracker will give you charts showing Altitude over Distance (which my cycling computer never will!) which an athlete on a hill route would no doubt appreciate. Also available is Speed vs Time and Speed vs Distance in fancy graph form.
Then you can select a screen showing latitude & longitude (I suppose, if you were planning on cross-continent runs, this feature might be useful; for me its merely fun) and compass bearing.
Another screen gives you avg speed, speed, altitude, distance and time in a very readable form; and one more draws you a map on a black background. It would be nice if they could tie this into the streets application, but as far as I can tell, it doesnt; so this feature did not appear very useful until I discovered
I could save my workout as a kml file and map it directly to a satellite photograph on Google Earth! Now, that was cool! Not sure exactly if it is useful, but it sure is neater than hell.
So listen... if you haven't used this application yet, you should give it a try. I'm going to take it on all my bike rides, from here on out. If I was a runner, I'd use it for that too.
Additionally, you can save each workout into a Training Diary (route, run, cycle, what-have-you) and it will display them in a calendar format so you can review your progress over time. You can save the workout as a route, although I'm not sure yet exactly how that differs from saving it into the Training Diary... And then there is a general settings section where you can choose the type of activity (cycling, running, walking, skiing and two user defined activities) add multiple users (as if you're going to let anyone else use your
n95 for that, yah, right) and change units of measurement and so on.
All in all...
When I first looked at SportsTracker I thought it was a clunky, ugly piece of software. I've since learned that is just about ideal for its intended use - sports activities - and offers a wonderful range of features and information for the serious athlete all the way down to... well, me.
NOTE: Anyone wishing to use this program on a regular basis would do well to save their workouts in some format... my workout data has disappeared on me twice now :). Save if off the phone, to be on the safe side...
Linear Mode
