Do Garmin, Strava and Apple Watches enhance your ride experience?

For me, ride technology is a guilty pleasure.

Thanks to my Apple Watch and other stuff, it takes me forever to start a bike ride.

So little time, so many buttons to push. But I just can’t help it.

Back in the day, there was just the cycle computer. You know, the one that read a magnet on your spoke and told you average speed, current speed, time etc. It was plenty.

Until there was more.

Now, I feel I need to know the steepness of the climb on the Garmin. How I compare to my last attempt on a given segment on Strava, as well as how my effort compared to others who rode that stretch on the same day/year/forever.

Don’t even get me started on my Strava Trophy Case.

And then there’s the watch.

Cycling with the Apple Watch

I’m not sure why I feel the need to activate the watch. Maybe I just want to make it happy.

Granted, it gives me my heart rate at a glance — even though I’m pretty sure it’s only reasonably accurate. I don’t see how it could compare to the chest strap that talks to the Garmin, which I’m usually too lazy to use.

But using the Workout app records the amount of time I’m active and closes the exercise ring!

Ta dah!

The watch approves of my effort.

It congratulates me!

I mean, really? I go to strength training sessions, where I pay an expert coach to keep me in shape. I’ve run marathons and ultra-marathons, cycled centuries, and participated in other adventure races. I’ve even coached groups of marathon runners.

And now I’m taking pleasure from some random setting on my watch that counts my exercise minutes and rewards me for standing X number of times a day?

Yes. Yes I am.

I really do feel stupid when I start a ride.

In the evenings in Spring and Fall when daylight is an issue, I have a blinking white light and a headlight on the handlebars.

That’s two buttons.

Then there’s a blinking red light on my helmet and seat post.

Two more buttons.

Then I start the Garmin. Strava is next, on my phone. (which I could do on my watch.) Then the Workout app on the Apple Watch.

That’s seven pieces of electronics I’ve activated before I go on my human powered adventure/workout.

I subconsciously wonder if someone watching me from behind a bush or in a parked car is asking what the hell I’m doing.

And, if they would be right.

The irony of gloating

There’s something about Apple Watch Technology that doesn’t mix with nature…

There has to be something wrong with this picture.

I’ll be the first to admit a holier than thou attitude because I ride a bicycle and choose to be out in the fresh air.

You know, it’s natural. It’s healthy. Way better than watching TV or playing video games, or even working out on the cardio machine at the gym.

I’m outside!

With my seven battery powered gadgets.

Natural envy

As you might expect, the cycling community is chock full of those who have great disdain for gadgets.

These are the people I wish I could be.

They are just happy to be out there. These folks enjoy using their bodies and the bike’s mechanical advantage to propel them through the woods, along the Greenway or rural road.

Cyclists such as this can take in the people, the birds, the trees and their body’s natural rhythms.

For them, it’s plenty. Just the joy of the experience.

It’s those people I suspect of watching me from behind the bush or in the parked car.

Judging me.

While they do yoga.

(For the record, I’ve written a few times about the need to take my eyes off the tech and trying to be more like these folks.) Click here to see my post about riding the Going to the Sun Road Glacier National Park.

The data doesn’t even help!

A friend who was a world class Ironman triathlete once offered to help me with some workouts as I trained for the Boston Marathon. He asked if I had training logs.

Wrong question to ask me!

I joyfully produced two notebooks full of running and cycling notes going back over ten years.

This was data I had collected from my basic running watch and cycle computer, then transcribed on paper on a clipboard that hung on the refrigerator.

“These are worthless,” he told me.

I had recorded all the wrong information. I had done the wrong workouts. It did not help him one iota to know that I was six seconds faster on the Ferrum Mountain climb this year vs. last – or the two years before that.

I thought he would see my great strides toward the goal of supreme fitness.

Nope.

But the data stream marches on.

It’s still kind of like that.

Strava tells me how I’m doing on certain segments. I use Garmin to track my monthly miles.

I dutifully log everything. And I write a few sentences to characterize the ride.

I never miss an upload. Or fail to write a blurb about the effort.

But I seldom look back at these entries.

It’s like, even I don’t care.

But my watch does. Gotta close that loop.

Happy cycling!

Feel Free to follow me on Strava. Somebody should look at the data!

Looking for a road bike ride or a rail trail?

Like a cold beer after a ride. Click here for a review of Beers I have Ridden.

Need a new place to ride your road bike? Click here for some awesome rides.

Looking for my recent interview on living and riding with sarcoidosis? Click here.

For blog posts on riding with chemo and sarcoidosis, Click Here.