It takes a few rides, but honestly they are worth persevering with, almost like everyone I was apprehensive at first, and struggled to clip in rather than out, and even now dont get it 100% of the time, but when it comes to spinning and knowing my feet won't slip, I wont go back to flats or even clips, its much easier to clip-in, in the dark compared with clips.
Damn phone battery went flat again. Had everything turned off except GPS. I managed to break my 50 duck @ 54 miles dead. Only recorded 47.9 though. Definitely need a Garmin. Legs sore like last week at about the same miles in to the trip but careful massaging and economy of effort saw me home.
http://www.strava.com/activities/150943516
Nice one.
When you get a gps think about what you want from it, Bryton do good units too and their web site gives oodles more info than garmin, different to strava, can export tcx files for strava, garmin or any other sighted you can't however upload a none bryton recorded tcx to their site, which I think is a little short sited, they do a comparable range to garmin, G 200 = Rider 20 in price, but vary in function, the bryton will do HR/CAD ect but not courses, the R 40 = G 500, R60 = G 800/810, the Rider 60 can be got new for about the £230-40 mark touch screen and voice directions via a bluetooth headset. At some point I hope to pick up a Rider 40 to replace the rider 20 I have as it has barometric reading for elevation which is supposed to be more accurate (regarding the barometric thing, I think the edge 705 is more accurate than the 500 I had) I use the rider 20 as a back up, as the 705 has a habit of switching itself off not a major problem, but it invariable happens at speed when you are watching it less or on a hill, making it look like you stopped
The reason I went with a Garmin is that the computer sees it as an external device and you can do so much more at a low level, I use rwgps to plot a ride, include summits and valleys or any number of things, then use TCX converter to get the right avg speed (rwgps doesn't get this right on the free version), with tcx converter you can insert distance way points easily, I usually include 5K markers, I would love to try either a R50 or 60 to see what the mapping is like, I know you can insert Summits/Valleys on the route plotter, but its not the easiest to use, and whilst the mapping (breadcrumb trial) on the R35 I had worked it didn't like returning up the same road after doing a loop, for example it would be telling you to go back not sure if the 40 is the same, but that is why I got the 705 as much for the mapping, as in the two weeks I have had it I have done roads I have never been down before, which is what I missed about the 500, but the R20 was cheap £45 and did as I have said do HR/cad ect....
Going back to the Bryton site it will for example give an approximate weight loss and in conjunction with a HR monitor break this down in to carbs and fat, though like any unit at this price point the actual calories used is open to conjecture, so should only be used as a guide, but what is useful is comparing from ride to ride as the algorithms are the same, so for instance today i used 2616cals Friday i used 1787cals but i actually used less a mile today (mind you ft/mile Friday was more difficult) but for each HB I used more 0.099cals/HB today Friday 0.096, what this means is I was producing more power today but my HR was higher as was my speed.
