History of BikeMaster

BikeMaster is a computer program, written in whole by Don Axtell. BikeMaster was originally started in 1987 as a collection of equations to try to predict the time that it would take to complete the Death Ride, by using times to do other rides. These equations were good for only one road segment of constant grade at a time. This original capability is still present in the Calculations option of this program.

Here is a PDF of the Original Bikemaster Users Manual, dated 1987.

BikeMaster was then expanded to be able to look at many road segments all joined together. This increased capability led to the creation of a large Road Database and the ability to create and save bicycle Routes.

The Roads/Routes capabilities now over-shadow the Calculations option, but the Calculations are still very useful.

BikeMaster was again expanded to be able to save and display personal Ride Log data, and to determine a rider's Pace level for any ride.

BikeMaster started on a VAX mainframe at work. Over the years it matured, but its use was still limited to a single user. In 1997, BikeMaster was converted over to an IBM PC, and floppy disks of the program were distributed, so that the number of users could now be limitless. The end result will be the best (and only) computer program for creating and saving bicycling routes.

In 2002 the source code of BikeMaster v2.0 accidentally got deleted, with no adequate backup. This was the reason behind there not being any updates for almost 5 years. Finally, in January of 2007, the author got busy and was able to recreate the source code and then add many new features that he had been wanting to do for a long time.

BikeMaster has its own website, located at http://www.BikeMaster.org/ Associated with this website is a Bicycle Routes Library, which has slowly grown to now include over 1000 routes, which start from about 60 different locations around the Bay Area.