Archive for the ‘Cycling’ Category
Supersprint Otway Ride
On Saturday the 28th I wasn’t sailing as there were some cars driving around the lake.
It transpires that I the Supersprint Otway & Ocean ride was this weekend.
It was a very early start, with me needing to get down to Torquay by 7:00AM. I left home just after 5:00AM, and had a pretty good run, arriving 15 minutes early.
At the start I was caught in bunches of slower riders, and took nearly an hour to get to the first stop 25 km into the race. After that I made sure I hooked up with groups of faster rides and my average speed rose quiet nicely. The descents were fantastic with broad sweeping corners and no cars.
After Lorne the course ‘levelled’ out undulating all the way back to Toquay. I was a fantastic day for a ride and the 25 degrees and no wind made it a joy. The other great thing was that there very few incidents on the day and most people were reasonably experienced, or they weren’t in front of me.
Supersprint Otways Ride at EveryTrail
Map created by EveryTrail:GPS Geotagging
Garmin Forerunner 305 as a Cycling Computer
I have now used the forerunner for a couple of rides, and two rides on the same course.
Using the Garmin Training Center I had configured one of my rides as a course. This is probably the closest comparison between the Forerunner 305 and the Ciclosport Hac 4, as I used the Hac 4 for a similar ‘virtual partner’ feature that the Forerunner 305 provides.
First off, selecting a course is much easier on the Forerunner. The courses you want are named on the device. On the Hac4 I had to remember the date and time that I last did the course. I can see this as a benefit in the future as I will probably have 3 courses saved for riding, one for no wind, one for a north wind and another for a southerly breeze. My riding times are greatly effected by the wind as I am quite exposed on some parts of my course.
Once a course has been selected the three screens of active information on the Forerunner is increased to six. The extra three screens are related to the course, and provide some interesting information. On the whole there are only 2 screens that I am interested in, my configured cycling screen, with HR, Cadence, Speed and Current Time. The other screen that I am interested in is the virtual partner screen. Unfortunately the 2 screens are 3 presses of the up/down button apart.
While riding I spend most of the time looking at the cycling screen. On the bike it is easy to review all the information displayed on the screen, as the bike and my head aren’t moving around much. The screen is clear and easy to read. Occasionally after going through tunnels the computer beeped to let me know it was back on course.
The Virtual Partner screen is in my opinion a bit of a waste of screen space. At the top of the screen is a ‘visualisation’ of my current position and the virtual partner position. In reality this is two bikes on the screen with no scale. The bottom of the screen is useful as it display how far in front/behind I am against my Virtual Partner. It uses the same white text on black vs black text on white to let you know if you are ahead/behind. Personally it would be great if I could display my heart rate and cadence at the top of the screen instead of the visualisation. As far as I can tell the Virtual Partner screen cannot be configured.
Out on the ride the system works well. The only thing that would be nice is if the virtual partner could pause when I am stopped at lights. Once I load the history on my computer the system can display my ride with the pauses taken out, however out on the course the virtual partner keeps riding while you are stopped at the lights.
The other thing that I would change with the virtual partner is that I think the time you are in front of your virtual partner is more useful that the distance. While running distance is fine as your pace doesn’t change to much on the ascents and descents. On the bike there can easily be a difference between 60kmh and 15kmh on the steepest hills. If you are traveling at 60kmh, 100 meters isn’t very far in front, but at 15kmh the distance is actually a larger gap time wise. It might be that I am just use to how the Hac 4 displayed its virtual race distance.
On the whole still extremely happy with the Forerunner as a Cycling Computer.
Initial Review of Garmin Forerunner 305
I just got my Garmin Forerunner 305. I have been looking at this running watch for a long time, and finally decided it was the right one after Garmin released the Forerunner 405. I bought the 305 for two reasons, the first as a motivational tool for my running and as a replacement for my aging Ciclosport HAC4 on my bike. I have had the HAC4 for nearly 8 years now and two functions are invaluable. The first is the ability to download this information to my computer so I can review it after the exercise, the other function that I used all the time is the ‘virtual race’ function. Basically if you record a bike ride, and then do that ride again you can see how you are performing compared to your previous ride. This gives you a readout saying how much time you are ahead/behind your existing ride. I found this is a great motivator to increase my speed on the regular rides.
The HAC4 is designed as a bike computer first and foremost, and uses the speed of the wheel to determine the distance. It could work as a running computer but would only give out a heart rate reading while running. The Forerunner uses GPS and therefore gives a similar function while running.
My first impression of this device is that the Forerunner 305 is big. I had read people saying that it is was big before I bought, but didn’t exactly realise how big it was. Especially off your wrist it looks like a monster, but part of the watch wraps around your wrist, and isn’t as unwieldy as it is seems in the box. However if you have small wrists take heed of this as it might be too big.
On my first run, the first thing that I noticed was that it is heavy especially compared to other watches that I have. I had to tighten the strap on my watch to stop it moving up and down on my wrist. The big problem with any watch on a run is that it is difficult to read as it is moving on you wrist. I could read the Forerunner, but it was quite difficult. Once at home I could download my run and review the run, looking at my speed and heart rate. After the first run I had some useful information but nothing that I couldn’t have got from carrying a GPS data logger with me.
It was on my second run that I saw the power of the Forerunner. Using the included Mac software I was able to load my first run as a course. This adds an entry to the training menu on the watch. Once I had selected that I wanted to run against my existing course, a couple of extra displays are included on the watch. The first is details of the course (how far you are away, how long the course is etc), an altitude map, and a virtual partner. For me the virtual partner is the most useful. This splits the screen in two, showing a visual representation of the yourself and your previous in the top, and on the bottom a display that shows how far ahead/behind your are of your original course.
\The person who designed the virtual partner screen had obviously used this running, as it changes from black text on white if you are in front, or white text on black if you are behind. While running you might be able to see how far ahead/behind you are but you can easily tell if the bottom of the screen is white or black. Because the watch is using GPS the course is automatically started/finished when you go past the start/finish line. This is really useful and it cuts down the amount of button pushing you have to do while you are running.
I have also got a bike kit for the Forerunner and I will post on how well the Forerunner works as a bike computer.
Friday Photo
I am hoping to show off a photo each Friday. This photo is of the rear cluster of my road bike, just after I had the rear cluster and chain replaced. The photo was converted from color to black and white using The Gimp.
