So I bought a Basis Peak. After reading some reviews, I was pretty sure that the technology and software in this space is not mature enough to be satisfying, but I wanted a technology toy. The last cycle computer I had on my bike was a sad disappointment (in the endlessly-finicky and didn't really work department) and the selling point of the Basis is that it will detect bicycling automatically as an activity. Since that's much of what I do, and metrics makes everything more fun, it seemed like an obvious choice for my toy.

I've been half-heartedly trying to understand a little more about how to find my aerobic zones - my (uninformed) perception is most aerobic activity, at least initially has me breathing very very hard long before my heart rate climbs above 120 or so, but that after fairly prolonged exercise, something somewhat more normal happens. (Related hypothesis: I have a fairly low max heart rate.) Getting the Basis seemed like a way to inform these guesses a bit.

The phone app software for the Basis is pretty terrible. They have a support forum, that covers all the complaints I have, with a bunch of support moderators who confirm how things are, without acknowledging that the requests are totally reasonable. The website gives cute charts, but over-interprets them a bit. Here's how well it thinks I slept Saturday night:

Very plausible, right? It can also tell me that during that interval my pulse was at a consistent 44 bpm (that at least matches direct observations).

The reason I don't believe it is that this is my daytime activity on Sunday:

It's completely and absolutely correct about biking to and from church, but it recorded church as asleep, and likewise a little mid-afternoon computer time as a nap. Never mind that both showed a perky-and-awake pulse in the 60's, and it does know I got 92% quality sleep for 7.5 hours, so why should I be drowsing all day?

I hoped today to take it out on a bike ride, and push past the initial "I am breathing hard, but not really in the zone" interval. Sadly, the black ice coating everything meant that I was not going to get anywhere near my actual limits. The numbers are at least somewhat informative:

It's ok at picking up that I'm biking - a little conservative about the end points - the steps taken at 8:38 are where I fell and picked myself up, about 1/4 mile into the ride. The gap later is where I stop (twice) to read/reply to SMSes (on call for work). During a stretch of the first half, I did spend at least 5min, maybe more, going as fast as I was able, and breathing very hard; the data reflects that, showing a plausible 140's bpm. Close to the middle of the ride, I then spend a good while going cautiously over stretches of ice, before speeding up towards the end of the ride, all nicely reflected by the graph. Subjectively, however, I did not feel like I was working hard, during any of the last half - I was certainly not gasping for breath, which suggests that the 147 bpm high point towards the end of the ride is exactly in the aerobic zone that I was trying to find.

So, I have some validation that the data is potentially useful. A cleaner test may quantify how long a ride is needed to find the zone (perhaps longer than the 30min ride to and from work). I've never recorded (on myself) a pulse higher than 150, but I'm guessing lack of continuous monitoring is the only reason for that. This shall be revisited with more data.