To measure power without sensors is possible if you have the right App!

Sport Plus Health, the only App for cycling capable of measuring power without using expensive sensors.

 

Thanks to a long and worthwhile collaboration with Verona University, SPH Cycling and SPH MTB are the only App for cycling which is able to measure  power without using those expensive sensors made to be put on the bicycles.

Endurance sports’ trainings are carried out by measuring athlete’s heart rate, or checking generated power during physical activity.

However, while heartbeat is subject to variables which are unrelated with physical effort (as the emotional state and the the state of health in that moment),  generated power is not subject to external factors. For this reason, in the last few years this approach has been coming to be preferred.

First power sensors date back to about ten years ago. The precursors of this new system used sensors to determine the power an athlete generates.

These sensors are nothing but load cells like those used in balances. Some of them are put on the posterior pinion, some on the pedalboard, on the pedal crank, and on the crown wheel. Everyone of these positions determines different problems and different  accuracy levels.

The crown wheel is the most reliable source, but it is also the most expensive, beyond 1500 euros for the sensors alone, plus the cost of the connected cyclo computer elaborating data. Then the maintenance and taring services costs an the beginning of the season.

SportPlusHealth devised a system which emulates power sensors through an algorithm, so that everyone could be able to practise for power without expensive devices.

We planned a test. From this test it is possible to obtain the data which, once put in an algorithm, give us the power generated by a riding athlete.

This is how it works: on an exercise bicycle you run power tests with incremental exercise ( for example, with steps of 50 watt, for five minutes, until you stand), and analyse lactic acid level, heartbeat, or both. Then you run another test on your own bicycle outside, in plane, with speed increases , for example, of 5km/h, even in this case for about five minutes, until endurance limit, measuring the heartbeat.

The devise which measures lactic acid is self-test (with a very affordable price) and is similar to the one which measures glycemia, a drop of blood put on a paper strip is all it takes. You can insert the results by  typing the data manually, or through an USB twin cablet.

Form the comparison between the data on exercise bicycle efforts and the data on road efforts you obtain two rates named KA and CR ( which stands for friction and rolling coefficient respectively). By combining this two parameters with speed and gradient, and by estimating wind’s intensity and direction, it is possible to calculate the power generated by the athlete.

With this simple and intuitive system, an athlete who has more than one bicycle at his or her disposal, could equip each one with an emulating sensor, therefore with a very contained spending and a good reliability level.