Wednesday, July 22, 2009

Keeping Trikking Tracks with an iphone



Most that know me realize that I am an Apple addict. I do my work on Macs. Have a house wifi’d with Apple products. Have an Apple TV unit with hundreds of movies stored and more ready for instant rental. Then there is my beloved iphone. I’ve had one since they first came out. As they evolved I was torn because I wanted to use GPS for my trikking activities and the original iphone did not have GPS. The 3G did, but I just knew there was another update on the horizon. So I waited. Now there is the 3GS ($200) and I went ahead and got it. Many times I contemplated buying a separate GPS like the Garmin, but I really didn’t feel I was hardcore enough to pay the couple of hundred for that, when I believed my eventual iphone upgrade would suffice.

Now that I have the 3GS, I am very happy with it. The trikke related test would be through the GPS ability of apps available on the iphone. I use MotionX GPS as a $1.99 application and have just started trikking with it . Granted, I haven’t used the Garmin, but I am happy with this method. As you can see from my screen shots, my info was recorded without difficulty. For me this is relevant info. Unfortunately, I’m not a speed demon but it is nice to now have more details to keep me aware of benchmarks for my personal best. I don’t have to keep track of them anymore as the iphone does it now. It’s funny though. Now that I can see my speed in detail, I have to wonder if I’ll start riding harder and faster to beat my times? Before, I never really thought about speed per say, just how I felt or how long it took me. Never really got into calculating what time meant in speed. This could be an interesting training partner!

I also like that the application can access my ipod music from within the app, so I do not have to toggle back and forth between the applications. See screenshot above and see how I set my various workouts up.

Overall, it’s a thumbs up for me and my iphone 3GS. Never had a Blackberry or PalmPre. Never had a Garmin…but my iphone works just fine for me!



2 comments:

trikkebratte said...

I got my used Garmin 201 on the cheap from eBay exactly a year ago. Not much of one to compete against others, I, on the other hand, love to compete "against" moi! I have to attribute using my GPS for amping up my Trikke fervency (as if it needed boosting).
I now ride longer, harder and faster than ever. If you feel your workout passion waning, a GPS could be just the goosing it needs.

treousr said...

As much as I love my pre I'm all about doing what works for you... Know how fast I was going initially turned me into a speed monster... Its all trikke's fault... The box says cruising speed 12-18 mph, so I pushed until I was crusing that fast.. Now I'm pushing closer toward the 18 than the 12. Top avg over @ the swamp 14.4mph ... So hey you never know.. The speed bug may bite you and then we can race lol