What are statistics ?

Statistics are just numbers that are collected (in biking context) from variety of devices, starting from simple count-down timer and ending on more technology advanced collectors like Endomondo Android application, bicycle counter with gps/heart rate/elevation and prognosis of progress.

Based on data that you can obtain, you may create different forms of statistics: - Graphs - Diagrams - Counters i.e. average m/h(miles per hour)

Also notable would be to acknowledge statistics data: - Simplest average km/miles per race-route - Highest/Lowest elevation of route - Heart Rate levels on route ( i.e. in which points of route you get tired - which gives feedback on what elements of route (mounting) you could level-up) - many more that I did not yet discovered

Why are they important ?

Pros:

• Motivation - you obtain knowledge that you otherwise would not gain with which you are getting more motivation to bring more from yourself!
• Measure progress - especially needed within racing/trainings.
• Focusing on your goals! - you can focus on specific goal - i.e. to make next lap in training faster then before.

Cons:

• You may get dismotivated ! - if you will not have progress with your goals,
• It's not for everyone - short term bikers should first learn to enjoy making best of biking instead of focusing on numbers.
• Statistics can be bound to your matter - you may start to fool yourself by using statistics (as they say - "There's truth, semitruth and statistics" )

Who really cares about statistics ?

In short answer to this is simple - anyone who wants to achieve something in sport - it does not matter if its cycling, athletics, swimming or running.

Elaborating, in each of this sports you use statistics and numbers to make competition between each participants.

This then makes a good ground to motivate players to level-up and be better than your competition and yourself sometimes (beat your own records).

I myself in particular find statistics fascinating and motivational. They not only gives me a feedback about how my body feels and where it stands, but also describes my successes and failures.

But there is also the second side of the coin - sometimes I find statistics in applications - especially combined with competition - a bit demotivational. Taking an example - if you don't have so much time in some month as you had in previous, then you see lower progress against opponent then you expected it to be. And it should be perfectly fine, because you didn't have time, but still statistics don't have that accounted.

Why our Biking Endorphine project uses statistics??

First of all when I've created this project initially it was called "biking-stats" - that means I wanted to achieve a better statistics than there is in free-mode at Endomondo. Let's look at arguments against and for statistics in project:

For:

• You have real feedback from gps about progress of each user
• You can count information about such user and give them feedback - since each and almost every sport-applications does.

Against:

• As previously said statistics can lie to you in some way
• Using statistics with competition creates a winner/looser situation, where none of them are good way to achieve more(in a positive way)

Thanks

Thanks folks, that's all. In the comments below, you can give me a feedback what do you think about statistics in our sport-life and programming?

Do you find them atractive and positive ? Do you care about them ??

Maybe not and you struggle against them ? Any comment is appreciated.

See you soon :)