Show us your.......newbie progress! [4 Sep 2012 - 4 Oct 2014]

[BrynCP]

Well, I am feeling more like a newbie after reading @morrisman and @BrynCP 's posts. Since end of July 2013 I have only done 1222 miles. Although I did have 3 months off with a buggered knee. Hoping to have covered at least 1500 by the "anniversary." I would say that about 90% of my miles are between 5 and 6 mile commutes, but now I my knee is better I am starting to ride for pleasure again.

Just seeing those two posts have made me more determined to do more. So thank you!

Half my distance has been since 15th March so little over two months. I have been so determined to lose weight, which is what has kept me going and which is why I started in November - I am so glad for the mild winter. With some alteration to eating too, I have gone from over 18 stone to 14 stone 8lbs today.

Well similar to @morrisman
Climbed a total of 70,000 feet!

Out of interest where are you getting your total climb from? I see Strava gives me a YTD climb, but no total.

 

[morrisman]

Out of interest where are you getting your total climb from? I see Strava gives me a YTD climb, but no total.

I, like someone else here, copy all my ride data (in my case in Garmin Connect) into a spreadsheet which calculates various things like:

Total Distance
Total Height
Total Calories

Monthly distance totals
Monthly distance totals
Monthly distance totals
(all the above also on an individual bike basis, I have 3)

Ride Difficulty on a per bike basis (a fairly simplistic feet climbed/miles ridden calculation)

Monthly Target Achievement/Shortfall
Annual Target Achievement/Shortfall​

Not quite in @Nigelnaturist league but getting there

 

[BrynCP]

I, like someone else here, copy all my ride data (in my case in Garmin Connect) into a spreadsheet which calculates various things

Ok thanks. Well YTD I have done 1537 miles and climbed just 23711ft; not very hilly here, although I have done 7000 of that in the last 2.5 weeks on the new weekday (weather and work pending) 18 mile loop I have for my road bike.

 

[Stonechat]

Thanks Nigel but I it seems the default on my Garmin is set to 'Cadence - Do not include Zeros'. Spent this ride not displaying the cadence on the Garmin so I could see what my 'natural' cadence is before trying to to change anything. As far as I can see I need a bit of work on climbing to get into a lower gear earlier but otherwise I'm happy.

It was new to me that this was a setting possibility.
I will have to check
(Edit - it was set to non zero anyway)

I, like someone else here, copy all my ride data (in my case in Garmin Connect) into a spreadsheet which calculates various things like:

Total Distance
Total Height
Total Calories

Monthly distance totals
Monthly distance totals
Monthly distance totals
(all the above also on an individual bike basis, I have 3)

Ride Difficulty on a per bike basis (a fairly simplistic feet climbed/miles ridden calculation)

Monthly Target Achievement/Shortfall
Annual Target Achievement/Shortfall​

Not quite in @Nigelnaturist league but getting there

I only keep elementary spreadsheet, I call it training diary!
However does mean I don't have to search through Strava to see what I have done. I do load it all in to Garmin Connect and Cycling Weekly as well

I believe in my previous cycling incarnation I used to used far too low a cadence, and have deliberately increased in and used to cycling at about 95 now

 

[Stonechat]

Half my distance has been since 15th March so little over two months. I have been so determined to lose weight, which is what has kept me going and which is why I started in November - I am so glad for the mild winter. With some alteration to eating too, I have gone from over 18 stone to 14 stone 8lbs today.



Out of interest where are you getting your total climb from? I see Strava gives me a YTD climb, but no total.

Total climb in available on Veloviewer
veloviewer.com
You have to link to Strava account and it lets you see things like you history on a segment, e.g. a certain hill you can see all your times.
Much recommended

 

[matth411]

Beware, veloviewer is addictive. Especially if you start looking at the "rivals" page. Seeing someone one second faster than me makes me try harder than what strava does. Which helps me in the long run so its all good. I would definitely +1 veloviewer though.

 

[matth411]

On a awesome note though, I have had an annoying squeak coming from my left pedal for about 6 weeks now and ruled out any problem other than the SPD mechanism being broke. Well not exactly broke per sé, it would not go tight. Meaning if pedalling fast my foot could just unclip. Yes I have had a few bruises on my calf. Bought new pedals, fitted them while in work last night and voila! No squeak, no untimely unclip just clipped in all the way home listening to the rubber on the road. Lovely ride home.

 

[Nigelnaturist]

I only enter the basic info from the bryton web site.


