The biggest new thing is that the old "Analyze Power" function has been expanded into the "Analyze Route" function, which retains all the functionality of the former but adds a lot of new stuff. iBike4 will investigate the altimeter data looking for either Out & Back rides or laps ridden on a route. If it finds such a feature, it will automatically use that information to analyze the ride for possible improvements. For example, one of the basic limitations of altimeters is as atmospheric pressure changes they will start under-reporting or over-reporting elevation; however, if the new analysis can determine from the elevation data that the ride was an O&B or laps, the altimeter data can be corrected. Note that the power data is also analyzed to benefit from the improvement to the elevation data.
Further, if the whole ride or part of the ride is a closed loop, the new analysis might use that information to adjust the wind data if needed. Note that the wind data will only analyzed if the software does not detect that the rider was drafting. (If it is a close call, the software will prompt the user to say if there was any drafting in the ride.) Otherwise, if the ride was solo and there is an O&B, laps, or a closed-loop, then the wind data will be analyzed to remove any problems due to wind offset (a.k.a. wind cal) being off.
- analyze_route.png (158.38 KiB) Viewed 8242 times
* If the software incorrectly detects an O&B or laps, you can get rid of it by unchecking "Ride Has Out & Back" or "Ride Has Laps" depending on which was detected.
* If there was any drafting in the ride, check the box in order to make sure the wind data is not analyzed
* If wind conditions changed significantly during the ride, check the "Wind Changed" box which, again, will make sure the wind data is not analyzed
Since the entire ride was and Out & Back, the program correctly figures out that the "Ride Ended Where it Began" as shown in the screenshot. This is the only setting that might be automatically detected in the area with the radio buttons; however, you can make addition edits manually if necessary:
* Use "Selection Ends & Starts at Same Place" to tell the software that only part of the ride was a closed loop or O&B or laps. Click and drag in the graph to highlight the section and then click the button next to "Selection Ends & Starts at Same Place"
* Alternatively, if the ride is a one-way ride but you know the starting elevation and the ending elevation (e.g. a commute ride), you can click the button to enter the information. When you click the button, a dialog box opens up where you can enter the two elevation values. The data is analyzed appropriately for the values you enter.
* In the extreme case that a false O&B ride is detected that also causes the "Ride Ended Where it Began" to be selected, be sure to uncheck both boxes in order for the ride to be processed correctly. This should be rare, but if it happens it will probably be for rides where the terrain is very flat such as in Florida.
Note that all of this analysis is done by processing the altimeter and/or slope data for patterns. It's not perfect, but it is pretty good. We used a large database of over 400 ride files from a variety of riders and different ride conditions in order to tune the algorithm to detect as many features correctly as possible without resulting in too many false detections. I think you will find the the analysis usually does a good job, but there will always be a few rides that stump the detector in which case you can correct the issues in the new window above.
Some other goodies:
* By default, this route analysis will now happen automatically. This is done in two stages, the CPU-intensive part when you download ride files. The second stage happens the first time you view the ride. During the second stage, you may be prompted an answer whether there was drafting in the ride or if the ride ended where it started (in other words, was it a closed-loop ride). This way, if you download a bunch of rides all at once you only see the dialogs when you view them later. Be sure to save changes to avoid future dialogs. There are new settings in the Preferences window if you would like to turn off the automatic route analysis.
* If the ride is a one-way ride and you don't know the starting and ending elevation, there is a new feature that can use weather station data downloaded from http://www.wunderground.com in order to corrected the altimeter data. Select the menu item "Tools -> Set Atmospheric Pressure..." entering your local weather station.
See the release notes below for further information. One of the more significant bug fixes is that the program should now work correctly for those who have locality settings that use comma for the decimal character (e.g. million = 1.000.000,00)
iBike 4.0.3 Release Notes
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* The “Analyze Power” tool has been expanded into the new “Analyze Route” tool under the Tools menu. In addition to its old functions, the tool processes elevation data to automatically detect sections of the ride ridden on the same road, either as a portion of an out & back ride or as multiple laps. If such conditions are detected, the information is used to analyze any possible improvements to the ride data that are possible. The user is also able to override the automatic route detection information if necessary, or to add additional information that goes undetected. Further, even if the ride file is a one-way ride (a commute for example), starting and ending elevation data can be entered to correct for atmospheric pressure changes during the ride. Note that more complex types of out & back rides can be detected, such as a partial out & back rides that contains a loop in the middle.
* There are new controls in the preferences window for setting how route analysis is performed on downloaded ride files. By default, route detection happens automatically when rides are downloaded, but this can be set in the preferences window. If additional information is needed from the user, a dialog box appears the first time that the user views the downloaded ride file. Be sure to save changes to the ride file to avoid the dialog box in the future.
* There is a new function “Tools -> Set Atmospheric Pressure” for removing the effects of varying atmospheric pressure during the course of a ride by using weather data from a nearby weather station. The new route analysis function is the preferred method for making such adjustments, but this function can be used in some situations where route analysis cannot (e.g., one-way rides where starting and ending elevation values are not known). This function replaces the old “Set Weather” function, which was only needed for legacy ride files acquired with FW 1.14 and older.
* Fixed bugs when reading files on computers set to use the comma character as decimal as in Europe. (Please report any further problems anyone finds.)
* Fixed a bug that sometimes caused cadence data to disappear. The cadence data can be recovered on such rides files by doing “Tools -> Return to Original Download”.
* Fixed a bug that on rare occasions could cause speed and wind data to become unsynchronized. Such ride files can be repaired by doing “Tools -> Return to Original Download”.
* New file format for CSV ride files, but the changes are only in the binary data sections.
* Fixed a bug that sometimes caused the calibration ride processing to only process a small portion of the ride file.
* Small internal improvements in handling air density and atmospheric pressure.
* Additional small change to the function for repairing speed spikes.
* Names can now be edited in the Power Meter Comparison window.
