Free Ant+ indoor trainer software

flobble wrote:

A few thoughts:

I love the idea of overlaying power output on a training profile - an easy to understand, accessible view of a training session using equipment I already have. Brilliant - thank-you.

If you're going to give away the software, why not launch it as an open source project and bring the massed talents of the world's cycling programmers to bear on it? It could rapidly become the best piece of power-based training software out there.

Similarly, I'd be willing to bet there are enough people with trainers and power meters who would happily submit their data and give you calibration information for the most popularly used non-power trainers. I'd certainly be happy to do this.

Not sure how this helps you sell Lynx trainers, but I'm delighted you've gone this far. Great stuff.

Thanks, Our software will grow very fast & im confident that if its not already the best it will be by next year. We don't really need more programmers, really we just need a really good idea of what you want or need when training inside. We have only been busy with this for a few months. If its different display metrics or something then we can make them or give you the tools to make them. Right now the software is really small, fast & tidy, the last thing we want is a whole bunch of different programmers screwing with it

We have a list of hundreds of different trainers & their power curves built into the exe (in settings menu - bottom right click the button under the trainer curve). If you add your own speed watts for a trainer thats not listed just do a print screen of your numbers & send it to us & we will add to our list.

Gizmo_ wrote:

Forgive me the ignorance here, but I'm thinking of buying one of the simple Minoura B60 trainers. Am I right in thinking that I'd just need this software on my laptop plus an ANT+ cadence sensor?

The trainer has variable resistance - I see from one of the screenshots that the software has pre-programmed data on resistance levels for some trainers, is the Minoura included? How does the bike's gearing affect this?

Also I don't quite understand how it works - are laptops ANT+ compatible? Does the video play at a rate equivalent to the speed I'm riding (as dictated by cadence * (gearing vs resistance) )

We have a whole bunch of Minoura trainers listed but I dont see the B60, maybe the name is different or its a new model? If you know someone with a power meter you can borrow you could easy add your own custom trainer. by selecting "user defined trainer" & just filling in the watts you see at a few different speeds. The software will draw a plot & fill in the gaps.

The idea once you have a virtual power curve selected is to pick a single resistance level & then use the gears of your bike to increase torque if you need it, like on a hill for example you could stick it on the 12 to get the torque high. We use virtual speed that uses well known maths to calculate the speed from the road grade watts weight/mass of the rider. So if you hit say the Koppenberg which the cross is doing today your displayed speed & frame rate will drop to a crawl & thats the moment to fight against logic & chuck it in the 12 & give it some effort if only to get the frame rate a bit faster! Over the top of the hill the frame rate will increase with the speed, but you get the speed with less effort so you can you reduce the gears & recover/spin. If you have our Lynx, KickR or computrainer then it will increase/decrease the grade or resistance level to replicate the hills better. As more high end trainer go open we can add them to the list.

If you have a Ant+ Speed or optionally a cadence/HR/Power meter sensor then you just need a Ant+ USB dongle from Garmin, Tacx, Bryton or Wahoo. Click the exe go to user settings & on the top right you will see anything you have inside range of the Ant+ & your laptop. You can click "learn" & then "Save" if you wanted to be sure these are linked, but really it will just work even without doing this. Just go near the software with a Ant+ HRS strap & a small box in will go green & you will see your heart rate in the settings etc.

Remember also that once you click that exe the first time a Data folder is created next to the exe. After your ride is finished all your data is exported into a Garmin tcx file which you can use in just about every training software.

giobox wrote:

morethansonglyrics wrote:

Would go nuts for this with mac compatability. Currently considering a trainerroad sub.

I'm using trainerroad and reckon its worth the subscription price for their virtual power feature alone. I recently borrowed a PowerTap to compare the virtual power numbers and was shocked how close it gets if you have one of the turbo trainers they have a power curve for. Power based training for around £60 a year is a bargain, vs minimum £600 spend on a full blown power meter.

Well if you have windows & our little exe file you actually have spot on the same virtual power as trainer road for £0.00 / month for ever! We need to add some example workouts but you can easily make your own in seconds. We are adding the ability to share workouts also, so it could be a cool tool for coaches

HTTP404 wrote:

I've pointed to the vlrr folder.
I can see all the rides listed.
And I can see the two demo vlrr files.

I click on a demo vlrr file.
The screen is still black.
I click start ride.
The four buttons and the new ride button are displayed at the top.
Below these - the screen is still black.
I start to ride and the four buttons and new ride button disappear to display a black screen.
I stop the ride and the buttons reappear, but no video is played and no sound is ever output.

Sounds like you need to update your wmv codec. if you cant play the Demo videos you either have a corrupted codec or an old version of windows media player, You could try updating your wmv codecs? http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=507

Cycle_Jim wrote:

Oh was a tempted to download but not Mac friendly

I would say from the photos that the UI looks a little daunting...

I have it on my macbook but with bootcamp Some of the screens like the one where you can pick your trainer are a bit complicated at first but all you do is put your hand over the daunting bits, pick your trainer & press save....get back to the training screen. We are busy polishing the UI, if you check out the included attachment in the 1st post you can see how the video player looks now. The menus & ergo-trainer part will look a lot more like this.