Correct elevation via rwgps, and weather from garmin, I dont need to do separate bikes I only ride one, but its just an easy matter to put in a new field, there is also a difficult level on the bryton site but usually my rides are pretty low level they hardly ever register. There is a lot of info I don't do anything with as such like H.R. zones but as I have found no way of changing them on the bryton kit/site I have it is irrelevant really.
I have query's that show daily, weekly, monthly, yearly totals, also rolling 7, 30, 90, 365 days (basically the last year year before ect.), also separate query's that show so some form of performance per ride ( this needs some work yet) calories & weight loss (only a guide and only relevant to compare each ride not real world figures), for example it shows cals per mile per hour per heart beat, from that you can get an idea of power produced, one for cadence also one for a link to strava, rwgps garmin rides so I can just go straight to the ride ( though I haven't got all rides linked)
On top of this I have reports for weekday and by quarter.
I did the data base because the spreadsheet got a bit large and cumbersome. This is the yearly summery

The rides for 2012 are just the totals for the day.

 

[morrisman]

I only enter the basic info from the bryton web site.
View attachment 46076

Correct elevation via rwgps, and weather from garmin, I dont need to do separate bikes I only ride one, but its just an easy matter to put in a new field, there is also a difficult level on the bryton site but usually my rides are pretty low level they hardly ever register. There is a lot of info I don't do anything with as such like H.R. zones but as I have found no way of changing them on the bryton kit/site I have it is irrelevant really.
I have query's that show daily, weekly, monthly, yearly totals, also rolling 7, 30, 90, 365 days (basically the last year year before ect.), also separate query's that show so some form of performance per ride ( this needs some work yet) calories & weight loss (only a guide and only relevant to compare each ride not real world figures), for example it shows cals per mile per hour per heart beat, from that you can get an idea of power produced, one for cadence also one for a link to strava, rwgps garmin rides so I can just go straight to the ride ( though I haven't got all rides linked)
On top of this I have reports for weekday and by quarter.
I did the data base because the spreadsheet got a bit large and cumbersome. This is the yearly summery

View attachment 46079

The rides for 2012 are just the totals for the day.

I bow to the master of data

 

[Mark White]

My first outing is a real embarrassment for me

You got on a bike with intent, and did something. Nothing embarrassing about that. A start is a good start :-)

 

[Nigelnaturist]

I bow to the master of data

The thing is it takes less than 5 mins to do all the data entry, its just a bit of fun, I built this computer to handle 300 MB images I work on in photoshop so its a little under used at the moment, it performs better than I do on the bike

 

[Mo1959]

I only enter the basic info from the bryton web site.
View attachment 46076

Correct elevation via rwgps, and weather from garmin, I dont need to do separate bikes I only ride one, but its just an easy matter to put in a new field, there is also a difficult level on the bryton site but usually my rides are pretty low level they hardly ever register. There is a lot of info I don't do anything with as such like H.R. zones but as I have found no way of changing them on the bryton kit/site I have it is irrelevant really.
I have query's that show daily, weekly, monthly, yearly totals, also rolling 7, 30, 90, 365 days (basically the last year year before ect.), also separate query's that show so some form of performance per ride ( this needs some work yet) calories & weight loss (only a guide and only relevant to compare each ride not real world figures), for example it shows cals per mile per hour per heart beat, from that you can get an idea of power produced, one for cadence also one for a link to strava, rwgps garmin rides so I can just go straight to the ride ( though I haven't got all rides linked)
On top of this I have reports for weekday and by quarter.
I did the data base because the spreadsheet got a bit large and cumbersome. This is the yearly summery

View attachment 46079

The rides for 2012 are just the totals for the day.

I have had a long lie this morning and reading that has put me back to sleep

Been raining overnight and getting breezy now and can't actually be bothered anyway. I might take tomorrow off too. Getting fed up riding every day.

 

[Nigelnaturist]

@Mo1959 humph, in that case I am off to work on the bike

 

[Nigelnaturist]

Ok not quite work on the bike but bike related, I have just requested an OSM of Yorkshire and surrounding areas, not that I am likely to do much of them but needed to created a complete map of Yorkshire, this I am hoping will fit on a 2Gb micro S.D. card I have ( saves having to get a new one just yet)

How ever it will take about 14 hours.

 

[Harv]

Suffering with a cold yesterday (aka man flu).

Decided to go out and get some fresh air. Also bought a track pump the other day. First time I've had a pump with a gauge.

My hybrid has a 65 psi max but the only had 25psi in them! I pumped them up to 60 psi. Wow. What a difference. Cycling on my hybrid became so much easier.

http://www.strava.com/activities/144982048

My times weren't faster than normal as I was taking it easy due to my serious health condition (lol). I feel I'll be able to go a lot faster when I'm well.

I'd recommend a pump with a gauge to all newbies. Before I was going on sight. I was scared I'd blow the tyre if I over pumped.