Well, here we are into a new year. The Mayans may have run out of time, but we haven't...yet. For now, we still have the world and all of its' wonderful trails and roads to ride upon.
I didn't ride very much last year, and rode even less the year before, or still less the year before that one, but things are going to be different this year. So long as my knees hold up anyway. I have rediscovered my love of bicycling. I'm not certain what brought about the change, but I'm going with it. Less time on the motorbike, and more time on the pedals from here on out into the foreseeable future.
I have few new gadgets to tinker with as well. Recently, my Wife and I were visiting a few old friends at their bike shop, and although we had made the journey to Boerne, TX specifically with the purpose of purchasing some new road shoes, I made an impulse purchase while I was at it. So not only am I sporting a new pair of spartacus-white (I just made that up) Giro Apeckx shoes, but I am now feeding data to the Garmin Edge 500 that I already owned via a brand new item from CycleOps called the PowerCal. The PowerCal is a heart rate monitor that calculates wattage based on heart rate data. Now before you get all in my face about the time lag of heart rate etc etc, let me say this. I am not a division one pro. Heck, I'm not even an elite amateur.
I am just a guy with a couple of really nice, okay one good steel bike (an old Specialized), and one KICK ASS steel bike from the fine folks at Waterford Precision Cycles. My point is that CycleOps and the University of Colorado have amassed enough exercise files and power data on enough different athletes of all levels using other highly accurate equipment both in the lab, and on the road. They have the algorithms that work well enough for a regular guy such as myself, and probably for you.
So far, the PowerCal works just fine. One small anomaly is that when I am using the PowerCal with my bike that doesn't have a cadence sensor, the Garmin reads a constant cadence of 255. It also does this when I am on my other bike with a cadence sensor and stop pedaling. Otherwise the data appears to be pretty good, and the 255 cadence is not shown on the exercise file. A quick googolymoogoly search led me to a Garmin user forum in which a fellow Garmin 500 user brought up the same question. The answer he received was this: "It is a bug in the current Garmin firmware release. The Powercal transmits a cadence value of 255 all the time. The value 255 is a special value that informs the head unit that the power meter is not sending a cadence value. This should not be displayed by the head unit. You will notice that though the head unit displays a value of 255 it does not write that value to the FIT file so it a UI bug." Apparently, it's harmless, and hopefully the next firmware update will remedy the issue.
I didn't ride very much last year, and rode even less the year before, or still less the year before that one, but things are going to be different this year. So long as my knees hold up anyway. I have rediscovered my love of bicycling. I'm not certain what brought about the change, but I'm going with it. Less time on the motorbike, and more time on the pedals from here on out into the foreseeable future.
I have few new gadgets to tinker with as well. Recently, my Wife and I were visiting a few old friends at their bike shop, and although we had made the journey to Boerne, TX specifically with the purpose of purchasing some new road shoes, I made an impulse purchase while I was at it. So not only am I sporting a new pair of spartacus-white (I just made that up) Giro Apeckx shoes, but I am now feeding data to the Garmin Edge 500 that I already owned via a brand new item from CycleOps called the PowerCal. The PowerCal is a heart rate monitor that calculates wattage based on heart rate data. Now before you get all in my face about the time lag of heart rate etc etc, let me say this. I am not a division one pro. Heck, I'm not even an elite amateur.
I am just a guy with a couple of really nice, okay one good steel bike (an old Specialized), and one KICK ASS steel bike from the fine folks at Waterford Precision Cycles. My point is that CycleOps and the University of Colorado have amassed enough exercise files and power data on enough different athletes of all levels using other highly accurate equipment both in the lab, and on the road. They have the algorithms that work well enough for a regular guy such as myself, and probably for you.
So far, the PowerCal works just fine. One small anomaly is that when I am using the PowerCal with my bike that doesn't have a cadence sensor, the Garmin reads a constant cadence of 255. It also does this when I am on my other bike with a cadence sensor and stop pedaling. Otherwise the data appears to be pretty good, and the 255 cadence is not shown on the exercise file. A quick googolymoogoly search led me to a Garmin user forum in which a fellow Garmin 500 user brought up the same question. The answer he received was this: "It is a bug in the current Garmin firmware release. The Powercal transmits a cadence value of 255 all the time. The value 255 is a special value that informs the head unit that the power meter is not sending a cadence value. This should not be displayed by the head unit. You will notice that though the head unit displays a value of 255 it does not write that value to the FIT file so it a UI bug." Apparently, it's harmless, and hopefully the next firmware update will remedy the issue.
The other gadget that have to mess with now is Strava. I really don't care one way or the other about segments, at least not right now while I am so slow, but I wanted a different way to look at the data being provided by my cyclometer. I think that Strava provides exactly that. A different viewpoint. So far, so good. Don't worry. I promise to not become one of those Straviots that you hear about who blast by dangerously close to your shoulder shouting “STRAVA” and then gets run over by a cement mixer truck while running a red traffic signal. I have no desire to be that guy, but keeping up with my present goal of six cycling hours a week is one positive to have come out of using Strava. Sure, I could set the goal in my mind, or on a spreadsheet, then just try to keep up. But there is something more motivational about having it on my page where my friends who follow me (I have no idea why anyone would want to that.) can see whether I am slipping up or not.
Well, until next time, have a great day and a great ride.
