Crane Heart Rate Monitor

Background

When I cycle to work, which is a roughly 15 mile ride each way, I always find the first 5 miles pretty tough - I put this down to things like still waking up, muscles are warming up, body is cold etc. The next third of the ride ends up feeling like a good cruise and the final third usually ends up with a push mentally because I know I'm nearly at the end of my ride - normally that but in the middle is the way it is because I want to pace myself and not risk burning out because at each end of my journey (maybe more so on the return journey) there are some large climbs which I need to have the energy to take on.

This "effort profile" makes sense, but I do wonder - have I got more I can give than I think? At the moment my analysis is limited to looking at my average speed profile. When I look at my profile at the areas where my speed is significantly lower than my average (check this out as an example - go to "Analysis", then you can effectively replay my ride) you can see that just as I'm going over the bridge is an area where my speed is below average.

So when I cycled home the night of this particular ride above, I told myself "give it your all Chris!!" in an attempt to get my average up - but it got me thinking, is there a better way than just trying to remember my "slow bits"? I think so ...

The Theory

When I'm in my middle portion of my ride, circa 20-30 minutes after leaving home I believe I've warmed up and that my body has switched over from burning sugars to burning fat for energy which is why I always feel like this is a good cruising period (whilst still bearing in the back of my mind that I don't want to push too hard, I've still got 10 miles to go!), I wonder - am I cruising, or am I just crawling along in terms of what I'm capable of? Looking at average speeds, I'm certainly not slowing down, but what about knowing what my body is capable of? How do I measure how hard I'm working?

Here's where you start hearing phrases like "lactic threshold" and "VO2 max", but I want to keep this simple for now (I know I'm good at overcomplicating things!) so to measure my workload, I decided to investigate a Heart Rate Monitor (HRM).

HRM Key Features

ANT+? Bluetooth? What the heck? ANT+ and Bluetooth are both communication technologies. Both very popular. ANT+ is actually a proprietary technology owned by Garmin, which theoretically could cause compatibility issues, but it really doesn't. ANT+ is extremely popular in cycling computers etc, and even smart phones. My Samsung S3 doesn't have ANT+, but it does have Bluetooth. Most cycling computers such as the Garmin 500 will have both ANT+ and Bluetooth so you can probably mix-and-match sensors as you build up a collection.

And that's about it! There's not much to a HRM to really worry about!

Crane HRM

I was doing my weekly shop in Aldi when I stumbled across their technology cabinet and saw a Crane HRM on sale. It was on sale, reduced from £24.99 to £17.99 which is shockingly cheap! I did some googling and the jury (The Internet) seemed split on love-hate. There were those that had ultra-high end HRMs that challenge the accuracy of the Crane, but for £17.99 I wasn't that worried about inaccuracies!

Crane Heart Rate Monitor

The only concern I did have was that there were quite a few people complaining that they couldn't get it working and that some had to use the Crane Connect app. I can happily report that I had no issues, connected first time and I'm not even using the Crane Connect app!

To connect the Crane HRM to Strava so that it will record the heart rate data during the ride, fire up the app on your device, then go to Start Ride. Before pressing the record button, go to the settings. Then enable Bluetooth sensors. You may have several options here - for the Crane HRM you need to enable Bluetooth v4.0 and ensure the Heart Rate Monitor is ticked.

It would be rude to not get out on the bike straight away to test it out, so that's precisely what I did! I literally did a lap around the estate to see if it would record the heart rate data and the ride simultaneously and it did!

No issues what-so-ever!

Issues however have been seen when I go on a longer ride. You can see in the image below, at about the 30 minute mark the HRM suddenly fails by providing a constant HR output.

I suspected that the battery may be at fault as the battery being used is the same one since I purchased the HRM in October 2015, so approximatley 6 months later its not unreasonable that the battery could have died. So I undertook another ride, with a fresh battery, but again, at about 29 minutes the HRM output fails and locks to a constant output.

Conclusion

I've been on a couple of rides with it now and I'm chuffed with it. The strap is all one piece rather than having a buckle or latch and its a fabric strap which is nice and comfy. The sensor and transmitter are nice and small, I didn't have any issues with it digging in on any ride. It does feel quite weird to start with, almost like its slipping down (but not).

