1. The ability to turn on “snap to” when manually drawing routes, so that it automatically follows the roads. Many sites already allow this. For example: http://bikeroutetoaster.com/Course.aspx and Google Maps “My Maps”.
2. Automatic pausing of the timer. The timer should stop automatically when I’m stuck at traffic lights!
3. Multiple twitter account support. I’d like to be able to tweet workouts to both my professional and my personal twitter accounts please.
4. Enhanced privacy options on social networking posts. For example, the option to hide links to your profile and route:
   “<Name> Was out cycling 23.02 miles with #Endomondo.”
   rather than
   “<Name> Was out cycling 23.02 miles with #Endomondo. See it here: http://bit.ly/1a2b3c”
   A link to Endomondo could still be included to promote the service.
5. Slimline (less annoying) social networking posts. This is really the same as above but relates specifically to Facebook. If my friends were posting workouts daily with a giant map thumbnail taking up my news feed, I’d probably hide them just because of that.
6. Additional data to include in social networking posts. It would be nice to be able to include my average speed, or total elevation data in my updates.
7. Email notification whenever someone comments on a workout. After all, we need instant notification right ;)
8. A login form that allows the browser to remember your password (not “Remember me”). No matter what browser I use, I am not prompted as to whether I want the browser to remember the password. This I believe is by design (perhaps through use of the autocomplete html attribute or using a uniquely named password field), but it’s annoying.
9. Improved import file function. At present, importing gpx files from Mapmyride / run.com doesn’t work.
10. A “vote for feature” option on the Endomondo website like Dropbox (https://www.dropbox.com/votebox – this allows members to vote for the features they want to see most. A valuable way to gain feedback from your customers :)
11. A basic import function for historical training data. It would be nice if those of us migrating from other systems (I’m coming from an Excel spreadsheet) could import our old training data. Even if it could only handle the import of Date | Route Name | Distance | Duration it could still be used towards the “statistics view”. Most systems allow for the export to CSV. Define some allowable import fields and let us know so we can get importing!
12. A customisable start day for the week (for statistics). Not all of us count the start the week as a Monday.
13. Sync Endomondo contacts to phone. I’d like to be able to link my Endomondo contacts with the “people” on my phone. This would be similar to the official Last.fm and Twitter client (for example). I can link my friends using those services to the main contact list and see updates accordingly.
14. Automatic recognition and naming of workouts (based on previously named workouts). If I name a particular workout, then it should be possible to name subsequent workouts based on comparison of GPS route data (perhaps allowing for a variation of 0.1km/mile).
15. Optional workout (route) selection on application load. This could allow for automatic stopping at the “finish”. I for one would like to be able to have the application automatically pause or stop when I finish a workout (route), then I can focus on warming down, without concerning myself with retrieving the phone from my back pocket, taking out of the waterproof bag, unlocking the phone and stopping the data collection. After a hard session this is the last thing I want to be doing.
    Alternatively, a simple prompt when pressing start saying “Would you like Endomondo to stop when you return to this point?” could work without route identification.
16. Customisable widgets or RSS feeds. I like many would like to include training data in the sidebar of my blog. A customisable widget or RSS feed for this would be great. Again I’d like to see privacy considered here; the option to remove the actual link to the workout/route and just include the raw mileage/distance/average would be essential.
17. Integration with “events”. This is more of a long term future feature. Endomondo and other tracking applications should eventually be able to recognise if you’re competing in a public event (for example the London Marathon). Social network posts could be tagged accordingly (perhaps when clicking “Stop” it could ask “We think you were competing in <event>. Is this correct?”). Where these events would be stored, and who would enter them is obviously a critical requirement (has this already been done somewhere? If not, roll on an open database for competitive races!).
18. Better stats. At the moment these are week, and I’m sure it’s in the the pipeline to develop them further. Forr some, you can never have enough stats! ;) I’d like to see:
    • Average speed per year/month/week (in a similar fashion to the mileage at the moment)
    • Mouseover for more stats on the current mileage view (idea by SportTracker / Michal Stupo Stupák
    • Ability to compare mileage for each week (1, 2, 3…) by year. It’d be nice to see what kind of distance I was covering by week 15 in 2008, 2009 and 2010 for example.
    • Best times / average speed for specific routes.

That’s all for now…

Aged 16 at the Juvenile Midland Championships (1998).

At age 28 and 10 years on, I have finally found the motivation to once again start cycling properly. In the back of my mind I’ve always told myself that I’d cycle and race again but life, travelling, relationships, work, and shamefully a bit of laziness have taken a priority (entirely my choice I have to say). So far exercising during my twenties has been somewhat sporadic, limited to the odd run, turbo session, and a bit of climbing but never anything more than that. Personally I blame the rapidly approaching number 30 and the inevitable decline of bodily function for my somewhat panic induced fitness fad, although my girlfriend thinks it’s perhaps to get away from her.

Still, motivation is an elusive beast and is often only captured when it’s in line with your core values, or when you feel you have no other choice but to tackle the issue at hand. I guess this is a bit of both; my core values being shifted around a little bit, and genuinely feeling like I have no other choice but to get training again and better the form I once held before it’s too late. It’s not a chore, at least not all the time, but going from a mediocre 40 miles a week (which can easily be 4 turbo sessions) to over 100 miles a week does require dedication. Sometimes you just don’t feel like going for a 30+ mile ride on a Sunday morning.

So far I’ve been cycling consistantly since April last year although I haven’t clocked up any significant miles. After some time off from November – early Jan this year (for various reasons) and missing most of the cyclo-cross season, physically I’ve felt really good the last few weeks. Don’t mistake that as being strong(!). Rather, I’ve had plenty of energy which feels great.

Suffering badly(!) at Allestree Park, September 2009. My first cross race in about 10 years.