Sprenzy Shopping Blog

If you read my review of the Garmin Edge 305, you know that I love my GPS cycling computer. Whether you own a Garmin Edge or Forerunner, the Garmin Training Center (GTC) is the supplied software to download and analyze your workout data. While GTC is adequate and a necessary evil, it’s pretty bland and boring. I can only look at squiggly lines for a short time. The GTC graph below is from a recent bike ride, which shows heart rate, elevation and grade over distance.

An alternative and more useful storage and analysis tool is MotionBased (MB). MB is a web application that allows a member to upload GPS track data and mashes it up with Google Maps. Let’s take a look at the free version, MotionBased Lite. After creating an account, workout data can be directly uploaded from a supported GPS device with the use of the MotionBased Agent. The uploaded activity is then sent to your MB Inbox where you can name the activity, categorize it by type and add a comment. After submitting the activity, it is stored in your Digest, which is a listing of all of your activities.

Activity Dashboard

From the Digest, you can access the activity dashboard, which displays a summary view of your workout. The summary shown below is a road bike ride with high-level data, Google mapping and elevation profile. This ride can be viewed publicly. You can then drill down and analyze the data by time, distance, speed, elevation, heart rate and laps. MotionBased also retrieves the weather from the nearest airport during the activity. It may not be the exact temperature or wind conditions experienced during a workout, especially with many micro-climates like the Bay Area, but it’s beneficial data provided by MB.

Map Player

The map player “replays” the route taken during an activity showing time elapsed, distance, speed, altitude, grade and heart rate at each location on the route. Currently, it only works in Internet Explorer with Adobe SVG viewer. The functionality could be very useful and entertaining, but there are many usability issues that render it ineffective. However, the new beta player, which shows up randomly, is a much improved version that works across browsers. Here is the MB Player for the ride shown above. There are still several UI/usability issues, but it’s a big upgrade.

TrailNetwork

From MB, “the TrailNetwork is the community-oriented section of MotionBased where customers can access activities posted by other members. It’s a growing database of activities and routes created by MotionBased customers. The TrailNetwork may be used to discover new activities or to review results of activities for virtual competition.” Unless an activity is marked private, all of your workouts will be displayed in the TrailNetwork. Additionally, each user has a public activities page. Here’s mine: public activities - Chuck415.

The community feature is the best part of MB. You can view and download route information from other members in your area or get new courses while visiting other cities or countries. It’s a great way to find the routes that are popular with the locals. Additionally, you can share your public page and XML/RSS feed with friends to keep them up to date or to simply motivate each other.

Google Earth

If you have Google Earth, you can export an activity and re-live it with a bird’s-eye view. I don’t know how helpful this feature is, but I definitely enjoy it. It’s a great way to share a run or ride with friends. And on days I’m suffering on my bike, I have more fun watching the replay on Google Earth than the actual ride.

Pricing

With the free version, MotionBased Lite, an unlimited number of activities can be uploaded or accessed, but only the 10 most recent workouts have the dashboard. Upgrading to MotionBased Standard allows dashboard access to all activities, sorting/filtering of the Digest, Saved Reports, the Analyzer and no ads. Check out the MB product features for a description of all MB features. MotionBased Standard is $11.95 a month or $95.40 for an annual plan.

Summary

MotionBased is a great web-based service to store, track and analyze your GPS workout data. With MB, you are able to:

• Upload activities and store your history on MotionBased where you can remotely access it from anywhere
• Perform more post-workout analysis than the Garmin Training Center software
• Visualize activities on Google Maps or Google Earth
• Share workouts with friends or view activities from other MotionBased members
• Export any public activity in GPX or CRS file format, which can be loaded as a course on your GPS device

My primary issue with MB is the UI of the site. I think MB can make major changes to improve the site usability. Still, it’s a wonderful service for anyone with a fitness GPS device. The free service, MotionBased Lite, provides all but a few features that paying members receive.

I upgraded to MB Standard because I want to analyze all of my previous activities. Now, I’m addicted to MB and I can’t wait to upload my GPS data after each ride. Between my Garmin Edge 305 and MotionBased, my training is absolutely blissful.