As promised I’ve created a new challenge on Endomondo, open to all you hardy souls brave enough to keep commuting by bike through the depths of the UK winter.

The Oath of the Winter Warrior[/b]
http://www.endomondo.com/challenges/7385038

Sign up, take the oath and show your true mettle.

Done! In it to win it, great idea!!

cant open it but whensit start ? im back in uk in november.

winter marathons at the ready 😀

Starting on Sunday at the end of British Summertime.

Runs till the start of March so plenty of time to log your marathons. 🙂

Only open to Cycling (Transport) at the moment as it is aimed at commuters.
But I can expand it to include other cycling if we don’t get reasonable numbers. I realise some folk record their commute as Cycling (Sport)

*shameless bump for the lunchtime crowd*

Am I right in assuming its like strave ie got to register and use GPS etc?

SiB: yeah similar to Strava, but slightly less competitive in that there are still “Challenges” and leaderboards, but less emphasis on being the fastest all the time.

It’s free to use. You register on the website, then you can upload rides from your GPS, or I think most folk just use the phone app which logs rides then automatically uploads them for you.

Bit more info here:
http://www.endomondo.com/features

We’ve had a few “Singletrack members only” challenges in the past, including the current ”STW October all cycling challenge” – but this one I have created is open to all UK commuters.

14 brave warriors have taken The Oath so far. Any more?

Looks like I set this challenge up just in time, it has just started snowing here! 😀

its + 40 here…….

cant wait to get back to bonny scotland even if it is cool enough to wear a jacket sometimes .

Excuse the noob question but do I need the Pro version or can I just cheap out with the free version?

i’ve signed up to endomondo just for this.

but i’ve never seen such a confusing website, i can’t find anything!

+1 for what ahwiles said 😕

brodie: you’re fine with the basic/free app.

The Pro app is ad-free and adds a couple of nice-to-have extras like little graphs of lap times and the ability to do interval training.

More details here: http://www.endomondo.com/features

ahwiles: happy to point you in the right direction.

Basically all you do is run the app on your phone. Set your Sport to Cycling, Transport, check you have GPS reception then hit Start when you start your ride and Stop at the end.

It records your “Workout” using the phones GPS and automatically uploads it to the website when you finish. It will be automatically counted in any challenge you have joined too.

All your previous rides appear under the Workouts tab on the website, where you can also look at maps, statistics etc.

After not using Endomondo for about 8 months i’ll join this, also adding my October miles, although tbh they are low this month due to injury 🙁

Don’t worry will – this challenge doesn’t start till Sunday so your low October miles won’t disadvantage you.

Ah yeah, good call. Lets hope the knee is better for sunday then 😆

okay then who has the longest commute? Is MidlandTrailquestGraham banned?
I will start with between 11-20 miles each way.

haha – I might be able to cobble together 2km commute (when/if I cba to bother with the bike)

soma_rich: mine is 11 miles each way, though I can only do it two sometimes three times a week, so I don’t expect to place that well.

Graham – ta, but i’m only on a wind-up phone, so i’ll be uploading gpx files.

(assuming i can work out how)

but the website it jamrampackedfull of adverts, and it’s very hard to navigate.

#preferthelookofstrava

i’m only on a wind-up phone, so i’ll be uploading gpx files.
(assuming i can work out how)

Go to Workouts->Import Workout

You can upload directly from a Garmin device connected to the PC or you can just upload as a gpx/tcx/fit file.

the website it rampackedfull of adverts, and it’s very hard to navigate.

There are certain browser add-ons which should not be discussed on Singletrack, and definitely not used here, but which are very useful for reducing the adverts on such sites.

They only just added the adverts recently and some of their positioning is sub-optimal.

#whatadverts

26kms each way shortest route from my new house

try to do it 5 x a week when in the uk

old one was 50k each way – did it twice a month ! – wasnt the distance it was the time … id leave the house at 5 and get in at 7pm.

i have poofed it up a little this year with an alfine 8 to replace my 42:19 fixed.

Is there any chance you can include Cycling sport as well as transport to count towards the figures?
All my commutes up until now have been logged as Cycling sport.

soma_rich – Member
okay then who has the longest commute

In the morning it ranges between 15 miles and 30 miles, on the way back anything from 7 to 25.

My commutes are obviously not direct and as use them for training too, so what is classed as transport and what is sport miles? Either way I still start at work/house and finish at the other.

Maybe open it upto sport to?

what is classed as transport and what is sport miles?

I’d say it is Transport if you are going to works/shops etc rather than just out for a spin.

Hmmm… I was trying to keep it focussed on hardy regular commuters rather than people doing big distances on fair-weather weekends.

But if folk think it should be opened up a bit I’m happy to do that…

Any objections?

I’m in, do I get extra points for wearing shorts all winter?

I really don’t mind tbh, it’s your challenge 😆

yeah leave it as transport only graham. Cycling during the daylight hours is cheating …. itll be dark both ways soon !

> I really don’t mind tbh, it’s your challenge
> yeah leave it as transport only graham

Fair enough.

disco_stu: are you happy to start logging your commutes as Cycling, Transport – or does that mess you up in some way?

Remember your commutes up till now won’t count anyway so you’d only need to change it for your future commutes.

GrahamS – Member

Hmmm… I was trying to keep it focussed on hardy regular commuters rather than people doing big distances on fair-weather weekends.

But if folk think it should be opened up a bit I’m happy to do that…

Any objections?

“focussed on hardy regular commuters” is the bit that appeals.

Cool. Motion rejected, I’ll leave it as Cycling, Transport only.
Sorry if that excludes anyone.

It’s easy enough to change once you have uploaded your ride though, so should be fine 🙂

gah, i dont want to stop using Strava but my poor old iphone will probably have a fit trying to run 2 GPS apps at the same time.

I love the idea of this challenge though!

EDIT: I’ve tried downloading the GPX files from strava but get “Validity
Excluded from statistics” in endomondo

scaled – is it a 4 ?

i run both on my iphone 4 with no issues …. battery doesnt even seem to go down any quicker !

also you can upload strava gpx to endomondo and get them included into statistics. There is a check box you have to untick though once uploaded

disco_stu: are you happy to start logging your commutes as Cycling, Transport – or does that mess you up in some way?

Remember your commutes up till now won’t count anyway so you’d only need to change it for your future commutes.

The only reason my commutes are logged as Cycling Sport is so they counted towards the STW Road challenges as I normally don’t take the direct route into work or when heading home.
Now that you can have multiple workouts types counting towards a challenge I suppose it doesn’t matter as much now.

gah, i dont want to stop using Strava but my poor old iphone will probably have a fit trying to run 2 GPS apps at the same time.

Nah it’ll be fine. I spent half the summer running Endomondo plus the Samsung Hope Relay charity app on my rides.

On some rides I’ll run:
Endomondo
+ BikeHub (for navigation)
+ Sustrans (for cross-referencing the NCN bits that BikeHub hasn’t got)
+ OSMTrack (for recording the ride to trace into OpenStreetMap, so I can fix BikeHub 🙂 )

Copes fine (iPhone 4) and doesn’t seem to drain the battery noticeably quicker.

Rode home last night through blinding hail and wet sleet. Shame the challenge hasn’t begun yet – it would have been a very fitting start. Still… snow outside this morning so who knows what Monday will bring. 😀

Battle has commenced 🙂