Archive for category: Product Updates

The Holiday Season is upon us and we’d like to take this opportunity to thank you for your continued support. Your feedback and loyalty fuel our relentless motivation to develop novel sports technology. Thank you.

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‘Tis the season for Fat Bike Snow Angels!

As you may have noticed, we included two, early-adopter Christmas presents in the recent PRECISION power meter firmware upgrade.

These two cycling dynamic features – Left-side Pedal Smoothness and Left-side Torque Effectiveness – are exclusively available if you have already purchased PRECISION or if you purchase a PRECISION by January 15^th, 2016.

Here’s how these features can take your cycling to new heights:

Pedal Smoothness measures how uniformly force is applied to the crank during a pedal revolution. For example, an output of 100 percent would indicate that you’re able to deliver the same amount of force all the way around the pedal stroke. This is nearly impossible since the human leg delivers far more force on the down stroke than on the upstroke. Knowing your pedal smoothness can be an effective way to improve your pedal stroke throughout the entire pedal rotation – not just on the down stroke.

The second, time-limited PRECISION feature we are sharing with you is Torque Effectiveness. This feature measures how much of the torque you deliver per pedal stroke actually helps to move your bike forwards. For example, a Torque Effectiveness of 80 percent would indicate that 80 percent of the torque you are applying is moving your bike forward, while 20 percent of the torque you exert on the pedal is actually working against you or wasted as heat or noise. Similarly to Pedal Smoothness, this is a great metric for helping you grow more mindful of your stroke and its impact on your energy output and efficacy.

Both of these features are single, left-side only implementations. While not the full dual-sided picture, this is a unique opportunity for you to test drive developments percolating at 4iiii.

As for PRECISION purchases made after January 15th, 2016, those units will come equipped with the same base product features designed to keep you ahead of your game:

• • Lightweight, compact 9 gram (0.32 ounce) left crank design
• • Accurate, consistent data (typically +/- 1% error)
• • Improved battery life (100 hours on a 2032 coin cell)
• • Battery status indicator (15% battery notification)
• • Over-the-air upgrade capability for adding new features and updates
• • Compatible with both ANT+ and Bluetooth Smart head units
• • Smartphone compatibility
• • User-friendly 4iiii app
• • User configurable Rider Compensation Factor
• • Improvements to saving zero offset and calibration values
• • 4iiii Product Platform Integration

To take advantage of this offer and incorporate both Pedal Smoothness and Torque Effectiveness into your cycling regime, order your PRECISION power meter before January 15th, 2016.

Place an order now or for more product information, CLICK HERE.

This Holiday, ride hard and ride smart with PRECISION.

We’re excited to report that the Firmware Upgrades for PRECISION, Viiiiva and Cliiiimb were released this week. If you have not yet seen an email from us, or had prompts on your phone, you can access the over the air feature upgrades here. Here’s what you’ll gain with the latest upgrades:

4iiii App
Version 1.16.0 on iOS / Version 1.2.0 on Android

• • This app is your gateway to emailing stored Activity Logs to your preferred training app or site and the 4iiii web store.
• • You can now Customize the Names of both your Viiiiva and PRECISION, which makes it easier to recognize your devices.

Viiiiva Heart Rate Monitor (HRM)
Firmware version 2.0.0

• • Tap to Pair is just that – tap your smartphone to your Viiiiva for instant, super simple pairing in any crowded ANT+ or Bluetooth Smart environment.
• • Activity Logging (also known as file save, memory and store and forward) lets you save data directly on your Viiiiva HRM even when you aren’t carrying your phone. It holds up to 65 hours of ANT+ sensor data.  Activity Logs can be emailed via the 4iiii app to your chosen training software. Of course, you can also see your data in real-time if you have your Sportiiii, smartphone or other compatible displays like smart watch, or bike head unit with you.
• • The upgrade’s improved heart rate algorithm gives you superior R-R (beat-to-beat) measurement for determining Heart Rate Variability (HRV) and your level of activity readiness. Highly responsive heart rate sensing allows you to see quick changes in your performance (eg. Intervals).
• • 10x increase in sensitivity to pick up even the lightest of heart rates.
• • Indoor gym Fitness Equipment compatibility connects you to ANT+ enabled cardio equipment.
• • Viiiiva is the bridge that connects the 4iiii iOS Cliiiimb app (version 2.2.0) to 4iiii heads up audio visual coach, Sportiiii. With audio and visual cues, Sportiiii is a great tool to keep you in your zone training, and king of your mountain on Strava segments.

