Today’s plan was to do a recovery ride. After my recent outdoor rides over the Christmas break, Garmin has been reporting that I am “overreaching”. I figured with yesterday as a rest day, I could take today as an easy spin. However, with the nice (enough) weather outside, I decided I’d do my lunch time ride outdoors.
Things started badly.
I set off without my hood up, but within a kilometre or so, I’d stopped to correct that. No one likes cold ears.
As I set off once more, a car came past super close. I’m not sure if it was a trick of my imagination – cars do pass close by, unfortunately – or whether having put my hood up, my peripheral vision was negatively impacted. Either way, I jumped out of my skin at how close they’d come.
Unfortunately for them, they had to stop at the lights about 100m up the road. So I … rather impolitely – tapped on the window. Now, it turns out it was an old couple, and both of them jumped out of their skin in turn. I didn’t feel so bad about that, payback, if you will.
The problem: I don’t think they realised why I had tapped on their window. So I doubt they will learn anything from that.
Another motorist, however, took wild offence at what – I guess – he thought he had just seen. Some angry cyclist getting irate at an old couple? Well. He wasn’t shy about correcting such an injustice. Pomping, verbal, pointing, and then the finger. Me? Hadn’t I just been near-missed? Well, I returned his finger gesture with pleasure.
But it spoiled the rest of my ride.
As ever, trying to ride at a recovery pace outdoors is difficult, and I had to tell myself – out loud at times – to ease off. Not that it really helped. And I don’t think that road rage incident was conducive to me easing off, either.
There was only one time I thought about taking a photo today. However it was going to be an artsy shot of the shadow of me riding along. Nice and sunny, yes, but cold. And windy. Anyway, with my winter gloves on, I realised I wouldn’t be able to actually tap the button to take a picture. Boo.
True story: when using my phone in the cold, I have to use my nose to tap the screen. Yes, I do look like quite the idiot. However, I wasn’t prepared to risk a nose shot whilst riding, purely for the sake of this blog post. I hope you understand.
Anyway, the Garmin was happy with me today. That’s always nice.
And a decent calorie burn, for the time frame. I think I nullified that with two slices of my kids left over pizza I found in the fridge when I got home. She’ll never know.
Nose tapping the screen? Genius! Stealing that. I’ve been thinking about getting a bike computer but then realised that I probably won’t be able to see it without my reading glasses.
With the Garmin Edge 530 I’ve never had any issues with seeing the numbers under normal riding conditions. I wear glasses for stuff up close / computing, and the display on the Garmin is very visible to me when outdoors. It also switches to a dark mode if riding after sunset, which is quite nice.
What I would say is under efforts or when out of the saddle, it can be hard to see some numbers.
I’m not sure how many data screens you can add. I don’t think it’s unlimited – maybe 10, maximum, not sure.
On each screen – like a page in a book kind of – you can customise the data fields however you want them. I have a default over view screen – elapsed time, temp, watts per kilo last 3s, calories burned, stuff like this – https://cyclingindoors.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/14764.bmp – and thats about close to life size. Then other screens I use less frequently. ClimbPro is cool on a climb – https://cyclingindoors.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/oakenclough-climb-garmin-climbpro-1.bmp for example.
If you add too many data fields then yeah, the screen gets cluttered and its hard to read. So maybe on a single screen you might have three key metrics and then they each get 1/3rd of the screen, or you can set it up however you want really. It’s customisable, maybe a little bit overly so. The Garmin devices (the head units and the watches from my experience) are awesome bits of kit that fall down a bit in terms of User Experience. They are fiddly, and take getting used too. However, once you are used to them, they are fairly intuitive and easy to use, even with winter gloves on.
Not that I’m a Garmin salesman or anything. But I definitely haven’t had any regrets at buying the Edge 530.
Hate it when some tosser in a car ruins your ride! Sometimes I wave and shout “Hi” when they toot and give me the finger, figure that will piss them off more 😂
I refuse to believe anyone in paradise gives anyone the finger Phil, stop spoiling the illusion.
Thanks Chris for taking the time for such a comprehensive reply. Appreciated. Mmm, maybe I will get a Garmin. Thanks for the tip on the kool stop tool too in a previous post – mine arrived today. On one of your recent posts you spoke about saying hello and getting no reply. Seems to be happening more and more these days. There is one guy I pass frequently, fellow cyclist too, never get a hi back. But, rather than get annoyed, I just keep saying hello to him (is that passive aggressive? Ha!). The last time I passed him he said hello. Hey – result. Seriously though, people have become very insular and fearful in these times. I blame the media.
No problem, glad I could help. Yeah, the kool stop tool has proved useful – I have started taking it out on every ride now, fits in the jersey pocket without being noticable, though how it will fare without a jacket over the top is yet to be seen. I’ve seen people out with full pumps in their jersey pockets, so I should be OK… hopefully.
I say hello to everyone – roady cyclists typically do reply, but not always. Their loss, I mean, how hard is it to raise a hand or say morning / hello ? Mountain bikers rarely speak… different bunch. And walkers? Well, that’s rare, unless they are true hiker types, and then they always speak 🙂 It’s funny isn’t it, how it’s not geo-specific. Just personality types, I guess.