VeloViewer Explorer Score and Max Square

The VeloViewer Explorer Score and more specifically the Explorer Max Square has acquired a bit of a cult following since its introduction to the site back in March 2015 despite me not having fully explaining what it is all about until now!  The Explorer Score rewards those people who explore new roads/trails rather doing the same old loops. Providing non-performance based motivations has always been one of the main goals of VeloViewer and this one really looks to tick that box.

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Managing your Strava Starred Segments for Garmin Live Segments

In summer 2015 Garmin introduced Live Strava Segments and since then both Mio and Wahoo Fitness have also introduced the feature to their recent devices (full list of supported devices).  Currently the Garmin devices are limited to bringing in just 100 of your starred Strava segments. This resulted in a number of VeloViewer users asking for a quicker way to manage their starred segments when planning trips away as they were going beyond that 100 segment limit. Strava kindly opened up their API for starring segments so I’ve added in the ability to star and unstar segments in every possible location in VeloViewer to make life a bit easier for you.

Wherever you see the star next to a segment you can now press it to toggle its starred state.  These locations are:

I’ve also added a count of your currently starred segments to your Summary page in the header of the “Segment Stats” section which links to your segment list passing the filter to show just the starred segments.

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Fly Through Your Strava Activities, Routes and Segments With Cesium “Earth” View

For a long time VeloViewer has had the option to export your activities as a KML file to then view in Google Earth but I always wanted to get the equivalent features embedded within the site. A recent discovery of the Cesium JavaScript library has made this possible and has opened the door to all kinds of interesting possibilities. Piloted recently on the Route Details page I’ve now rolled out this new “Earth” view to your activities and segments.

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Mapped Gradient Colours and Google Street View for your Strava Activities, Routes & Segments

Although we’d all love to be out riding/running much more often, sometimes we’re stuck, looking at a computer, pretending to work.  So to make that time as engaging as possible you can now reccy new routes, swot up on all the details of a segment or relive a ride/run from the past using the new/revised Google Street View integration on VeloViewer.  Combine that with the new colour gradients shown on the maps and you get a fantastic way to explore the twists, turns, ups and downs.

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Activity/Route/Segment Direction/Gradient Breakdown

A while ago I built a visualisation to display the orientation of roads in a defined area and had requests to have a similar view for activities.  Well, two years on (I know!) and here it is, with the added breakdown by the gradient of the roads/trails.  Just head to the “Breakdown” tab on any Activity, Route or Segment Details page.  Filtering the selection in the top profile (Activity & Routes) updates the visualisation appropriately.

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Getting and Sharing 3D Profile Images

Hopefully lots of you will have seen the 3D profile images being showcased on Eurosport throughout the Tour de France coverage this year. I have now massively improved the way you can get hold of your own 3D profile images of rides, runs or segments to make it much easier for you (as well as me) to attach to your Strava activities or share on social media from your phone, tablet or PC/Mac.

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Getting your Power/Heart Rate FTP and Normalised Power from your Strava data

FTP and Normalised PowerFinding your FTP (Functional Threshold Power/Performance) is a unavoidably painful experience but getting a number out the other end shouldn’t be, which is why I’ve tried to make that part of the process as simple and versatile as possible. Just sync your data from Strava over to VeloViewer and let VeloViewer do all the number crunching on your behalf. Instantly see your power, normalised power and heart rate based FTPs against all your segments or over any part of any of your activities including your best splits.
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Déjà vu? Finding out if you’ve been there before

Activity OverlapsSegments are a great way to see how many times you’ve covered certain sections of road/track, but what if there are no segments set up for the stretch you are interested in? Say hello to the Activity Overlaps tab! OK, probably not the most sexy of names, but what it lacks in title it makes up for in functionality – select any section of any activity and it will search through all your activities and provide a list and map of any that overlap. Neat!

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Delving into The Sufferfest Rubber Glove with VeloViewer to find your FTP

The Sufferfest - Rubber GloveMost of you by now will have tried out the new activity details page on VeloViewer but in the depths of a northern hemisphere winter, here’s how you can use it to find your Functional Threshold Performance (FTP) in conjunction with The Sufferfest’s Rubber Glove video from the comfort of your own kitchen/garage/cellar/gym.

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Monthly Strava Activity Wheel

Monthly Activity WheelEver since I saw this visualisation of the 2013 Giro d’Italia route last year I’ve wanted to emulate that view, dynamically on my Strava data and luckily for you guys, let you use it too. Once I’d got my head around the maths for drawing the profiles on an arc then the rest quickly took shape. Isn’t maths fun!

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