I don’t know how many of you keep a training log, but I suspect that many of you do. Maybe some of you are resolving to start keeping a cycling diary in 2006. Even if you don’t race, keeping a somewhat detailed log that includes the basic stats from your ride, a description of the course and conditions, and a description of how you feel can be an effective tool in gauging improvement.

For a very short time, I tried a shareware program called BikeLog to record the data from rides on my Sony Clie. I didn’t keep it up because I just didn’t like to enter the information right after a ride. I have seen another system called Bikini that lets you turn your Palm device into a cyclocomputer of sorts. Really cool, but that is not exactly what I want either. So here is the idea… What if I could just beam the data from a cyclocomputer directly to my Palm OS device? No wires would be needed, just the IR port on the PDA and a similar one on the cyclocomputer. The manufacturer of the cyclocomputer could provide desktop software that would allow me to record a few comments once the information has been synced between the PDA and my desktop computer. Of course, I would want the cyclocomputer to have a function that would allow me to use it on several bikes. As I beamed the stats from my ride, the software would record in the log whether I was on my road, mountain, or cross bike. It would also be nice if the cyclocomputer could store the info for a few rides. If I missed transferring the info for a couple of rides, I could just wait and beam the stats for a group of rides at once. With all of that information stored on the computer, I could do all kinds of fun things like plot charts that show how much slower I get each year. What do you all think, would you buy a product like this? If any of you can think of reasons why this idea would not work, I’d love to hear those as well.

While I am on the subject of PDAs, lately I have been using the new custom RSS channel feature from Avant Go. After I sync my Clie, I can read the feeds from several of my favorite bike blogs on the go. Pretty cool.