I’m compliant with Rule #74: no Garmin, no cyclometer, just an uncluttered cockpit. I’m not anti-data, if I could generate some awesome data I’d like to know about it. If I was racing I would train with data. I just got bored with looking at the numbers and not doing anything about them. When my Cateye cyclometer/heart rate monitor demanded yet another bi-monthly battery change, I took the whole thing off and never looked back. Total milage, elevation gained, I no longer care about these numbers.
Can you ride without data? Does a ride even happen if it doesn’t show up on Strava? Bretto brilliantly introduced the V-meter three years ago. It was an idea that flew in the face of all the new technology we needed on the bike. Push on the pedals and if in doubt, push on them harder.
I did buy into a heart rate monitor or two in my time. Early on we used them like kids used the early alcohol breathalyzers installed in bars. That was an ill conceived notion if there ever was one; it’s a damn bar, only young drunk males are going to use breathalyzers and it won’t be to see if they are too high to drive. Rather, they are going to use it as a drunkometer, to see who can get drunker. For us it was young males on bikes, I’m gonna peg this HRM, see, see, I can get a higher number than you because you suck.
Without data I know when I’m going faster than 65 kph, things do change at those speeds. And I know when I’ve done a 160 km ride only because it’s a route I know from past centuries. I do live on an island. But I still make deposits at the pain bank at regular times. Being too big to climb and living on the side of a volcanic island has made every ride something. When I was younger I couldn’t enjoy a forty-five minute ride, I actually wouldn’t go on one. What was the point of such a short ride? Now forty-five minutes can mean forty minutes of steady climbing and five minutes of descending. That’s a ride.
Getting shelled by your friends tells you something, something you already knew, they are faster. Riding with friends who are faster is the best training aid. I figure it’s a quality training ride if I barely make it home. Do more of those, keep doing them a little harder.
Keepers Tour 2012 was doubly fun for the training required before the trip even started. We all need incentive to crank up that kind of fitness. I’m sure the 200 on 100 Cogal riders felt the same way; this ride is going to hurt but it will hurt less if I murder myself in the months before. The Spring Campaign is looming and I’m already devising training rides that will either make me fit or ruin me, or both at the same time, which is what usually happens.
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@Mikael Liddy
Oh, Jezuz H. Merckx, this is just fucking shit in a bag.
http://jet.reconinstruments.com/
I get it. More fucking toys. If this is your thing, great. But $600? JHM, I could get a Assos Bib Short for that! (Wait..what?)
I understand the luddites who neither want nor need data when they ride. I feel the same way when I MTB. But given limited time to train I want to maximize the value of every ride. The one thing I don't do is measure average speed down which the road to ruin lies. However as someone with both a high resting heart hate and max HR (as in 204 bpm in a two mile Army fitness test) it is very important to track HR versus power since standard ROT don't apply. Speed will come but I'm more concerned with effort vs output, especially when building a base after a long time off the bike.
So I understand the freedom that comes with riding IAW the V factor some of us need the feedback to get us where we want to be. And from a personal perspective I don't want to stare at the CPU the whole ride I do want to know what I've accomplished on each ride.
@eightzero
It's a good job Hincapie has retired cos I'd be at the roadside with a stick to poke in his spokes for promoting those things.
@Elric. The Luddites were opposed to the mechanical advances of the Industrial Revolution during the late 18th and early 19th centuries as they feared mechanisation would destroy their livelihoods, which in many cases it did. Not sure I am quite that troubled by someone's Garmin.
Another perspective, from an older guy. As you get older, the line between "tough" and "stupid" becomes much finer, and the penalties for crossing it more severe. When I decided to start racing at 60, I wanted to track what I was doing with more than just RPE, which can vary on a daily basis. When I know I'm going to be pushing myself, I do it with a Powertap and a HRM. OTOH, when doing endurance work, I don't worry about power and don't have to (though usually do) monitor HR, as long as I get the time in. Doing it doesn't detract from the joy of a good ride. This weekend is a pair of ~120 km endurance rides. Gonna be awesome.
@revchuck
i have nothing but respect for you!!
@El Mateo
I think my Vmeter has recorded efforts that haven't even happened yet. Today seemed as though the computers off the back were being drained of all power as other riders took it with them off the front.
@PeakInTwoYears What topo mapping software are you using? There's a bunch of tracks near me that I have long wanted to map.
Love data personally, but that main picture is something else. Just awesome!
A-Merckx
@G'phant
On the Android phone, Backcountry Navigator Pro; then, on the Mac, MacGPSPro. Then Photoshop for image production and editing.
@revchuck I hear you when you say, "As you get older, the line between "tough" and "stupid" becomes much finer, and the penalties for crossing it more severe." A couple years ago when I first got back into cycling (after getting injured too many times pretending I could still play soccer competitively), I did a 6-hour mountain bike race (tough but stupid). I strained my lower back which took over a year of physio to resolve. I started road riding, got addicted, sold my fancy mtb, joined this community and never looked back. One of the things I love about riding on the road is that I can choose my pain in a measured way. The first couple of years, the data helped, but I've abandoned that now and go by feel. I do sportives, but for real racing, I can see that the data would be helpful for us older dudes-- to keep us on the bike and out of the clinic..