Well used to doing the business on the bike, two Dublin racing cyclists Ciarán Ó Conluain (above) and Anthony Walsh have gone head to head with some of the best and emerged with a €50,000 prize to develop their coaching app.
Known as very strong riders in the domestic racing bunch, UCD duo Anthony Walsh and Ciarán Ó Conluain have shown they have the brains and ingenuity to match their brawn.
The Dubliners have developed a coaching app that has now won a €50,000 development and public relations package in a major technology competition.
The app, called PocketCoach, will be refined and expertly marketed in the hope it can capitalise on the popularity of cycling in Ireland and much further afield.
By using basic data such as a rider’s age, their available time for training and their fitness goals, the app begins to build a profile of the user.
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The technology in the app developed by Walsh and Ó Conluain then assesses how the rider is reacting to training by studying all of the data they generate on rides such as power and heart rate.
This creates training sessions for the user to maximise their development.
The app also generates a record of their physical capabilities and training record over a long period of time, all of which informs the app further.
Declan Traynor of sponsor GSK along with Owen Cooney of ProductFitter and Ó Conluain of PocketCoach at TheAppys; Ireland's national app awards (Photo with thanks to DigitalTimes.ie)
Walsh and Ó Conluain have been part of a group of riders to put UCD CC firmly on the map in recent years, with the club now one of the very strongest in the country.
Walsh is a qualified coach who has been growing his business A1 Coaching in recent years and Ó Conluain has being pursuing a career in media production.
They combined their talents to come up with the PocketCoach idea and entered it into the GlaxoSmithKline App-Challenge 2014.
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The competition is open to anyone developing an app in the areas of health and wellness, fitness and medical.
The competition is run as part of the Appys; Ireland’s national app awards.
The riders, both former students at UCD and both from Clontarf, north Dublin, said they were delighted to have won.
“PocketCoach is aimed at those who previously thought cycle coaching was out of reach because it was too expensive and too time consuming,” said Walsh.
Walsh has been working hard to promote his A1 Coaching business and now his app, PocketCoach. Above, speaking at the recent event in Dublin promoted by Archipelago.ie, an entrepreneurs' organisation.
“By lowering the barrier to entry to cycle coaching, and we believe PocketCoach will help millions of people around the world reach their cycling goals in a fun, creative, social and powerful way.”
The €50,000 prize is made up of an app development package from ProductFitter.com valued at €40,000 with another €10,000 media and public relations package from Digital Times.
Ó Conluain, the chief operating officer of PocketCoach, believed the app brought something very new to the market.
“There are many GPS tracking apps for cycling, running and other sports, but there are none that offer customised training plans that give the user a real one-on-one coaching experience and the benefits this creates,” he said.
“The competitive and leisure cycling market is estimated at 120 million people so our aim is to become a truly global App, with millions of regular users.
“Winning the GSK App Challenge is a wonderful boost for us and will encourage us to go further and dream bigger.”
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