Thanks gals. It seemed to be a little steadier while I was actually riding the bike BUT my heart rate was sky high! This doesn't surprise me, as it was always around the same rate (180) when I would count the regular way in Spinnning class and when I use the hand sensors on gym machines. My max heart rate by the formulas should be right around 200 or even lower at 195 depending on which formula you use. At one point the monitor said 193, and I don't think it was a misread. What is going on here? There's no way I did 45 minutes at 90% of max heart rate, so my max must be higher. Does this just mean I'm tremendously out of shape? Pushing harder than I should be? My resting heart rate is high too - around 80. Keeping myself at 80% would require spinning with practically no resistance.

For those of you who have monitors, what features have you found to be essential? I'm not sure if I'm going to keep this one - it does heart rate and target zones, but that's all. I'm thinking average, max, and time in zone might be good features to have.