The 24 hour weather forecast is rarely wrong, and so when, last night, I saw rain rain rain for the morning, I suspected I’d be indoors today. Well, it did rain, but the showers were light and the ground largely dry when dinner time arrived. So, off out I went.
I plotted a route into the Garmin covering a few roads I haven’t been down before, giving me a 30km loop to cover in my dinner hour. All seemed good, and whilst I hit a few traffic lights on the way out, I was soon able to settle into the country roads and find a decent rhtyhm.
Again, much like yesterday, the order of business today was ~200w average. I find keeping at that pace doesn’t kill me, but gets the work done in the time I have. Providing there aren’t too many junctions or unexpected road works, I can generally keep to around the high twenties, or low thirty kilometres per hour.
Unlike yesterday it was far cooler today. I was out in my long sleeve base layer, long sleeve jersey, gilet and bib shorts. Perhaps a jacket would have been a sensible idea as my arms were cold.
For most of this ride, things went fine. Aside from the pot hole strewn country roads, the ride was pleasant enough. Whilst we were lacking in sun today, fortunately the wind wasn’t as strong as yesterday, so it kinda evened out.
Where things went awry was on the furthest part of my ride. I went down a road to nowhere and following the satnav, turned onto a shocking gravel path. Well, no turning back, so on I went. This little road was a roller coaster in all the wrong ways. Finally I got to a farm house with a car idling outside. As I went to go around the car, a full size sheep bounded out of the hedge right at me…
You can see the spike in my heart rate on the graph above. I helpfully dotted it green.
Well, fortunately it had its own moment of doubt as we made eye contact and as quickly as it came at me, it turned away… not that I was hanging around. Gravel track or not I was hot footing my way as far from that sheep as possible. I always thought they were peaceful animals. Now I know better.
About the only other thing to cover today was I decided to put in a sprint effort on the way home. Sprinting isn’t something I’m particularly good at, nor something I really enjoy. But I guess it’s good to try and do all rounder type stuff every once in a while.
So as that’s two outdoor rides in a row, and the weather is generally looking nicer and nicer heading into the weekend, I am expecting to be outdoors again tomorrow. Where to go, who knows? Ideally another 30km effort, and it’s best to stay off the main roads I find during the weekdays, so it will likely be another countryside ride. Maybe up towards Beacon Fell.
Hello. How do you record your power output on the garmin? I take it you have bluetooth pedals (any recommendations?)? Having just bought a garmin I’m wondering how to go about it. Cheers.
I use the Assioma Duos – https://cycling.favero.com/shop/dual-sided-powermeter-assioma-duo – very expensive, in my case more expensive than my bike, though they appear to have come down in price by £150 or so since I bought them.
I went with the duos based on GP Lama’s recommendation, amongst others – https://gplama.com/powermeter-guide/
Also I went with pedal based rather than crank simply because pedals were much easier for me to install as a newbie. The duos are way over kill for my needs, but I can’t fault them. The only downside is they need charging every 30 rides or so, which is a bit weird – can’t go for a bike ride cus your pedals aren’t charged :/
Haha! Yeah, that is a very modern reason for not going cycling! Thanks for the links. Had a good look around your website but couldn’t locate a review (I’m sure it is in there somewhere). I’ve got the same bike as you too – good bike. I’m not copying you or anything – honest. The pedals are expensive but good to know that if I ever buy them it’ll be money well spent. The garmin will do for now for my March splurge. Thanks again for the info!
Ahh sorry, I’m not sure I ever did a review of the pedals as at the time of purchase I wouldn’t really have had a clue if they were good or bad.
What I do know is they appear far more accurate that the power meter built into the Tacx Neo. But again, I don’t have any true basis for comparison.
Yeah – I’m still super happy with my Allez. Very basic by comparison, but it’s been a great bike for me.
First ride with the garmin today. Expected it to be fairly straight forward but it kept bleeping at me. Pulling over and doing an internet search I found the button to press that starts recording your ride, slightly confused at first as the advice was “hold down the button on the lower right”. Okay, done but that just takes me back to the previous menu. Then I discovered there is a button at the bottom of the garmin on the right. Got there in the end. You helped me out on a previous post when I said I didn’t think I would be able to see the screen due to needing reading glasses. I can happily report that I can indeed see (mostly) the data on the screen. Many thanks! The gps lags a bit but I suppose unless I’m in an F-35 fighter jet I’m not going to get access to the full capabilities of the gps satellite. Pleased with the purchase.
😀 That sounds alarmingly like my first ride(s)!
So couple of things I’d advise:
1. turn off the sharp bend indicator, it’s pointless. It just bleeps all the time for any random bend – https://forums.garmin.com/sports-fitness/cycling/f/edge-530/165869/can-the-sharp-bend-ahead-notification-be-turned-off
2. The lap button is on the left – where ‘start my ride’ is on the right at the bottom of your unit. At some point you will want to do laps and that just baffled me for ages on where to start a lap – press once to begin a new lap, press again to finish the lap / start a new one. OR as I did today hitting the bottom of the alpe, accidentally hit the right button, pause your ride, and then realise 2 corners later that you messed up. The UX on garmin stuff is not good.
Yeah – gps + gradient are two lagging indicators. GPS is annoying sometimes if you dont know the routes as infrequently it just doesnt alert you to the turn.
I have no other devices to compare to, but overall I think it’s about a 7/10 for what it is. I wouldn’t be without it, but there’s lots of room for improvement.
Haha! Glad I’m not alone. Truth be told, I pulled over about 4 times before doing an internet search. Thanks for the tips! I did get lap alerts after every 5 miles but thought,”Yeah, do what you want.” But good to know what the left button does now. Yeah, definitely a good addition and some nice data from it. Cheers!