14.3 Mile Ride / New Garmin Edge 305
I just got back from a just-over 14 mile ride on the Rillito River multi-use path and it was my first chance to play with my new Garmin Edge 305 GPS Bike computer. Except for the fact that it was in the high 80’s from the start, it was a great 50 minute ride with 10 minute cool-down!
The GPS came with a heart rate monitor that I’m planning to use to make sure I don’t kill myself trying to work too hard and to make sure that I’m not slacking too much while riding. Though it didn’t come with one, the Edge 305 supports the use of a cadence sensor that I may look into getting to make sure that my pedaling is consistent over the entire ride.
One of the biggest reasons I bought the new bike computer was so that it lets me track rides and heart rate (and, if I get the cadence sensor, that as well) on my computer so that I can better work towards getting in shape. My near-term goals are to get back up to 30+ miles and push to 40 miles, while my long-term is to one-day do the El Tour de Tucson (109 mile ride around Tucson… I can dream, can’t I?!).
Tags: 14 miles, bike, rillito river, road riding, Tucson
30. May 2009 at 14:27
it is not the distance that is the big issue in the Tour it is your butt in the saddle that needs training 😉
31. May 2009 at 22:18
Awesome report on the Garmin Edge 305 — hopefully it will help you track your rides down to the smallest detail. The cadence sensor sounds pretty cool, too, for training purposes.
What were your max. and average speed?
1. June 2009 at 07:08
For the entire ride, my average was 13.8 mph and max speed was 24.2 mph.
The first half of the ride, I was averaging 18.8 mph. On the way back, however, there was a head-wind that made the first 6 miles back go at an average of 14.0 mph. I met up with Lauren at that point and went very slow (7 mph) to warm down and keep her company. That last part was what killed my times 😀
Garmin has a great service called Connect (connect.garmin.com) that lets you upload directly from the GPS to the website to track all of your rides from everwhere along with goal setting based on distance or time. I’ve been using that website and a few others to map and maintain my progress at biking. I’ve been thinking about writing a blog post describing the different services, so I’ll go into them in more detail then.