I've steered away from the Crane Connect app because I don't want to risk upsetting the connection I've got working between the HRM and Strava, so I can't comment on the apps functionality.

Now I will be using the HRM with Strava mounted to my handlebars so that I can see what my heart rate is doing, that way when I'm in my "middle third" of my commute and cruising when I look down and see that my heart rate is low, I can safely say to myself that I'm not working hard and so I can wind it on a bit.

On my initial short rides, the HRM worked perfectly, but on my longer rides of nearly 90 minutes the HRM would drop out. Currently I have not worked out why the HRM is failing after about 30 minutes, I will be contacting Crane technical support to try and work out why the problem is occuring, however until that time, I feel unable to recommend this product.

This is a shame, when it works, it is fantastic, but its just not been reliable for me yet.

NOT RECOMMENDED BY CYCLE INTO THE FOLD!

Getting back on two wheels

Background

In spring of 2014 I decided to dust off the old mountain bike that I purchased back in university to start using it again and to get fit. The bike itself only cost me £75 because I got a good deal. It only required some WD40 and a new inner tube to get it going again so on Saturday May 30th, I got on the bike for the first time and went for a ride along the coast.

That was the start of a good year of cycling for me, the bug had well and truly bitten me so I spent the next two months cycling around my town getting my stamina and overall endurance up because I had an objective: cycling to work.


For the rest of 2014 up to around mid-September, I cycled to work. At first just once a week because the 30 mile round trip took it out of me, but before long I built up to twice, then three times a week.

Cycling on my mountain bike

The weight dropped off me, by the end of the summer I was 20 kg lighter than at the beginning! There was one problem though, the rides were really hurting! And not my legs! It was my back. The bike frame is a meagre 17" frame, but I'm over 6' 4" and I was bending over a lot in order to reach the low handle bars. By about 40 minutes into a ride, I would start getting tingling across my hips, by 50-60 minutes it would be painful (pull those times in by 20 minutes if I was doing mountain biking).

I really needed a bike that suited my size better. Fortunately the good weather was ending so cycling any distance (like to work) was becoming less desirable - I don't mind if I have to pull out my waterproof jacket when I'm half-way for a drizzle, but I'm not LEAVING my house when its raining. So the bike got stashed away into the garage.

And fast forward to now ...

Even though I'd only bought a new, massively more economical car in January which was taking up a good chunk of what was disposable income, I was still considering a bike. My employer is part of the Cycle2Work scheme, which simply put gives you an interest free loan to buy a bike and (some) accessories worth up to a total of £1000.

The Cycle2Work scheme is a little like Personal Contract Hire. You pay for the bike over 12 months (but before you pay tax, so in essence get a tax break). At the end of the 12 months (which I'm not at yet) you can then either return the bike, or pay a small amount to keep it. From my research and sums, it will work out no cheaper than just buying the bike - but you do get an interest free loan to spread the cost out over, ideal for me as I didn't have a lump sum to just drop on the bike.

At this stage, I wouldn't say I'm clued up about bikes. So going to my local bike shop, I went in blind and just asked for their opinion. So off I went to Sandy Wallace Cycles and got talking to Gordon. I'd done the sums on the Cycle2Work website and looked at my own finances so I knew my budget was about £400 on the bike, with another £100 for some accessories.

As per usual, being so tall (6' 4") I was limited in choice. My ideal bike frame size is 20" or 22", unsurprisingly the choice at that size is limited. We did find a really nice Giant (how apt!) bike that even had disc brakes on for bang on £399. I then wanted a pannier rack with pannier bags to take my work clothes in, which was another £105. £504 got me everything I needed! So with that quote I applied for my voucher to get my bike.

Heading back to the bike shop a few days later with voucher in hand to purchase said bike, I get disappointed to find out that the bike in my size is out of stock (probably everyone else buying bikes through Cycle2Work and won't be available again until July! *cry* We quickly amended the order for a Ridgeback Velocity. Similar quality bike (although with a lifetime warranty) same size etc. And I can pick it up within a week! Woohoo!

Ridgeback Velocity

With my shiny new bike I'm off!

Fast forward to right now ...

In just a few months I clocked up over 500 km, but my riding isn't as regular as I'd like. I'd like to be cycling to work several times a week, but for various reasons mostly to do with motivation because of my situation at work I'm not managing that.