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Bicycle cadence and speed logger

Former Member

First of all wanted to start by saying that I'm not very savvy with electronics, but am willing to dabble in it.

 

As a bicyclist I am interested in logging my speed and my cadence during my trips.  I am not able to find any commercial product that can do that (at least nothing in the low price range that I'm looking at).

I did find online someone who made one using an Audrino: http://www.mwilliams.dsl.pipex.com/datalogger2.htm, however, it seems expensive and is not detailed enough for me to replicate it.  I am hoping that someone would like this challenge and design a very simple logger without an Audrino and document the steps for others to replicate.

 

Here is what I envision: logger logs time (either actual time or simply a counter from the start point) and the number of pulses it sees from the reed switch of the bicycle wheel and the pulses from the peddles.  No need for a display.

 

Any suggestions?  Anyone interested in the idea?

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    I just wanted to break down what you might need to think about if someone was to build this device. It might explain why something already out there is so expensive.

    That project you reference seems to be based on an electric powered bike, the rear hub is a motor so I think he was getting some data out of it like when a shift gear occurred.

    With all that data, you probably need to bone up on the software side to analyze the behaviors, filter out noise and trend your usage to see if it means anything.

    An arduino does not have a real-time-clock, which is an optional add on module, you probably want the data timestamped.

    There is also heart-rate sensors so you might want to throw that in for full activity metrics. Maybe windspeed indicator too?

    There are GPS modules, accelerometer, and compass sensors for the arduino to give you "flight and location" data if needed.

    That said, you are looking at building some sort of black box flight recorder for a bicyclist.

    So, basic arduino stuff that there are already examples of:

    LCD display is warranted - better than a few LEDs blinking to give status or see what kind of data you are logging in real time

    Wheel movement captured by magnetic sensors to calculate speed, RPM and distance travelled

    Shift gearing captured by switch postions/encoder of some sort

    Datalogging - write to SD card to dump the data to PC for analysis

     

    It is a doable project but even basic bike sensors seem to record speed and cadence, maybe just max values, I guess you really want to analyze your ride as a performance athlete.  Good luck.

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  • 0

    I just wanted to break down what you might need to think about if someone was to build this device. It might explain why something already out there is so expensive.

    That project you reference seems to be based on an electric powered bike, the rear hub is a motor so I think he was getting some data out of it like when a shift gear occurred.

    With all that data, you probably need to bone up on the software side to analyze the behaviors, filter out noise and trend your usage to see if it means anything.

    An arduino does not have a real-time-clock, which is an optional add on module, you probably want the data timestamped.

    There is also heart-rate sensors so you might want to throw that in for full activity metrics. Maybe windspeed indicator too?

    There are GPS modules, accelerometer, and compass sensors for the arduino to give you "flight and location" data if needed.

    That said, you are looking at building some sort of black box flight recorder for a bicyclist.

    So, basic arduino stuff that there are already examples of:

    LCD display is warranted - better than a few LEDs blinking to give status or see what kind of data you are logging in real time

    Wheel movement captured by magnetic sensors to calculate speed, RPM and distance travelled

    Shift gearing captured by switch postions/encoder of some sort

    Datalogging - write to SD card to dump the data to PC for analysis

     

    It is a doable project but even basic bike sensors seem to record speed and cadence, maybe just max values, I guess you really want to analyze your ride as a performance athlete.  Good luck.

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