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Golden Cheetah Cycling Performance Software for Linux, Mac OS X, and Windows
User's Guide

## Version 3.0

Please dowload the Manual for great information on how to use all the functions in Golden Cheetah.

You can also see a list of Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ).

Note that more detailed information is often available on the Golden Cheetah Wiki.

## Version 2.1

What follows is a brief step-by-step guide to installing and setting up Golden Cheetah Version 2.1.0.

Step 1 (optional): Installing the FTDI drivers

This step is only needed if you want to download rides from a powertap pro/comp/cervo head unit via the supplied USB cradle. Furthermore, most Windows and Linux systems should recognize the device without installing the drivers below.

Depending on your operating system, you may need to install the FTDI D2XX driver if you're using the PowerTap's new USB download cradle. Note: version 0.1.7 of the FTDI drivers for Mac seems to be buggy. Until they post a patched version, you can download version 0.1.6 here and install via the terminal. Or if you are not terminal savvy, download an installer that will perform the installation of the 0.1.6 drivers for you here.

If you're running Linux, you may also need to uninstall the `brtty` (Braille TTY) application, as it interferes with FTDI's driver. The command

    sudo apt-get remove brtty

should do the trick on Debian/Ubuntu.

The latest version (7.1.1) of Saris's PowerAgent software uses an incompatible version of FTDI's driver from the one GoldenCheetah uses, and PowerAgent removes the driver that GoldenCheetah needs when you install PowerAgent. If you want to run both GoldenCheetah and PowerAgent, you need to use PowerAgent version 7.0.1 or earlier. We're working to correct this problem, but we're not there yet.

Step 2: Installing GoldenCheetah

To install GoldenCheetah, go to the download page and download the version for your operating system and processor.

On Mac OS X, when the download finishes, Mac OS X should automatically open the `.dmg` file for you. If not, double-click to open it. Drag the GoldenCheetah icon into your Applications folder, and you're done.

The Windows version has an installer. Just run the Installer, select where to install the application and away you go.

The Linux version of GoldenCheetah is distributed as a GZipped tar archive. Download this file and save it to `/tmp`, then from a terminal:

    cd /tmp
    tar xvzf GoldenCheetah_X.X.X_Linux_ARCH.tgz
    cd GoldenCheetah_X.X.X_Linux_ARCH
    sudo chmod u+x GoldenCheetah
    sudo cp GoldenCheetah /usr/local/bin
    cd ..
    rm -rf GoldenCheetah_X.X.X_Linux_ARCH

Be sure to replace "X.X.X" with the version of the release you downloaded, such as "2.1.0" and replace "ARCH" with the architecture of the release you download - either "x86" (32bit) or "x84_64" (64bit).

Step 3: Running GoldenCheetah

To run GoldenCheetah on Mac OS X, double-click on the GoldenCheetah icon in your Applications folder. On Windows, click the Start button, All Programs link, GoldenCheetah folder and then the Golden Cheetah program. On Linux, just type "GoldenCheetah" at the prompt.

The first time you run GoldenCheetah, you'll get an empty "Choose a Cyclist" dialog box:

Click on "New...", enter your name and click "OK", then select your name and click "Open". After that, the main GoldenCheetah window will open:

Your main window won't yet have any rides in it, of course. To fix that, you need either to download a ride from your PowerTap or import one from another program. GoldenCheetah can import `.srm` files recorded on SRM power meters and `.csv` files created by other programs. To download a file from your PowerTap, select "Ride->Download from device..." from the menu. To import one, select either "Ride->Import from SRM..." or "Ride->Import from CSV...".

Once you've downloaded or imported a ride, you can see some simple statistics about it on the "Ride Summary" page: your total riding time and average power, for example. If you click on the "Ride Plot" tab at the top of the screen, you can see a graph of your speed, power, cadence, and heart rate during the ride. The "Power Histogram" shows how much time you spent at each power during the ride, and the "Notes" tab allows you to record notes about the ride. The "Weekly Summary" shows your total time and work for the week.

The "Critical Power Plot" is one of the most useful features of GoldenCheetah. It shows the highest average power you attained for every interval length during the ride. Some people call this the "Mean Maximal Power" graph. The green line shows values for this ride; the red line shows the combination of all your rides. (If you only have one ride so far, the two lines will overlap.) Clicking on the graph with your mouse brings up a blue line, and the values under this line are shown at the bottom of the screen.

It helps to think about an example:

In this example, the blue line is right around the 14-second mark on the x-axis. So the values shown under "Today" and "All Rides", at the bottom, are the hardest the cyclist went for any 14-second period during the ride itself and during all rides he's ever recorded in GoldenCheetah. Since the two values are the same, he set a new personal record during this ride.

