ErgZone + Intervals.icu Integration (Beta): Row, Ski, Bike, Run

[davidxcz]

@David_Bannister

I am a bit disppointed & confused as to why there are/seem to be so few athletes on Intervals’ Forum that use, or at least want to upload their C2 rower or Skierg sessions, or at least have shown interest in this sync or Intervals.row app that is in development

Same. But the more involved I get in my local boathouse, the more I recognize the same thing the intervals.row guy noticed:

@Intervals_001

Even if it could handle more, nobody’s going to spend 20 minutes button-pressing before they start. So coaches don’t bother. They stick to old faithfuls, athletes go as hard as boathouse culture demands and their bodies can handle, and we lose the benefits of structured training.

The sorts of folks who use Ergs consistently, in my experience, are most interested in getting to the “suffering” portion. Not a whole lot of data-drive, and barely any real interest in tracking their workload. Even machine maintenace takes a backseat. I think, apart from the exceptional business practices, that this is the reason Concept2 is so beloved: it’s just plug and play.

In short, I think we’re a unique breed of fitness-motivated and nerdy .

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@David_Bannister

I cannot understand why C2 don’t have their FIT file record per second as this seems the common method for all/most other fitness machines & so the most likely that analysis platforms/devices would expect. Presumably there is a reason.

I hesitate to ping, but @Jaap_van_Ekris seems to know some folks over at Ergzone and might have some input here. Based on some conversations on the OpenRowingMonitor GH, I think the reasoning is thus:

It is deliberate as in rowing metrics (aside time and distance) do not change in between strokes (this is because we present all metrics averaged across the stroke, instead of instantanuous, as pace/watts/velocity/strokerate/etc.. all vary a lot within the stroke). So reporting per stroke also allows decent counting of them, etc.

He’s speaking primarily to his project’s behaviour, but I’ve noticed C2 PMs’ recording behaviour can be even sparser.

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Regarding pause, I think C2 PMs are sort of notorious for their behaviour. See again ORM GH:

OpenRowingMonitor treats planned rest intervals similar to normal time based intervals, with the exception that the rowing engine is forced to stop collecting metrics during that interval. A PM5 considers a rest interval a subordinate attribute of a normal interval, and it isn’t an independent entity.
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this is [handled in ORM’s workout behaviour] by adding a rest interval to ORM’s workout schedule.
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In reporting, we indeed see the PM5 skipping the split/interval reporting when the pause starts, and including the rest data with the split reporting after the pause has ended. This is consistent with the approach that a rest interval only is an extension of an active interval. In OpenRowingMonitor this behaviour is replicated by not reporting the start of a pause as new split, and combining the data from the active split and the rest split.
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People might deviate from their workout plan and take a break mid-session. In OpenRowingMonitor this is treated as a seperate rest split, clearly separating active and passive metrics. The PM5 essentially ignores the pause, lets time continue and does not change split/interval upon detection.