How Samsung is Making Life on Two Wheels Better Than Ever

On July 4, the 102nd edition of the Tour de France began with the Grand Départ in the Dutch city of Utrecht. The premier cycling event in the world and a major event on Europe’s summer sports calendar, the Tour de France this year had its first stages in the Netherlands and Belgium before entering northern France.

This summer, Samsung is making a major push to both celebrate cycling culture, and enrich the experience and overall enjoyment of cycling through its mobile devices.

Among the top teams competing at the Tour de France is the Trek Factory Racing Team, which is led by superstar Fabian Cancellara. Samsung is a proud partner of the Trek Factory Racing Team and recently introduced a video entitled We Are Greater Than I, featuring Cancellara and super domestique Grégory Rast, both from Switzerland. (Unfortunately, Cancellara’s Tour de France has come to an end prematurely due to injury. Samsung wishes him a speedy recovery and hopes the world will see him competing again soon.)

A domestique in cycling is a team member that protects and supports the team leader, often riding in front in order to create an air pocket, allowing the rest of the team to conserve energy until the final push. The video portrays Rast enduring long, grueling training sessions through cold, snow covered mountains to blazing summer heats. The video culminates with Rast pushing his limit in a race as Cancellara follows closely behind, and Rast, with his job completed, moves aside to let his teammate make a sprint for the finish. In the Tour de France, every champion relies on the hard work of a domestique, who sacrifices his own fame and accolades for the good of his team.

To celebrate the culture of cycling, Samsung will work with Jens Voigt, the legendary former pro-cyclist, to nominate a “Domestique of the Day” for each stage in order to celebrate their sacrifices and teamwork through social media channels with the #Domestiquedujour hashtag. Also, to begin a global conversation on what drives people to get on two wheels, Samsung is running the #RideFor campaign from July 3 to August 9. By encouraging the use of the #RideFor hashtag on various social media channels, the campaign invites users to post the reasons why they ride, whether it is for fitness, a good cause or relaxation.

Samsung has been dedicated to improving the cycling experience through its devices and services, such as S Health, for both casual cyclists and professional riders. By partnering with Trek’s professional racing team, Trek Factory Racing, and listening closely to the amateur cycling community, Samsung has gained valuable insights that have helped in the improvement of the cycling features on the latest versions of the Samsung S Health app.

• Import GPX files to set destination and route. Users can preview course maps and distances. The S Health app will access GPX files to provide turn-by-turn navigation.
• With the new Easy Tile Setting, users can easily switch tiles and data indicators, such as pace, speed, remaining distance, elevation, calories, cadence and more, with just one touch.
• It is now possible to use the S Health app’s Tile View in Power Saving Mode.
• Users can also add Real Time Ascent to Tile View, to see just how steep a hill climb is.
• Users can export GPX data from S health to manage their riding result easily.
• Finally it’s easier, simpler and more intuitive to share your workout through social network services. Users now can add various social badges and route on the share screen.

These improvements, which can be downloaded as add-ons, make Samsung S Health one of the most advanced cycling fitness apps on the market in terms of convenience and efficiency. These new cycling features bring the capability of a cycling computer to your mobile device. The partnership with Trek, which enabled Samsung to greatly improve the S Health app for cyclists, shows what ‘We Are Greater Than I’ really means and what is possible when it is realized.