PRECISION Power Meter
Firmware version 0.3.0

• • Two battery improvements: You’ll go further with PRECISION’s 25% improved Battery Life and the Battery Status Indicator will alert you when it’s time to change your battery. Pay attention when your battery status shows as ‘low’ because that means you’ll have about 20 more hours before it’s time to change out the 2032 coin cell.
• • Improvements to Zero Offset allow for robust and reliable handling of calibration values, thus maintaining accuracy.
• • The Adjustment Scale Factor was introduced to address the fact that PRECISION is (currently) a left-only power meter, and not everybody has a 50/50 left-right balance. Perhaps from training on some different equipment, you know that your left leg is actually weaker and you have a 45/55 left-right balance. Doubling the power from your left leg (as per PRECISION and all single sided power meters), gives you a total power of only 90% of what you’re actually putting out. In order to adjust for this, you can simply set the scale factor to 50/45=1.11111. 50 because 50% is your desired reading for PRECISION (half of your total power output), and 45 because your left leg is actually only putting out 45% of your actual total power. This scale factor can also be used to match PRECISION’s output to other training equipment you use.

And now, as we share this much-anticipated release, we wish a Happy Thanksgiving to our US neighbours who will celebrate next week. While you’re all prepping for turkey and the trimmings, we offer you a wintery toast with our hometown’s world famous McKay’s Ice Cream.

Cheers!

4iiii’s Viiiiva and PRECISION app upgrades have now been submitted to the app stores. Notifications on your smartphone will confirm when downloads are available.

This week, we reached out to power guru Hunter Allen for his off-season riding wisdom in the hope of helping your transition to the great indoors training and build on the momentum from your steady summer riding.

Hunter is a legendary cycling coach, co-author of Training and Racing with a Power Meter and Cutting-Edge Cycling, co-developer of TrainingPeaks’ WKO+ software and founder of Peaks Coaching Group. You can download his free How to Start Training with Power ebook.

“I got into cycling because my parents didn’t want to get me a motorbike,” laughs Hunter who made his early beginnings in BMX at the age of 11 and later joined the professional Team Navigators where he raced for 17 years in Europe, South America, the USA, and Canada, and accumulating over forty career victories.

Here’s one of Hunter’s favourite indoor routines: Sweet Spot with bursts and Tractor pulls

• Warm up
  • 15 minute warm-up (60% of FTP) with 1 x 3 minute effort at 100% of FTP watts to wake up the system
  • 5 minutes easy at 60% of FTP

• Main segment
  • Nail it at 88-95% of FTP for 2 x 20 minutes, do a burst every 2 minutes to 120% of FTP, hold for 10 seconds, come back to 88-93%
  • Rest at 60% of FTP for 5 minutes between each 20 minute effort
  • 10 x Tractor Pulls! These are big gear intervals (53:13) – starting at 50 rpm at a slow speed of 8-10mph. Stay seated for each one, and keeping abs tight and hands on the drops. Try to rip the handlebars off the bike!!! STOP the effort when you reach 85-90 rpm. Recover at 80% of FTP between each for 3 minutes.

• Cool down
  • 10 minutes easy spinning at 60% of FTP

Since retiring from professional cycling, Hunter has become a USAC elite-level coach, a certified nutritional consultant, a certified yoga and tai chi instructor, personal trainer and a fitness and wellness entrepreneur. To date, this Bedford, Virginia resident has coached more than 400 athletes spanning Olympic, pro and weekend warrior levels, with a philosophy based on leveraging power output.

“Power has really revolutionized how we train for cycling,” says Hunter whose cycling training business includes more than 50 coaches across the United States. “Nowadays, athletes can be very sophisticated about their preparation to ensure the highest level of efficiency. With power data, its possible to train for specific races, courses and even isolated trail features.”

While Hunter sees tremendous performance benefits in using power meters, he also believes power makes riding more fun.

“What’s neat about riding with power is that, in addition to helping cyclists improve, it also adds a very fun dimension to biking,” he tells. “Just when you think you’ve got everything figured out, you add a power meter to your bike and all of a sudden you discover a whole other world. This invigorates a lot of cyclists because it makes things new again.”

When asked what one tip he’d like to share, Hunter is quick to say: “Invest in yourself. We can all spend money in a lot of different ways but to invest proactively in your fitness and seek good advice makes a lot of sense,” tells the coach who frequently leads winter cycling camps in California and Spain.

“Many people think that having a coach is unattainable and limited to the elite but really, it’s probably the best investment you can make in yourself if you want to see meaningful results,” he concludes.