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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I am proud to say I have been data free for 5 years now and the only data I give a shit about is my tubulars' PSI before the ride. I really enjoyed riding with my data addict friends, they are so much fun to screw with. My favorite one, is when they are fixated on their data box, I love to comment, "did you see that hot chick in the jeep, she just flashed us".
This MOLTENI image reminds me of Kraftwerk Tour de France.
Some of those guys in the photo are packing a bit of extra body weight, as said by me as I sit here keyboarding and drinking a glass of Paul Jaboulet Aîné Côtes du Rhône.
@Marcus
You want the Truth? You can't handle the Truth!
Super Randonneurs need data or can get lost or miss a control in the wee hours in the night.
@wiscot try randonneurring. it's where you will find the adult riders, ex racers, who wanna burn some long hours in the saddle and yearn for 1200ks like the Paris-Brest-Paris. go to http://www.rusa.org to start
I'm happy to report that I've never felt the need to Strava or Ritmo or meticulously record or compare ride data. How long, how far, how fast courtesy of a neat wee VDO suffices and how the legs feel usually indicates how high. It's not really possible to get that lost and if I'm off track it just means the ride is longer and I'm experiencing new roads. By all means use power if you are a pro or aspiring to be one. If all this techno floats your boat carry on but I hate the dick swinging that can go on. Doesn't a 4 hour gps monitored ride just eat the mobile phone battery anyway?
@poppapro Yea, I remember back in the late 80's/early 90's hearing those guys at the bike shop looking for a cyclocomputer that wouldn't zero out whenever it hit the 12hr mark on a ride.
Pre cycle computer didn't mean riding without data, riders would count their cadence and work out what speed they were going based on chainring and rear sprocket combination, ever increasing cassette clusters makes this a little more difficult unless you are Rainman, knowing how to meter out the V resource is a key component of cycling, as it is an endurance sport after all. Lucky tho, that nowadays most riders are able to mash 53/11 all day long without ever getting tired.
Since Nate mentioned it, I've pulled my cyclometers off my bike and put them in my jersey pocket. I like knowing minor things - total time, total distance, and KMs to see how much life I get out of chains, tyres, etc. But, I love having a smooth bike and not being obsessed with numbers, but knowing at the end of a ride how far I went.
But yes, riding on feel is the best. If you've been at it even a short while, you know when you're on and when you're off.
Love that lead photo! Still hanging onto the last few pages of "Half Man, Half Machine."