Digital doping might make you a Tour de Virtual cycling champion

Curiouser and curiouser

The results are curiouser and curiouser. Once I'd moved the data from Strava to Garmin Connect my metres climbed jumped from 290m to 356m and distance from 39.4km to 39.5km. My top speed hit 89.9 km/h. Time in motion and total elapsed time also changed.

Might that result show there's some different calculations going on out there in the digital bowels of different fitness sites? Or at least some poor parsing of XML?

To test the theory of different back-ends on different sites I revived my account on another fitness tracking service, Endomondo, and fed it the same P8 data I'd downloaded from Strava and uploaded to Garmin Connect. The results changed again, to 39.44km travelled and 181m climbed.

I'm now pretty confident that different fitness services are doing things differently.

Now to the question of whether different devices or services confer an advantage to cyclists, runners or others who rely on GPS fitness kit to record or prove their prowess.

Services like Garmin Connect and Strava run challenges and leaderboards that are often fiercely contended. If a particular device offers favourable data, it could provide a kind of “digital doping” that would let users do better than would otherwise be the case.

Perhaps there's also an upscaling effect: you could record in Strava, export to Garmin Connect and be given "bonus" speed or altitude.

Yes, the world of those who chase podium positions on exercise app leaderboards is rather small and odd. But that hasn't stopped people claiming “titles” by using their GPS devices in cars, to ensure they crack speed barriers impossible to achieve with pedals alone. Or injuring themselves in pursuit of a record on city streets.

Then there's Zwift, the new must-have app among cyclists that uses the output of power meters to allow riders to compete in virtual races from the comfort of their static trainers, without having to go out on to a road. A power meter known to be kinder to riders would be a big advantage in Zwift. Or a power meter with hacked, custom, firmware.

All of which is a first-world problem of the highest order, so let's instead veer back towards the slightly more practical to consider how the two phones went after two hours in the small of my sweaty back, on a morning that started out at around eight degrees celsius and perhaps doubled that by the time we reached the café.

The P8 wasn't in a case but survived the ride without any noticeable operational or aesthetic discomfort, but shed about 30 per cent of battery capacity along the way.

The S6 was in a case, so had more protection, and burned through about 25 per cent of battery life.

Those figures promise good things when Vulture South hits the road for our charity bike ride come November. We're still after team members and sponsors for that effort, by the way. ®