IBPindex

Story

IBPindex was born in 2003, when a mountain bike and road bike fan group started to save the tracks of their routes registered in their GPS in an excel sheet.

The position in 4D in numerous points of a route, gave us a lot of information that we started to compare.

When we observed this data, we had the idea of finding an index to value a bycicle route hardness.We started to combin, to value and modify 19 different parameters to obtain a first reference punctuation. During some months, we compared the route sensations with the punctuations that we obtained  and we corrected the factors to adapt them.

We obtained a first formula and in the next trhee years we modified them acording to the average values that we obtained in our routes.

At the end of 2006, a technical team developed the necessary programming to make available the posibility of using IBP index through a web page (www.ibpindex.com) and a desk aplication to the whole cyclist comunity.

In a few months it became a very valued tool for cyclists and turned into a reference index for a huge amount of clubs.

Technical aspects

IBPindex is a punctuation that values the difficulty degree of a bike route ( btt or road)

It is obtained analyzing high, length and latitude data in multiple points of the route. This points are obtained from the track registered in the GPS, which gathers them automatically with a cadence of 20-40 points per Km, acording to the terrain variations, the direction changes and the kind of GPS. From this points, it is calculated the crossed distances in different rise and descent streches (1%, 5%, 10% etc…), it is calculated the % of the average rise and descent ratios, the total kilometers and the distribution of the rise stretches, It is also taken into account the vertical and horitzontal direction, and the high of the crossed distance..

It is applied a no linear mathematical formula and it is obtained a punctuation between 0 and infiity. This is a 100% objective punctuation because it is not taken into account any subjective value, as it could be climatology, physical condition or race pace.

In this formula there are taken into account 19 parameters, which were adjusted during a period of 3 years, analyzing and comparing multiple routes, by a cyclist team.

Characteristics

IBP system detects and corrects automatically the track points with an excessive high mistake that usually GPS detects. It optimize the track points and compare the results to obtain final data much more reliable, (especially in accumulated rise and descent meters) 

It detects automatically the kind of track (btt, road, trecking, flight, etc...) and it distinguish between real tracks and drawn tracks.

Functionality

This index is useful to know the difficulty degree of different routes comparing them. As it does not take into account subjective factors, this will be a personal value for everyone.

After comparing some routes, we make a punctuation scale that is useful to know the difficulty degree of a route before doing it.

Another way to use IBP is to know the difficulty of a new manually drawn route in a map like "OziExplorer©” " or "CompeGPS©” ". As long as the track points have the high information they will be valid to obtain the index.

Other aplications

In the last months, the mountain comunity has aks us for an adapted IBP for walking or running routes.

Taking into account that GPS are nowadays more and more accesible and more especialized to this kind of sports, we are working to adapt IBPindex to the trecking routes.

The accumulated analysis in our data base also will permit us in a short time to develop a new index to know the physical condition. In a scale of 0-100 we will be able to compare our physical condition with thousands