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What gets analyzed

Every time PeakLine ingests one of your activities, it runs the same analysis pipeline. This page is the map of that pipeline — what's calculated, what's needed, and where to read more.

The pipeline at a glance

Strava webhook / manual refresh
        │
        ▼
1. Ownership and access check
2. Fetch streams (lat/lng, time, heartrate, watts, cadence, altitude, velocity, temp)
3. Fetch laps, zones, kudos, photos
4. Fetch historical weather (Open-Meteo)
5. Fetch air quality (OpenWeather)
6. Compute metrics
        │
        ├── Power: NP, IF, TSS, zone time
        ├── HR:    avg/max, zone time, TRIMP
        ├── Pace:  GAP (grade-adjusted)
        ├── Climbs: auto-detect, gradient, VAM per climb
        ├── Terrain: flat | rolling | hilly | mountain | highmountain
        ├── PeakLine Score (0–1000) with tier
        ├── Stress Points (TSS-like)
        ├── Wind impact (% loss estimate)
        ├── Sun time (minutes in daylight)
        └── Comparison vs. previous 10 same-type activities
        │
        ▼
7. Cache result (cached_analysis table)
8. Optionally generate AI Coach summary (Gemini)
9. Optionally update Strava description (if auto-report enabled)

The whole thing runs in roughly 2–8 seconds for a typical 1–3 hour activity, then sits cached so repeat visits to the activity page are instant.

What you need for each metric

Some metrics need specific sensors. Here's what's required and what gracefully falls back.

Metric Requires Falls back to
PeakLine Score distance + time + elevation — (always computed, rejects activities below thresholds)
Stress Points NP (best), or HR, or pace, or speed always computed at lower fidelity
NP, IF, TSS power meter (watts stream, ≥30 points) HR-based IF estimate
Power zones (Z1–Z7) power + FTP set in settings none — zones hidden if no power
HR zones (Z1–Z5) HR strap + max_hr in settings uses default max_hr=190 if unset
TRIMP HR + resting/max HR duration-only estimate
GAP pace + altitude streams raw pace
Climb detection altitude stream not computed for indoor activities
VAM per climb altitude + time not computed for indoor activities
Weather start lat/lng + start time nothing if missing coords
AQI start lat/lng + recent date nothing if missing coords or too old
Wind impact weather + speed nothing
Sun time start lat/lng + duration nothing

Want everything?

The most data-rich analysis comes from a road ride with a power meter and HR strap. Indoor activities, manual entries, and activities with no GPS get a reduced set of metrics — never an error.

Activity types we support

The Strava activity type drives several behaviors (which speed reference to use, which zone model, whether climbs make sense). PeakLine recognizes:

Cycling family: Ride, VirtualRide, MountainBikeRide, GravelRide, Velomobile, Handcycle. EBikeRide is recognized but excluded from PeakLine Score.

Running family: Run, TrailRun, VirtualRun.

Other: Hike, Walk, Swim, Workout, AlpineSki, Snowboard, BackcountrySki, Yoga, WeightTraining, RockClimbing, and ~30 more. These get basic analysis (distance, time, HR if recorded) but no PeakLine Score.

How caching works

The analysis result is keyed by (activity_id, settings_hash). If you change your FTP, all old analyses get re-run on next view. That avoids stale zone counts when you re-test.

Forcing a refresh: open any activity page and click the small ↻ button at the top right. It bypasses the cache and re-fetches everything from Strava.

Read more