Bryton Rider 40
Charging is via a USB cable which also allows you to transfer files to or from your PC. Once connected to the PC you can access your own account on BrytonSport.com. It’s here that you can store rides and plan future rides/training sessions. Along with being able to observe all the data that the Rider 40 has captured, you have access to a training diary and can also search other users routes, which you can then download.
The Bryton website is easy to use and is where you can pour over all that data
Routes from the Rider 40 are recorded as a BDX file, which is Bryton’s own format, but once you’ve uploaded it to your Bryton account you can export it as either one of the more widely used PWX, GPX or TCX files. You can then upload these onto another site if you wish. Planning a route on the site is very easy and once you’ve saved it you can download onto your Rider 40 or export it for others.
The BrytonSport website allows you to compare 2 workouts against each other; it would be handy if you could have more than two up, but this will allow you to see improvements or drops in performance, all of which you or you coach can use to adjust your training. You can also see your overall stats arranged as charts detailing particular data over whatever date range you want.
The amount of data the Rider 40 can record and/or display is mind boggling and during my time I hardly scratched the surface of what it can do. As well as the usual speed, time, distance, you can record calories burnt, time to sunrise or sunset, distance to a waypoint or peak, the list goes on. You also have the option to configure each of the 3 main display screens, with between 2 and 6 fields of data.
Some of the Rider 40’s data screens, they are customisable
The report page allows 2 previous workouts to be compared
So after doing without computers from my bike for so long, why the U-turn? As a typical time crunched cyclist (and dad) I had come to realise that with so little precious time to train, I needed to be a bit smarter with my training and take advice from coaches. This means that the time you do get on the bike tends to involve a lot of sweating and intervals. Here the Rider 40 has proved a most useful tool. I can plan turbo sessions on the BrytonSport site, then schedule them into my diary and download them to the Rider 40. And then I can read them back and be amazed at my improvement over the following weeks – hopefully…
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– LoL sort that top cap out… My OCD would never allow that!!!!