An EXCEL add-in, called BicycleLog, can be used to record your bicycle activities. This bicycle log, or bike log, or yearly log, as you will, is designed to keep track of those things of interest to a bicyclist, such as miles ridden, feet climbed, weather conditions, etc. It is freely available, distributed under the GNU General Public License, a copy of which is included with the download.

Please note, that this page contains all of the help information that is available, so in case of puzzlement, return here. Please pay special attention to the upgrade section near the bottom of the page.

Set up and usage:

At the present time the program does not seem to work on Macintoshes.

Microsoft has no consideration for its users and changes things willy-nilly for no good reason, so installing this simple add in is substantially different for XP and Vista. EXCEL 2007 which runs only under Vista places things in different places than does previous versions; thus In some places, the following provides instructions for both EXCEL 2007 and for previous versions of EXCEL.

Download the program by clicking on the following word: BicycleLog. The downloaded file is a self extracting zip file: simply click on it to extract the files.

Overview of the process:

1. Download the file BicycleLogv***.exe to a folder, where *** is a version number.
2. Double click on BicycleLogv***.exe, and fill in the “Extract to:” window by using the browse button and browse to the AddIns folder, or to wherever you want to put the files on your computer. 
3. Click “OK”.

Details:

You may place the extracted files anywhere you like, but Microsoft has a preferred AddIns location that will save you some bother later on, so consider using it.

In order to use it, files which are ordinarily hidden must be visible. To make them visible go to the Control Panel and then Folder Options\View and click the radio button for “Show hidden files and folders.” After this is set, the AddIns folder may be browsed to as follows:

For XP, it is It is something like “C:\Documents and Settings\###\Application Data\Microsoft\AddIns”, where ### is a local name, often the user’s.),

For Vista it is something like “C:\Users\###\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\AddIns”, where ### is a local name, often the user’s.

If neither of the above seem to work, you will have to fiddle around until you locate a normally hidden folder called “AppData” or “Application Data” and then the “Microsoft” folder somewhere under it, and the AddIns folder under that.

 Do not load the file BikeLog.xla directly into EXCEL,instead:

For EXCEL 2007 click on the doohicky in the upper left of the widow, and then click on “Excel Options” at the bottom of this window, and then on “Add-Ins” at the left of the new window.

For previous EXCEL’s, pull down the EXCEL Tools menu and then click on the “Add-ins...” menu item.

The dialog that appears should resemble the following: If you have placed BicycleLog.xla in the preferred location. it will be in the Add-ins list, and all you have to do is put a check mark on it and close the dialog.

If you have not placed the BikeLog.xla file in the preferred location, click on the Browse button, and navigate to wherever you have placed the file named “BikeLog.xla”. Click OK to install it. This needs to be done only once, when the bicycle log is installed. It should not be done for upgrades, which are simply copied over the BikeLog.xla file.

You will probably have to close and reopen EXCEL to access the bicycle log.

For EXCEL 2007, an AddIn’s item will appear at the top of the EXCEL 2007 window. When clicked it should show the calendar button .

For other EXCEL’s, a new calendar button should appear which when clicked will bring up the bicycle log.

The log may be closed by clicking on the close button or by closing EXCEL. There is no need to save your work -- that is done automatically for you. The design of the log is due to Wally Hertler. Ralph Levy added the graphs and the summary columns.

The years drop down list offers choices from 2000 to 2026, while the drop down list to the right of the years drop down list will change the statistic plotted. In the above, the statistic is “miles”. The other choices are “Temperature”, “100 Feet Climbed,” and “Average Speed.” 

The data may be filtered by filling in items in the Data Filter cells shown at the right side of the screen. The illustration below shows the list filled in with bicycle names. Once filled in, and once data has been entered into the data base, clicking on one of the items will filter the data to show only associated data. The cell clicked on is grayed to remind the user that the data is filtered.

The list is entirely under the user’s control. It should be filled-in and edited in Design Mode. If you don’t invoke the Design Mode, clicking on one of the data filters will activate it and cause it to filter your data. You have to enter Design Mode to change the items in the list.

The Design Mode Icon, , will be visible on one of the ribbons at the top of the EXCEL screen for EXCEL’s prior to EXCEL 2007. When clicked, this icon will have a box about it, .. After filling or editing this list, Design Mode should be exited by again clicking on the icon.

For EXCEL 2007, Microsoft, in it’s wisdom, has chosen to hide the Design Mode Icon. To make it visible, click the doohickey in the upper left of the EXCEL 2007 window, and then choose the “Excel Options” at the bottom of the new window. Then select the item that will show the developer tab, and click OK to exit. A developer tab will now appear at the top if the EXCEL window, which when clicked, will show the Design Mode Icon .

It should not be necessary to point this out, but a willy-nilly changing of the filter item names can cause problems. Suppose someone defines a filter called “Blue Bike” and records some data using it, but then decides to change the data filter name to “Blue Fuji Bike”. The old data records will still have “Blue Bike” associated with them and the user should not expect to be able to use “Blue Fuji Bike” to access them.

Operation of the calendar:

Clicking on a data cell brings up a dialog such as the following, which may be used to enter data into the database. Pressing the “Clear Data” button not only clears the form, but removes the data from the data base. Note that one of the Data Filter items is associated with the data for this date.

Clicking on the date number (beside the cell) will bring up a dialog such as the following, which may be used to record club events or dates of special interest. When such a recording has been made, the date number is marked in green.

Upgrades

New versions of the program will overwrite existing ones, since to update, one simply copies the new BikeLog.xla file over the old one. Since your data is contained in the BikeLog.xla file, you should save the data before upgrading and restore it afterwards. Two buttons off the right hand side of the main sheet, in columns AI and AJ, enable this. They look like the following.

Upgrade Overview: 

1. Save your data.
2. Download BicycleLogv***.exe as described above to wherever you have placed the old one. You will be asked if you want to overwrite the old one -- you do.
3. Open EXCEL and click on the calendar icon .
4. Click the “Restore Data” button in columns AI and AJ. and you are done

Saving Events

Club events may be saved and read by using the “Save Events” and “Read Events” buttons. The “Save Events” button creates a simple text file that can be passed to other club members, who can load it into their copy of the Bicycle Log.