My Most Recent Ride 2014 (Part VII in a series)

Rode 16.8 miles today. I tried out my new Garmin Edge 510. This is the first GPS I have that syncs to my phone. (I think Buddy already has one.)

Anyway I set it up, downloaded Garmin Connect to my cell phone, put on my heart rate strap and off I went. It picked up satellites super fast. (Beats my 800 and 610) Touch screen is more sensitive than my 800. And it is supposed to have a 20 hour battery life. (Don't know about that yet but that far surpasses all my other GPSs.)

Customized the screen the way I wanted it, it start and off I went. When I was finished with my ride I hit the stop button. The unit asked if I wanted to save the ride. I said yes and it connect to my phone and uploaded the data to my Garmin Connect account. When I went to my computer it was all there.

Now for all you Strava and Map My Ride folks might wonder why bother. Your software does all this too. The big difference is this method DOES NOT USE MY CELL PHONE BATTERY. So I record all the data on the GPS and it takes less than 30 seconds to connect to my phone and upload the data. Cell phone battery usage is the biggest complaint I have with Strava. It eats my battery and there is no way I could ride for 6 - 8 hours and have any cell phone battery left.

The unit comes with heart rate strap, cadence counter, and an distance monitor (like other computer have) to quicker speed indicator. Plus an extended mount for hammerhead DF riders. I am not putting this stuff on because I really don't need it.

 

+ 1

Andrew

 

I took a short ride this morning out to check out developments at Rous Head and caught the SUN just starting to come out over the Port of Fremantle.



Andrew

 

Beautiful picture...I always enjoy mornings.

 

Nice unless you are a Google Chrome user and then you get the "blue screen of death", i.e., Garmin Connect "Modern" does not play nicely with Chrome [fair bit on it in the Garmin forums].

I am pretty much now over Garmin and well and truly and I am hanging out for my Garmin Edge 810 to die so I can justify moving on to Magellan. That will be like having all my Christmases at once

EDIT: That said one can apparently set up Strava so it is synced to Garmin Connect. I have yet to try this having just discovered it, but if one uploads a ride to Garmin Connect (e.g., as you suggest) it automatically then syncs to Strava. So as a Strava user I can use Garmin Connect as you suggest to update Strava, without having to actually go into Garmin Connect win win

Andrew

 

Andrew,

Beautiful picture!!!

 

Out for a ride today since I got my feet healed up enough to deal with shoes again... for the moment.

We took the route that skirts the north west edge of Uppsala before heading toward the city centre.

Got the trike ready to go. Sat down, barely made it 100 feet, felt the first sprinkle. By .15 mile, the drizzle turned into a rain. We turned back around at .25 mile, but once we got back home, not a drop to be seen.

Still, I waited 10-15 minutes before trying again. There was a bit of sunshine and we got rolling. About mile 5, another cloud rolled in and it started sprinkling again. I parked under a chestnut (I think) tree and we stayed dry for a while. Then it turned into a downpour that overwhelmed even the large, thickly layered leaves. By the time I started getting good and wet, it had dropped from 69 F to 54 F.

It slacked a little and Loke started getting pushy. Off we went. Less than half a mile on, I found an underpass and we stopped for me to huddle out of the rain as another deluge arrived. This time, Loke waited patiently.

It finally stopped and we continued on. The sun never really came out, but I was mostly dry by the time I stopped at the American food shop. When I arrived home, I was even slightly sweaty which was better than shivering!

9.11 miles.

Terii

 

4.5 miles today. Just a quick River Loop to burn some of Loke's energy before we go to a movie. Dark, angry looking clouds lurked on the horizon no matter which way we went, but oddly, not a single drop of rain fell today.

Terii

 

i am in Canada right now. Was in Ottowa last two days. They have 120 miles of bike trails through and around the city. It is 80 degrees here so everyone is out enjoying the warm weather. I don't see many fat Canadians!!!

In Montreal today and tomorrow. All the streets have bike lanes and folks using them. They are much more health oriented here than in Tennessee!!!

I told my wife I wanted to retire and move to Canada and ride all the bike trails. Then I realized I could ride 2 months out of the year and would be shoveling snow the other 10 months. I'll pass and stay in East Tennessee!!!

 

*scratch, scratch, scratch*

4 miles yesterday. Not much to say about it except it was a pretty day, but I was just too sick to go further.

13 miles today.

In most ways, it wasn't a bad ride. The weather was gorgeous. Mostly clear skies, temps between 65 - 70 F, almost no wind. Loke moved well and I felt remarkably good. Dare I even say FIT? Still slow going up hills, but they didn't feel like they were killing me which is a wonderful change.

