How hard do you Shred? Foil Run knows

[FoilGraham]

So I just stumbled upon @wrench ’s app/website called Foil Run in the VMG topic. I remember hearing that she was working on something a while back, maybe on the X Foils interview

In any case, the app analyzes GPS data and computes a ton of interesting stats from DW runs and Upwind parawing / wing performance.

With all the talk of ‘VMG this’ ‘angles that’ and ‘fastest KM’ the Shred Score scrutinizes your DW tracks’s squiggles and gives it a point based score! I’m not aware of any other watersports tracker offering something like this. I’ve often finished a session and thought to myself, ‘man, that felt like I was ripping’. Well now I will have a benchmark to look back on and some PBs to chase. Not only does it score each run in its entirety, it also automatically picks the densest 500m portion of the run. I imagine McFlowi’s run would get the all time 500M high score with his infinity loops, as they get a multiplier in the Shred Score algorithm.

In my local group, I’ve been telling the crew about this and a really good rider replied with the following comment and meme after reviewing his first PW session:

‘It gave me a shred score of 0.00 on a half mile run, ouch ’

That’s how DW can be a lot of times when you are just surviving! But, if the stars aline, and the conditions match your foil selection and you are in tune, you can start stringing together combos that make your mind melt and leave your legs burning.

The app also lets you create courses, which will be amazing for friendly races and expression sessions with the crew. Rather than trying to line up the perfect start, we can just session, like at a skatepark or terrain park and share a few brews after and upload tracks. Looser gets the tab or whatever.

There is also a gear locker, with an AI feature to quickly interpret your pre or post session blurb about what you are riding. Over time you can see stats about the gear’s performance across a few metrics.

The app is pretty technical and takes some time to understand, but I feel like it’s really offering some unique data points and abilities that are super creative and deserves some support and accolades. Well done Wren! Keep it going!!!

[Zarb]

It’s incredible!!

[Velocicraptor]

How do you find Shred Score? Ive only uploaded one session, but not seeing it - or maybe I don’t shred hard enough to have one!

[FoilGraham]

I think it’s easier to find on the desktop version. Here’s a snapshot of my quick 30 minute session in my tidal run zone with a 2knt current into the wind. You can see the the shred score under the Overview tap.

[wrench]

Ahhh this is such a rad post!! Thank you for exploring it and writing this up (this is Wren)

I’m a data scientist / algorithm designer by trade, and I’ve been having SO much fun with parawinging. Foil Run is where those interests collided I love a challenge and I’m motivated by things I can measure, so I started creating metrics that encourage the way I actually want to ride. Foil Run is a very active experimental platform for this, so keep feedback coming, I’ll try to be as responsive as possible (within the confines of this being a nights/weekends side project)

A lot of the work has been separating powered riding from unpowered surfing - so right now shred score only shows up where I’m fairly confident you’re surfing unpowered, currently just in parawing and downwind SUP sessions.

I also wanted more structured data across riders, gear, and conditions, hence making it easy to capture your gear alongside your track with the watch app microphone recordings and processing. Less logging homework, more things we can learn.

And please tell your friend that a 0.00 is absolutely not a verdict on their shredding Shred Score is SUPER alpha. It’s mostly been honed on Gorge riding, and I may need to adjust quite a bit for different swell, terrain, and styles. You’re very probably shredding even if I haven’t figured out how to measure it yet! There’s a feedback button on any tracks; whenever the algos don’t match up with your interpretations file a ticket and I’ll take a look! Here’s the Shred Score explainer showing how I’m approaching it now to try to account for different locations and riding styles.

I’d love people to get involved, especially alpha testers outside the Gorge! Tracks paired with “this felt amazing, but your score hated it” are genuinely useful feedback (don’t worry about polishing/softening feedback even just “this is way off” is enough detail to get me started). LOL u can tell I’m an engineer and not a designer from the current kind of dense interface, but I aspire to tuning this to be increasingly useful to people as I hear from y’all I just added a default versus “nerd out” informational mode in the app/mobile web as a start. I’m also weighing adding Garmin and Android devices, and ranking what is most useful - at the bottom of foil.run you can register the sports and devices you want me to release next.