The Critical Power Plot is most useful before you're going to go do intervals or a time trial. Say you want to do six 2-minute intervals with three minutes rest in between. Click on the Critical Power Plot, drag the blue line to the 2-minute mark, and read the value shown in "All Rides". That's the hardest you've ever gone for two minutes. Now go out and try to beat it!

Step 4: Setting Up Your Power Zones

If you look back at the screenshot above, you may notice that there are several things shown in the "Ride Summary" tab that aren't on your version. The picture above shows a non-zero "Bike Score", and there's a list of how much time the cyclist spent in each "Power Zone" during the ride as well.

BikeScore(TM) is a measure of the physiological stress you underwent during a ride. It was developed by Dr. Philip Skiba, and you can read more about it in an article he wrote.

For GoldenCheetah to compute your BikeScore and the time spent in each power zone, you first need to tell it what your power zones and critical power are. You can define your power zones however you like, maybe using the ones defined by Joe Friel, for example. Your critical power should be the maximum power you can sustain over an hour. Some people call this your "lactate threshold" or "functional threshold power". Our friend Bill says a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.

There are currently three ways to set up your power zones. Each method has its benefits, so feel free to select the method that best suits your needs.

Method 1: Set via critical power plot.

GoldenCheetah can determine a value for your CP value based on all of the data in your critical power plot. The calculated value of CP can be used to create a new range in your power.zones file by clicking the "save CP value" button in the lower right corner of the critical power plot tab. The new range will use the default zone definitions (see Method 2). Once the new range is set, you can manually edit the file to change the zone definitions as in Method 3.

Method 2: User preferences.

From the menu bar select GoldenCheetah->Preferences, then click on "cyclist info". The window should look like this:

Enter a value for critical power at the top of the dialog and click save to set your CP. New ranges can also be set via this dialog so that you can adjust your CP value throughout the season as your fitness increases (or decreases). Once your CP is set, GoldenCheetah will set up seven power zones based on percentages of your CP value. The zones are:

Zone | Description | Low | High
Z1 | Active Recovery | 0% | 55%
Z2 | Endurance | 55% | 75%
Z3 | Tempo | 75% | 90%
Z4 | Threshold | 90% | 105%
Z5 | VO2 Max | 105% | 120%
Z6 | Anaerobic | 120% | 150%
Z7 | Neuromuscular | 150% | MAX

If you want to use other zones boundaries or labels, you can manually edit the power.zones file as described in Method 3.

Method 3: Manually edit the power.zones file.

To edit/create the power.zones file you'll need to use a text editor. On Linux, that probably means nano, vi, or emacs. On Mac, the easiest editor to use is TextEdit, which is in your Applications folder.

Start by downloading this sample file and saving it in your rider directory, which is listed in the GoldenCheetah->About GoldenCheetah menu item.

Open the power.zones file in a text editor and you'll see this:

>     From BEGIN until 2006/07/17, CP=297:
>       1, Active Recovery,     122, 167
>       2, Endurance,           167, 228
>       3, Tempo,               228, 274
>       4, Lactate Threshold,   274, 319
>       5, VO2 Max,             319, 365
>       6, Anaerobic Capacity,  365, 678
>       7, Sprinting,           678, MAX

>     From 2006/07/17 until 2007/02/05, CP=329:
>       1, Active Recovery,     135, 185
>       2, Endurance,           185, 253
>       3, Tempo,               253, 303
>       4, Lactate Threshold,   303, 354
>       5, VO2 Max,             354, 404
>       6, Anaerobic Capacity,  404, 752
>       7, Sprinting,           752, MAX

>     From 2007/02/05 until END, CP=347:
>       1, Active Recovery,     139, 191
>       2, Endurance,           191, 260
>       3, Tempo,               260, 312
>       4, Lactate Threshold,   312, 364
>       5, VO2 Max,             364, 416
>       6, Anaerobic Capacity,  416, 774
>       7, Sprinting,           774, MAX

The format of the file is simple. You define a range of time, starting with a date or "BEGIN" to indicate the oldest possible time and ending with a date or "END" to indicate the latest possible time. Then you put your critical power (CP) for that date range. Then you list your zones, where each zone has a number, a name, a minimum power value, and a maximum power value. You can have as many time ranges and zones as you like. Most people enter a new time range every time their critical power goes up--right after a fitness test, for example.

NOTE: By default, Mac OS's TextEdit will try and save the power.zones file with a `.txt` extension. Use the menu command "Format->Make Plain Text" to get it to let you save the file with a `.zones` extension instead.

Legacy Command-Line Tools

You can still build the older, command-line tools from the source code, but we no longer include them in releases. You can find documentation for them here.