JayC
09-03-2006, 04:12 PM
What a great day for riding yesterday turned out to be! We did the Zack Attack route, which is 42.7 miles long.
I arrived at The Grocery Bag again about 15 minutes early and got geared up. Headed across the street and met up with Karen G and chatted with her a bit. The weather was cool, in the high 60s I believe and the sun was out very bright.. it was all in my eyes on the drive down.
8:02 and we rolled out from The Grocery Bag. I noticed right away that my Edge 305 was having problems. It wasn't displaying heart rate and kept giving me a "Multiple Cadence Sensor Detected" message I assume from Karen G's Edge. Pretty sure this was all my fault as I rescanned for cadence sensors once we got going because it wasn't picking mine up and having Karen in such close proximity freaked it out.
Started off as me, Karen, Jerry and Dan (Dave?? Sorry, I was oxygen deprived when you gave me your name). We were keeping a pretty good pace, averaging around 18MPH for the first 15 or so miles. About 2 miles outside of Micro, Karen and I fell off the pace a little and she told me to go on ahead. Initially I was going to hang back but then the wind kicked up and I knew it was going to be a long day if I didn't have a couple of people to draft off of so I picked up the pace and caught up with Jerry and Dan and we rode into the first rest stop in Micro.
At the convenience store, I went ahead and reset the cadence sensor on the Edge and went in the bathroom and re-situated my heart monitor. Lots of fun with a bib on, I tell you! Came out and Jerry and Dan asked me if I was going with them so I got back on the bike and started clipping in. We headed out and that was pretty much our group for the rest of the day. We kept a nice pace and had some brutal wind to contend with right about mile 24 or so.. I know this because our average speed dropped from 19MPH to 15 MPH in that section according to my computer logs!
The wind continued to stay up for the rest of the ride but we still managed a respectable 18.1 average over the course. The final climb on Jordan Narron Rd was brutal as usual. I climbed part of it out of the saddle, sat back down to take a break and finished it out of the saddle. I was dieing by the time I got to the top of that hill. It just never seems to get any easier.
Yesterday also was the first time I had used my Edge 305 for navigating a ride. Initially I left the unit on the "Bike 1" screen and the unit would beep and tell you when to turn. The problem with that is that the unit has a margin of error of about +/-20-40 feet and it doesn't tell you to turn until it's actually time to turn so you would get to an intersection and have to either look at the map screen or just guess. Since I had plotted the course off the cue sheet, I remembered most of it anyway but I did try to go off in the wrong direction once. One of the guys I was riding with stopped me before the unit told me I had gone the wrong way.
Later on in the ride, I figured out that if you put the unit on the "Course" screen, it shows you the upcoming turns, their direction and how far you have to go until you get to it. That makes it pretty much foolproof except if you come up on a 5 way intersection or something. I actually emailed the guy who wrote the software to add the turns, etc automatically and asked him about the possibility of being able to back the turn warning up by 100 meters or so. Maybe that will make it into the next release.
Overall, another great day of riding. Best weather yet since I've been coming out to these rides. Hopefully people will continue for at least another month on Saturdays even tho the MS150 is coming up next weekend.
I arrived at The Grocery Bag again about 15 minutes early and got geared up. Headed across the street and met up with Karen G and chatted with her a bit. The weather was cool, in the high 60s I believe and the sun was out very bright.. it was all in my eyes on the drive down.
8:02 and we rolled out from The Grocery Bag. I noticed right away that my Edge 305 was having problems. It wasn't displaying heart rate and kept giving me a "Multiple Cadence Sensor Detected" message I assume from Karen G's Edge. Pretty sure this was all my fault as I rescanned for cadence sensors once we got going because it wasn't picking mine up and having Karen in such close proximity freaked it out.
Started off as me, Karen, Jerry and Dan (Dave?? Sorry, I was oxygen deprived when you gave me your name). We were keeping a pretty good pace, averaging around 18MPH for the first 15 or so miles. About 2 miles outside of Micro, Karen and I fell off the pace a little and she told me to go on ahead. Initially I was going to hang back but then the wind kicked up and I knew it was going to be a long day if I didn't have a couple of people to draft off of so I picked up the pace and caught up with Jerry and Dan and we rode into the first rest stop in Micro.
At the convenience store, I went ahead and reset the cadence sensor on the Edge and went in the bathroom and re-situated my heart monitor. Lots of fun with a bib on, I tell you! Came out and Jerry and Dan asked me if I was going with them so I got back on the bike and started clipping in. We headed out and that was pretty much our group for the rest of the day. We kept a nice pace and had some brutal wind to contend with right about mile 24 or so.. I know this because our average speed dropped from 19MPH to 15 MPH in that section according to my computer logs!
The wind continued to stay up for the rest of the ride but we still managed a respectable 18.1 average over the course. The final climb on Jordan Narron Rd was brutal as usual. I climbed part of it out of the saddle, sat back down to take a break and finished it out of the saddle. I was dieing by the time I got to the top of that hill. It just never seems to get any easier.
Yesterday also was the first time I had used my Edge 305 for navigating a ride. Initially I left the unit on the "Bike 1" screen and the unit would beep and tell you when to turn. The problem with that is that the unit has a margin of error of about +/-20-40 feet and it doesn't tell you to turn until it's actually time to turn so you would get to an intersection and have to either look at the map screen or just guess. Since I had plotted the course off the cue sheet, I remembered most of it anyway but I did try to go off in the wrong direction once. One of the guys I was riding with stopped me before the unit told me I had gone the wrong way.
Later on in the ride, I figured out that if you put the unit on the "Course" screen, it shows you the upcoming turns, their direction and how far you have to go until you get to it. That makes it pretty much foolproof except if you come up on a 5 way intersection or something. I actually emailed the guy who wrote the software to add the turns, etc automatically and asked him about the possibility of being able to back the turn warning up by 100 meters or so. Maybe that will make it into the next release.
Overall, another great day of riding. Best weather yet since I've been coming out to these rides. Hopefully people will continue for at least another month on Saturdays even tho the MS150 is coming up next weekend.