[tavis]

Oh wow. This is incredible. I’m very appreciative of the gpx upload since I don’t use ios. I’ll be uploading some of my old tracks from Maui and my new tracks from the Gorge.

[jbwiden]

I’m pretty sure I’m not a shredder but seemingly can get a high score due simply to having a relatively long run. Those who only have much smaller runs or even have to come down to clear seagrass won’t have that opportunity. Maybe I’m misinterpreting? Best for a given length does effectively go in this direction but top line shred number may not accurately dustiguish the true shredders. Maybe a rate of shred metric per run could be good.

[FoilGraham]

The Densest 500M is the new gold standard for Ripping Level Status. You can personally go for high score for a longer run to see how you compare to your normal run or against friends, but if you want to compare against others who are not doing the same exact run, you’d want to look at the 500M reading. Obviously a location with a ripping current into the wind (The Gorge) will have an advantage as they can fit more turns in compared to a faster moving water location.

Currently you are at a 2.02 rating on the 500M. Work on building that up! I’m not that far ahead looking at my post (4.94). I’m not sure what my highest score woudl be, as I’ve only uploaded 2 sessions so far. I can’t get mine to save

[jbwiden]

I’ll give it a shot to work on the score, never really focused on turning.

I do wonder if you normalize on 1km distance as that is the standard for speed. Then can easily compare various run lengths and have a cumulative number for those interested in that.

[J_L]

Spoken like a true downwinder @jbwiden I think most parawingers and wingers are doing 100-500m runs, jumping on a nice swell train and riding it until it dissipates, then redeploying and finding another one. 1k would be Swell city to below the hatchery so probably more upwind/downwind than a lot of people are doing someplace like the Gorge

[J_L]

@wrench I’ve been enjoying the app particularly for the VMG calcs, the latest version(s) have been doing a great job of estimating wind direction and the vmg results mirror my manual calculations. I also use my top downwind 5k & 10k runs a lot for foil/setup comparisons so that would be a great addition to the app IMO

Thanks for all your work

[WingsurferQLD]

Really wish it was android compatible!!

[Oyvbirk]

The website works very well both on the phone and computer.

I record with my Coros watch, and upload the file.

[jbwiden]

Guilty!

To be clear though standardizing the normalization factor on a certain distance doesn’t mean you can’t analyze it for shorter or longer distances as a rate. It actually makes it comparable across those different distances.

Just like how somebody can say that during the Maui races somebody averaged a 1:45 min/km pace for 30 miles.

[wrench]

Re: the Android app - it’s in progress! I’ll ping you when I have a beta build, would love a tester if you’re interested! Do you wear a watch for recording, or use your phone to record?

[Apfoil]

Looks like it was updated as shred score per minute

[Oyvbirk]

Hi Wrench

I would love to be a testet of the Android app as well. Record with my Coros watch, but always bring my phone on the water. So for testing i can log with the phone as well.

[WingsurferQLD]

Legend! Yeah I use a Garmin forerunner. Keen as to use it this season in Aus.

[wrench]

@jbwiden this was a great idea, thank you!! Shred is now an average per minute of riding instead of a run total, so long runs don’t pile up points just by being long (Apfoil spotted the change up thread).

The goal is to be more resilient to variations in conditions, like swell size and speed. I think it’ll hold up better, but would love continued feedback on how it matches what you feel on the water!

The flip side: a run with a dead patch averages out lower (looking at you, top half of Tunnel 4 ). That’s what Best minute is for: your best 60 seconds of shredding in the run, so you can see the peak even when the average gets diluted. Runs need a full minute of scored riding before they get a score, so a quick blip can’t spike it.

Course leaderboards rank on it now too!

[wrench]

@J_L each run now shows your Fastest km as a time, a first step toward this! Top 5k/10k downwind times to compare foils is a great idea, adding it to the list.

I’m also trying to balance a clean screen with all the stats I want to show, so I’m experimenting with tucking the more advanced ones behind the Nerd out button in Analyze. Would love feedback on which stats you find most useful!