Patterns
Patterns are the core primitive of Boulder Roller. They represent verified records of effort on specific geographic or physiological features.
What Is a Pattern?
A pattern is a defined effort signature tied to real-world geography. When you climb a specific hill, your ride produces data—GPS coordinates, elevation changes, timestamps—that matches the pattern's definition.
Think of it like this: the hill exists in the real world. The pattern is our protocol's representation of that hill and the effort required to climb it.
┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ │
│ REAL WORLD PROTOCOL │
│ │
│ ┌─────────────┐ ┌─────────────────────┐ │
│ │ │ │ │ │
│ │ Mount Tam │ ────────▶ │ Pattern #4521 │ │
│ │ East Peak │ │ Difficulty: 8.2 │ │
│ │ │ │ Avg Grade: 7.4% │ │
│ │ │ │ Elev Gain: 642m │ │
│ └─────────────┘ │ Stakes: 12,400 CAL │ │
│ └─────────────────────┘ │
│ │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘Pattern Types
Climb Patterns
The most common pattern type. Detected when your ride includes:
Sustained uphill gradient (minimum threshold)
Significant elevation gain
Consistent effort over distance
Climb patterns are scored by difficulty based on length, average gradient, and maximum gradient.
Power Patterns (Coming Soon)
Detected from power meter data. Represent sustained efforts at specific power outputs regardless of terrain.
Route Patterns (Coming Soon)
Geographic signatures based on the path taken, not just elevation. Useful for flat regions where climbs don't exist.
How Patterns Are Detected
When you upload a ride, our pattern engine:
Indexes by tile — Your GPS track is mapped onto a spatial grid
Extracts elevation — We pull elevation profiles from multiple data sources
Calculates gradients — Rolling averages smooth out noise
Identifies candidates — Sections meeting thresholds become pattern candidates
Matches known patterns — Candidates are compared against registered patterns
Registers new patterns — Novel efforts can become new patterns
The detection is deterministic. Upload the same ride twice, get the same patterns.
Pattern Attributes
Each pattern has:
ID
Unique on-chain identifier
Location
Geographic bounding box and centerpoint
Elevation Gain
Total vertical meters
Distance
Length in kilometers
Average Grade
Mean gradient percentage
Max Grade
Steepest section
Difficulty Score
Composite difficulty rating (1-10)
First Roller
Wallet that first registered this pattern
Total Rolls
Number of verified completions
Staked CAL
Amount of CAL staked on this pattern
Your Patterns vs. Community Patterns
Your patterns are the patterns you've personally rolled (completed). They appear in your wallet as verified proofs of effort.
Community patterns are all patterns registered in the protocol. Anyone can view them, stake on them, or attempt to roll them.
When you roll a pattern that doesn't exist yet, you become its first roller—a permanent on-chain attribution.
Why "Patterns" and Not "Segments"?
We deliberately chose different terminology for legal and philosophical reasons.
Legal: "Segment" is strongly associated with specific fitness platforms. We're building something different.
Philosophical: "Pattern" emphasizes the repeatable, verifiable nature of the effort. A pattern is something you can match, prove, and own. It's a signature, not just a section of road.
Pattern Economics
Patterns have economic value determined by:
Difficulty — Harder patterns have higher base rewards
Stakes — More CAL staked = higher reward multiplier
Scarcity — First rolls and rare patterns earn bonuses
Activity — Frequently rolled patterns may have diminishing individual rewards but indicate high value
See The Two Tokens for more on how pattern economics work.
Next Steps
Understand proof of effort
Learn about the token model
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