Bikes and rides

Everything the app says about your bike rests on two pieces of information: which bike it is and how much you've ridden it. You give it the first one once; the second builds up on its own if you connect a source.

Adding a bike#

In Profile›Your bikes tap the +. The app asks where you want to start from.

1. Import from Strava

   Only appears if you've already connected Strava. It brings the bike in with its real mileage already on it and the mapping ready: from then on rides land on the right bike without you choosing anything.

   Garmin doesn't expose a list of bikes, so there's no import from there: if you only use Garmin, add the bike by hand and rides will still attach to the bike you pick.

2. Fill it in by hand

   Make, model, year, type and the mileage it already has. Make and model are the only required fields.

   If you don't know the mileage exactly, put in the figure that feels right: it gives the estimates a starting point, and it corrects itself as you record rides.

3. Answer four questions

   What brakes it has, how it's geared, what suspension, whether it's an e-bike. Plus when you last changed the chain.

   They're used to work out which components are on it. "I don't know" is a legitimate answer and it's offered on every question: a missing figure beats a wrong one, because the predictions are built on these answers.

You can have more than one bike. The one with the tick is the active bike: it's the one you see on Home and the one rides land on unless you say otherwise. To change it, tap it in the list.

Recording rides#

There are three ways, and they coexist.

By hand. From History›Ride: distance, duration, elevation, date. It's the quickest way if you ride without carrying anything with you.

With the phone's GPS. From the same place, the Record with GPS button turns the iPhone into a bike computer: time, distance, speed and elevation live. On save, the ride enters your history like any other.

From a connected service. Strava, Garmin and Apple Health push rides in by themselves. You'll find them in History›Recent rides and in the summary on the Data tab.

Connecting Strava, Garmin, Health and TrainingPeaks#

They all connect from Profile›Integrations, with a Connect button for each.

Connecting goes through the service's own site, which asks you to authorise CrankPal. You can withdraw that at any time with Disconnect: rides already imported stay, new ones stop arriving.

Bluetooth sensors#

If you have a heart rate strap or a power meter, the app reads them during GPS recording. You pair them from the recording screen, and once paired they reconnect on their own every time.

Two things worth knowing when a sensor doesn't show up:

• A sensor accepts one connection at a time. If it's already paired with your bike computer, the iPhone can't see it: turn the other device off, or unpair the sensor there.
• Many sensors only wake up when you use them. Turn the pedals, put the strap on, and scan again.

Most modern ANT+ sensors also transmit over Bluetooth, so they work anyway. The iPhone itself has no ANT+ radio.

The bike logbook#

Next to each bike in Profile there's a logbook icon. It holds two things in one place:

• the state of the components, sorted from most worn;
• your bike fitting, that is your position measurements — if your workshop has recorded them.

The logbook uses data that's already been downloaded, so it opens without a connection too. It's the screen to have in front of you when you rent a bike on holiday, or when you need to copy your position onto a new frame.

Bike fitting measurements are read-only: the workshop writes them during the session, you consult them. If you've had several sessions the app keeps the history and shows the most recent at the top. On the workshop side the feature is described in Bikes and census.

Common problems#