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.
I know as well as any of you that I've been checked out lately, kind…
Peter Sagan has undergone quite the transformation over the years; starting as a brash and…
The Women's road race has to be my favorite one-day road race after Paris-Roubaix and…
Holy fuckballs. I've never been this late ever on a VSP. I mean, I've missed…
This week we are currently in is the most boring week of the year. After…
I have memories of my life before Cycling, but as the years wear slowly on…
View Comments
I've been a big Strava fan for the last couple of years but sometime this summer I really got sick of the FRED RACES and people giving kudos and comments like " nice ride" when you just upload some two hour easy spin.
Now I can have a nice warm down to my rides instead of stressing about dropping my AVS.
I'll admit to tracking kilometrage. Mind you, for some reason I'm looking less and less at the computer. If I'm doing a recovery ride I'll put some tape over it to eliminate the temptation to look at speed and distance. It can be quite freeing.
Here's an issue/goal for next year. I did my longest ever ride this summer - 157 miles. I felt good at the end as I ran out of daylight. I'd really like to shoot for a 200 mile ride next year but fear there will be no takers to join me. If this was posted as a cogal and only I showed up, would it count?
It was big of Eddy to let his teammate win the Belgian national road race that year. That must be Herman Van Springel, the 1971 champ.
Riding w/ a speedo at least helps you keep some etiquette when pulling through.... I believe in Solo Strava and/or using routes on MMR but data is good IMHO
I've got a Garmin 500. I like that you can program routes into it so you're not constantly stopping to check a map as to where to turn next. I also like the "ghost race" Lets you know where you can make improvements.
I'm not a big strava user, I just use it as motivation to see my numbers add up, know when i'm making gains and losses (Things like moving around saddle position, cleats etc, and there effect over 100km)
if i'm going for a cruise I leave the garmin off or at home, but it has it's place in training in my opinion.
I like to track my rides, but have learned that I prefer to ride sans cycling computer (plus the bike just looks a whole lot better without it). I do use Strava, but via the iPhone app which I activate then stow away in my jersey pocket until I turn it off at the end of the ride. Best of both the data/no data worlds, at least for me.
Ah yes. I'm of two distinct minds about this: I use a Garmin starting around April and have been known to commit the sin of "KOM hunting". Why? Because it's fucking fun for me. It helps keep me motivated on rides where I otherwise wouldn't be.
On the other hand, in the winter, or if I'm just going out for a spin, I'll either throw it in my pocket, or leave it at home.
I do "get it". That is to say "free your stem and your mind will follow". We can have both right? I'm gonna.
Ah Rule #74 has to be one of my favourites. It's just so freeing. I adore "feeling" a ride now. I've been known to tuck a Garmin in my pockediff I'm a completely unknown route, but in my part of the UK you are never too far from somewhere, so getting lost isn't an issue. I adopted the rule as soon as I first read it. Never looked back (or constantly down at my stem) since.
If I was the tide I wouldn't come in if Eddy was on the beach.
I love keeping track of total distances for the month/year, but after I swapped out to a shorter stem this year I decided the Garmin looked stupid on it and started to put it in my back pocket instead. Worked just as well and I never had anything staring up at my face the whole riding, telling me exactly how slow I was going. I've liked the change.