Cycling dynamics charts

[Sven_K]

Hi @david,

first of all thanks for this awesome site, just started two months ago but it is such a useful tool to track my training progress. I have just got my new power meter pedals with cycling dynamics support and wonder if you could add additional power charts for an activity to show pedal smoothness and torque effectiveness (over time in the overview and over watts in the power tab) in addition to balance. Both values were logged by my Wahoo Bolt and Assioma Duo and are present in the Fit file uploaded to intervals.icu. Here is an example record from the file:

* altitude: 76.79999999999995 (m)
* ascent: 1 (m)
* cadence: 81 (rpm)
* calories: 4 (kcal)
* distance: 128.31 (m)
* enhanced_altitude: 76.79999999999995 (m)
* enhanced_speed: 7.093 (m/s)
* gps_accuracy: 2 (m)
* grade: 0.0 (%)
* heart_rate: 128 (bpm)
* left_pedal_smoothness: 28.0 (percent)
* left_right_balance: 48
* left_torque_effectiveness: 84.5 (percent)
* position_lat: ... (semicircles)
* position_long: ... (semicircles)
* power: 273 (watts)
* right_pedal_smoothness: 23.0 (percent)
* right_torque_effectiveness: 72.5 (percent)
* speed: 7.093 (m/s)
* temperature: 24 (C)
* timestamp: 2021-05-29 08:46:30

Thanks in advance

[david]

I have a todo list item to make it possible to plot any trace present in the file. That should handle this use-case.

[Nitish_Nag]

Hey david, any update on this? I tried to look at torque effectiveness / pedal smoothness but cant see it as an option.

[yokuha]

@david , it would truly be great to get pedal smoothness and torque effectiveness into the activity charts;-)
In my case also from Assiomas via a Wahoo Bolt… The ELEMNT app shows such graphs, but they are simply to small:-o

[david]

Do you mind pointing me at one of your activities with that data? Also a screenshot of how it is plotted in the ELEMNT app. Tx.

[yokuha]

Please see todays ride ( TdlM #2).
Here are two screenshots from the ELEMNT app (from last Sunday, another option):

[yokuha]

@david , hope the data helps/is good. Please let me know if you’d like more data or info.

Regarding ideas on what to do with this – besides the simple plots as in the ELEMNT app, there is this (old)website that has some very interesting and useful analytics:
https://www.cyclinganalytics.com/blog/2014/04/torque-effectiveness-and-pedal-smoothness

There’s also some info on the Favero website

​IAV Cycling Dynamics | Favero Electronics

All Data provided by Assioma Power Meter Pedals | Favero Electronics

[david]

Ok I can see the data in the recent file (left_torque_effectiveness etc.). Would it be sufficient to just have those available as traces? Thats easy to do. Doing an XY plot like on Cycling dynamics is much more work and there is probably some lower hanging fruit on the todo list

[yokuha]

Enabling plotting this data as traces, and seeing them on a large screen and visually correlated with the effort/power/etc., would definitely be a big step forward!

Maybe these advanced plots could go on your ToDo list at some appropriate priority;-)

I’ve also been thinking on how to easily access such more specific data, incl. even the L/R balance stuff, for advanced offline histogramming/plotting by myself … (guess I need to learn how to parse fit files in Python;-)

[MedTechCD]

The charts and metrics are nice but I haven’t seen or read anything contributing to an improved pedalling technique. On the contrary, even simply trying to improve L/R balance results in performance loss.
As far as I know it can only be usefull when recovering from a leg injury impacting one leg only. Then a foolow-up of the recovery process can be done.
Maybe the future will bring more but for now, it has only been a marketing point.

[Luisma_Gallego_Soy_P]

Pedalling technique can be improved by working on the bike and with simple exercises at home (ankle dorsiflexion, hip flexors, gluteus…).
Another way to work on pedalling technique on the bike is to have the value of effectiveness and smoothness, using an intensity close to the first threshold or slightly above, a cadence of 75 rpm and looking for an effectiveness of over 80% and a smoothness of over 20%. Remember that round pedalling is biomechanically ineffective, the psoas is overused and is not beneficial for the cyclist.

[mighelone]

It would be very nice to have access to these values aa traces. Some as accessing the L/R power.
Would it be complicate to add to the platform?

Thanks

[david]

I added L/R pedal smoothness and L/R torque effectiveness. You need to do Actions → Reprocess file to add them to existing activities. Maybe someone can do something cool with a custom activity chart?

[mighelone]

Nice one! Thanks for that. I would like to try to add some plot.
Where can I find a list of the available attributes of the icu.streams object?

Thanks,

Michele

[david]

Cool! I have just updated the docs:

Server side data model for scripts

This post lists the classes and enums available to JavaScript code running on the server (e.g. for custom activity fields with scripts). I am going to add more comments soon! Activity GapModel StravaGear Activity.Lap Interval Interval.Type IntervalGroup ZoneTime ZoneOrder IcuAchievement IcuAchievement.Type DataCurvePt HRRecovery Activity.Source HRLoadModel.Type PaceTssCalc.Type ActivityStreamSet ActivityStream ActivityStream.Anomaly Athlete Athlete.WindSpeed Athlete.Rain ActivityType.Settings A…

[mighelone]

Ah ok, I found also that it can be helpful to print the available activities:

console.log(icu.activity.stream_types)

I created a left/right pedal smoothness plot, which is available to the activity charts.
It looks quite crappy, but I need a bit more of time for improving it.

Thanks, I really love the intervals.icu extension capabilites.

[mighelone]

Is there a way to add a dropdown menu to select between pedal smoothness or torque effectiveness?

It would also be nice to add a trend line.