BikeArlington Freezing Saddles

The BikeArlington Freezing Saddles (aka "BAFS") project is a python web application that integrates with Strava APIs to provide charting (and intended to provide other reports too) for the Freezing Saddles cycling competition organized on BikeArlington forums.

NOTE: This application is being refactored into different comopnents and minimize use of cron and polling for activity sync. These instructions still assume the legacy system is in place.

Dependencies

• Python 3.6+. (This will not currently work with Python 2.)
• Pip
• Virtualenv (venv)
• MySQL. Sadly.

You can also use the provided Dockerfile and docker-compose.yml to make this easier.

Installation

Here are some instructions for setting up a development environment:

# Clone repo
shell$ git clone https://github.com/freezingsaddles/freezing-web.git

# Create and activate a virtual environment for freezing-web
shell$ cd freezing-web
shell$ python3 -m venv env
shell$ source env/bin/activate
(env) shell$ python setup.py develop 

We will assume for all subsequent shell examples that you are running in the bafs activated virtualenv. (This is denoted by using the "(env) shell$" prefix before shell commands.)

Database Setup

This application requires MySQL. I know, MySQL is a horrid database, but since I have to host this myself (and my shared hosting provider only supports MySQL), it's what we're doing.

You should create a database and create a user that can access the database. Something like this should work in the default case:

shell$ mysql -uroot
mysql> create database freezing;
mysql> grant all on freezing.* to freezing@localhost;

Basic Usage

Configuration

Configuration files are Python files (since we're using Flask framework). There is a default one configured for the 2013 BAFS competition; if you want to do something else you'll need to specify an environment variable that points to your config file:

(env) shell$ cp local_settings.py-example local_settings.py
(env) shell$ BAFS_SETTINGS=`pwd`/local_settings.py <bafs-script>

Critical things to set include:

• Database URI
• Strava Client info (ID and secret)

# The SQLALchemy connection URL for your MySQL database.
# NOTE THE CHARSET!
SQLALCHEMY_DATABASE_URI = 'mysql+pymysql://freezing@localhost/freezing?charset=utf8mb4&binary_prefix=true'

# These are issued when you create the Strava app.
STRAVA_CLIENT_ID = 'xxxx1234'
STRAVA_CLIENT_SECRET = '5678zzzz'

Synchronizing

You need to pull data from Strava (and any other APIs) into the local database for reporting.

(env) shell$ BAFS_SETTINGS=/path/to/local_settings.py bafs-sync

It is slow the first time because it does not parallelize the work. By default it will only pull down rides that aren't already in the system. Periodically (daily?) you probably also want to clear things out and pull down everything (e.g. in case someone edited a ride, etc.)

	(env) shell$ BAFS_SETTINGS=/path/to/local_settings.py bafs-sync --clear

Generally you'll want to set up cron. Here is an example of my crontab while competition is running:

(See note above; this is currently being redesigned to rely less on cron and polling for activity sync.)

MAILTO="[email protected]"
BAFS_SETTINGS=/home/freezingsaddles/sites/freezingsaddles.com/settings.cfg

# The basic activity sync happens every 20 minutes.
*/20  *   * * *    /home/freezingsaddles/sites/freezingsaddles.com/env/bin/bafs-sync --quiet

# (Hourly) We sync the full detail for all activities, up to max-records
10    *   * * *    /home/freezingsaddles/sites/freezingsaddles.com/env/bin/bafs-sync-detail --quiet --max-records=800

# (Hourly) We sync the GPS streams, up to max-records
50    *   * * *    /home/freezingsaddles/sites/freezingsaddles.com/env/bin/bafs-sync-streams --quiet --max-records=800

# (Every 2 hours) we rewrite activities that appear to have changed (e.g. if an activity was trimmed, renamed, etc.)

30    */2 * * *    /home/freezingsaddles/sites/freezingsaddles.com/env/bin/bafs-sync --rewrite --quiet

# (Every day) we sync weather from wunderground.com
0     4   * * *    /home/freezingsaddles/sites/freezingsaddles.com/env/bin/bafs-sync-weather --quiet

# (Every day) we sync the athletes.  (This should be more frequent during registration period.)
30    4   * * *    /home/freezingsaddles/sites/freezingsaddles.com/env/bin/bafs-sync-athletes --quiet

# (Twice an hour) we sync photos
25,55 *   * * *    /home/freezingsaddles/sites/freezingsaddles.com/env/bin/bafs-sync-photos --quiet

Running the (Development) Server

You can start up the Flask development server for testing using the bafs-server command.

(env) shell$ BAFS_SETTINGS=/path/to/local_settings.py bafs-server

Starting a New competition

1. First things you'll need to do is backup the current database.
2. Once backed up, clear out the database tables.
3. Next, you'll want to clear out any team IDs from the config file (assuming new competition means new teams).
4. Generally you'll want to create a single competition team for folks to use when they first are registering; configure that single team in the config file for now.
5. Once teams have been created, you can add the new teams to the config file and eventually remove the single competition team.