Quote:
Originally Posted by kelownagirl
This is soooo sweet!
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Quote:
Originally Posted by kelownagirl
This is soooo sweet!
Yay yay yay, new toy!!
I absolutely adore mine, and I credit it with rekindling my love for biking. Coupla things I've learned:
- Get into the habit of turning the power off when you're done riding. It will drain itself of batteries without warning and the next time you go to use it, it will be dead dead dead. Start a good habit NOW before you get frustrated with it.
- The altitude can be all over the place. Just standing in my living room, it will bounce around 80ft in elevation. It's not uncommon to bike in a big loop and find your home 150ft lower than you left it. Use the numbers as a rough guide, not as an absolute! (Garmin says it helps to have it warm up outside with a satellite lock, as it can take a good half hour to really sync well!)
- It can be kind of stupid on the road: it won't tell you how to get places or what your max speed was or what your total odometer is, but once you get to a computer, all the magic happens. I use the software that came with it to do the bulk of the tracking, but also use MotionBased to share rides, and I also keep an excel spreadsheet to keep track of how rides feel from day to day. But I'm a total numbers junkie that way. :)
Enjoy your new quantification!
-- gnat!
thanks gnat. The power thing will be a big deal for me to remember and the other quirks may challenge my perfectionist tendencies...but alas...good problems to have, eh?
Also, changes the settings so it stops recording data when you make a stop, rather than stopping it yourself. I forget to turn it back on when I do that.
Gnat - how many windows do you have open on the front screen? I have 7 - current speed,avg speed, distance, heart rate, grade%, total climbing, and time of day. There are many other choies you can have if you want something different to show. I haven't had much trouble with my elevation yet - minro discrepancies is all. A couple of times my HRM has been out of whack (232 max?! I don't think so..) Other than that, it's been awesome!
kelownagirl, It wasn't until I saw someone else's that I realized that you could change the number of windows on the front! Hah! I instantly filled it with time, speed, distance, time of day (can't see my watch when riding), calories, cadence, elevation, and total ascent. DATA DATA DATA!
I've hit 212 max heart rate... but that was climbing 14% grade right when I started biking and soon after I quit smoking... not totally out of whack, I guess. Or I magically became 8 years old. Or am actually dead right now.
Oh! And I forgot a magic power backup plan: http://www.solio.com
This is a solar-or-wall charged portable battery pod that connects with just about every small electronic device out there. I used it on my Garmin this morning (stupid, after I just mentioned how easy it is to drain, too!), and it worked great!
I hate to sound like a convert, but the Garmin really changed how I approach biking. I now seek out the biggest hills just to get the numbers. :p
-- gnat!