We headed out in directions we've not been in some years. Hågadålen which is always pretty. From there I'd planned to ride through the nature reserve to the road which would take me to the south end of the City Forest. From there would have been through the Woods which links up with my usual meander toward downtown and then home.

Things went unpleasant at Hågadålen. I followed what was marked as a cycle path on Google and such. Turned out the 'cycle path' was a very narrow foot path the trike couldn't have handled. Not catching that, I did near a mile on another, slightly bigger path which was a bit of an adventure for Loke and I. Barely wide enough for the trike, so we had weeds slapping around on both sides.

At some point, I started to feel a burning itch. My face, arms, torso, legs, neck. Even my scalp. Upon closer examination of the weeds, I discovered that some of the brown plants with white puffs were dried NETTLES. Every time I'd been hitting them, the white puffs flew apart become vicious, invisible needles to rival shards of fiber glass.

It was then I realised I'd gone the wrong way. Forward was miles more of the path, likely with plenty of nettles. Back was about 1 mile... with nettles. I went back

Jens got home shortly after that, but I went on, suffering when each little movement or even mild gusts of winds made me want to claw my skin off. I did NOT want those shards imbedded in our car seats. 7 miles of pure hell, just to be clear.

At least the nettles is all I had to deal with. Feeling like crap as far as fitness on top of that would have been a worse nightmare. Rain might have actually felt good. Higher winds would have been bad too.

Back home now with 3 showers which still hasn't removed all the 'finer than hairs' needles. I still get a burning jab from one every now and again.

Oh! To finish up on a positive note, I LOVE my new helmet. Ride before last (Sunday) the plastic band that snugged my helmet, snapped. I was infuriated that my very expensive helmet had broken so soon. It suddenly hit me that 'so soon' was actually 3 years or more. *sheepish*.

Jens purposely left me the car on Monday, asking me to find a new helmet even if I did nothing else for the day. Given how long it took me to find my Scott, I was surprised when I was in and out of the cycle shop in 15 minutes. Most of that was trying on cycle shoes actually.

The 2nd helmet, I picked up to look at and try on was a 'Specialized' brand, no clue what model. The rachet and band for snugging it to the correct size is far more robust in feel and look than it was on my Scott. The side straps loop into a plastic brace which the chin strap hangs from. I really love that brace. It means the side straps don't rub my ears. A first for a cycle helmet for me. It fits as if it was made for me.

Terii

 

2014 was the wettest summer in over 100 years here in Fairbanks, AK. September 1st we had over 2 inches! Now it is sunny and cool but it looks like at least a week of no rain! Trying to get as many miles as possible before snow hits. Getting more time on my recumbent and getting more comfortable with it but still very cautious at intersections.

 

VKHi again for the Savannah Century. Terribly hot so I decided for the metric option. Felt good coming out of the gate, started in back to let the crowds go and ended up passing a ton of riders crossing the big bridge. Making good time on the other side I began picking off groups one at a time. A couple of guys on Tri bikes caught me so I picked up the pace and started pacing with them. HOWEVER....I looked up and realized that I could see no other riders ahead or behind. I hollered at the others and dropped out of warp. Slowly I worked back until I found the missed turn almost exactly 3 miles later.

Now I was pretty much behind everyone so I just settled into a groove and started racking up the miles. I passed a groups that had had a wreck, no one looked too much the worse for wear and the SAG vehicle was on site so I continued onward.

Not much else to say except it was HOT and I mean HOT. The good news, now that I had six extra miles I decided to just stop at the friends house where I had stayed the night. A cold shower then were headed downtown for hamburgers and beer.

Oh, and my Garmin went on the fritz a bit so I did a bit of math to come up with numbers. 67 miles in a total of 3:53.

 

You must have been in a serious "zone" if you were cruising so fast that you missed your turn.

 

Ward, is that 19 mph? You needed something stronger than beer. Had to be in the 90's. Our best and strongest rider was back today after months convalescing. Stroked out on us with a rt carotid 95% blocked. He had a
bit of a problem getting his leg over the bike, but was riding stronger than most. We had 12 riders. Nice group. It was starting to get hot when we finished at 10a. I did 16 miles with the ELF. Reported it on the Journal and Garmin Connect.

You need to be careful. I call your ride in the danger zone for heat. What say you.

 

You are probably right Buddy, what is crazy is the number of riders that were out hours after I called it a day. I was right around 19 mph but you have to keep in mind the route was crazy flat. I really like the look of that Elf, I think my wife would really like one of those.