Road Bike Power Meter App – Ride West of Oshkosh, Wisconsin – October 28th, 2022

Road bike power meter app ride west of Oshkosh, Wisconsin demonstrates the Cykelstrom Bicycle Power Meter App.

Road bike power meter app demonstration ride west of Oshkosh, Wisconsin – October 28th, 2022

If you would like to see more Cykelstrom Bicycle Power Meter App videos, please visit @Cykelstrom on YouTube and remember to “Like” and “Subscribe” to our channel.

The Road Bike For This Test Ride

road bike power meter
The bike I use for road and gravel rides – Diamondback Haanjo Comp

I rode a Diamondback Haanjo Comp as a road bike for this ride equipped with a 4iiii Precision Pro dual sided power meter on a Shimano 105 11-speed group set. The speed sensor was a Wahoo Bluetooth speed sensor and cadence information was provide by the power meter. Heart rate information was collected with a Polar H7 chest strap sensor. The smartphone was a MotorolaG6 running Android Oreo and Cykelstrom version 1.36. All of the power meter and sensor data was collected, saved locally and automatically uploaded to Strava with the Cykelstrom Bicycle Power Meter App at the end of the ride.

Road Bike Power Meter App Accuracy

The best accuracy for this ride is emphasized in bold.

SensorsCrank Power Meter (Watts avg.)Cykelstrom (Watts avg.)Difference (Watts)Margin of Error (Watts)
External Speed and Cadence155.27163.017.74+/- 1.64
GPS Speed and External Cadence155.27158.603.33+/- 1.60
External Speed Only156.10169.3313.23+/- 1.76
GPS Speed Only156.10164.468.36+/- 1.71
Table created using Bland-Altman Analysis using a 4iiii Precision Pro dual sided crank power meter as the standard with 95% confidence level.

Discussion Of This Ride’s Results

I have emphasized in bold the results from “GPS Speed and External Cadence” as the most accurate. When compared to the dual sided power meter, Cykelstrom had a small bias of 3.33 +/- 1.60 Watts which is an average difference of about 2%. Results like these are typical when riding on smooth surfaces like tarmac roads. When calibrated correctly, Cykelstrom provides acceptable power measurements for the the recreational road cyclist.

What If You Did Not Use A Cadence Sensor?

For this particular ride, if you had no sensors and just relied on the internal sensors of the smartphone, you would observe that the bias was 8.36 +/- 1.71 Watts which is an average difference of about 5%. This accuracy would also be acceptable to most recreational road cyclists with the following condition. Since cadence information is not collected in this case, the rider would need to keep their coasting to a minimum. When I ride on the road, I seldom coast and pedal all of the time. This is why the results excluding the cadence sensor are so close to when a cadence sensor was used.

Adding A Cadence Sensor

For best accuracy, I recommend the use of an external Bluetooth cadence sensor. If you would like to learn more about how to add Bluetooth sensors to the Cykelstrom App please visit the article “Adding Bluetooth Sensors to Cykelstrom.”

Strava Activity

Click on the map to visit this activity in Strava.

Elapsed Time Moving Time Distance Average Speed Max Speed Elevation Gain Calories Burned
01:36:36
hours
01:36:06
hours
25.34
mi.
15.82
mph
23.29
mph
437.99
ft.
1,090
kcal
Not sure how many more days I can get away with this kind of ride this year. Hopefully, just one more?

Follow Cykelstrom Road Bike Power Meter App Test Rides On Strava

The Cykelstrom Road Bike Power Meter App Is Exclusively Available On Google Play

bicycle power meter app download button
Cykelstrom Bicycle Power Meter App Download
cykelstrom scan QR code
Scan to go to Cykelstrom on Google Play

Road Bike Power Meter – Test Ride West of Oshkosh, Wisconsin

Road bike power meter app test ride for Cykelstrom version 1.30 which is available to the public on the Google Play Store. Version 1.30 changes the app displayed averages at the end of the ride for moving time only. To make better use of the limited resources on some smartphones, improvements were made to GPS data collection threads and fine tuning of the power estimate calculations.

Road Bike Power Meter App Accuracy For This Ride

The best accuracy for this ride is highlighted in bold.

SensorsCrank Power Meter (Watts avg.)Cykelstrom (Watts avg.)Difference (Watts)Margin of Error (Watts)
External Speed and Cadence148.18154.706.53+/- 1.47
GPS Speed and External Cadence148.18150.462.28+/- 1.44
External Speed Only149.20162.6213.42+/- 1.63
GPS Speed Only149.20157.978.77+/- 1.66
Table created using Bland-Altman Analysis using a 4iiii Precision Pro dual sided crank power meter as the standard with 95% confidence level.

Discussion Of This Ride’s Results

This test ride of Cykelstrom, tests the accuracy of version 1.30. This version was created to improve the performance of the app on smartphones which are more limited in computing resources.

Highlighted in bold, the table shows that when using the GPS with an external cadence sensor presents results which are closest to the crank power meter. To learn how to set up a cadence sensor in Cykelstrom please visit Adding Bluetooth Sensors to Cykelstrom.

We continue to improve Cykelstrom to enhance your ride experience. If you have a question or comment please reach out to me at: developer@cykelstrom.com.

Kind regards, Chuck

Strava Activity

Click on the map to visit this activity in Strava. Feel free to follow all of our test rides of the road bike power meter app.

Elapsed Time Moving Time Distance Average Speed Max Speed Elevation Gain Calories Burned
01:36:09
hours
01:35:00
hours
25.27
mi.
15.96
mph
23.37
mph
438.32
ft.
1,040
kcal
I made some updates to the power calculation algorithm, in addition I made the averages displayed at the end of the ride to represent only moving time. If you take a long water break, your down time is not represented in the averages.

Follow Cykelstrom Test Rides On Strava

The Cykelstrom Road Bike Power Meter App Is Only Available On Google Play

bicycle power meter app download button
Cykelstrom Bicycle Power Meter App Download
cykelstrom scan QR code
Scan to go to Cykelstrom on Google Play