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Archives for September 2017

Cyclist vs Wind: It’s all in your head

09.19.2017 by Scott Jangro // Leave a Comment

Today’s ride was a brutal battle against the wind. There was a 20mph south wind, and a major part of my route is a 10 mile slow climb south.

I got a hint of what was coming on that first big climb and knew I was in for it as soon as I got over the ridge into the valley that ran north-south along the front range of the Rockies.

That first major descent was harrowing with a brutal crosswind catching my 50mm Reynolds Assult wheels the entire way down. I was forced to ride my brakes, which doesn’t make for a satisfying descent.

But then I hit the botton and headed south and boom. The wind hit me like a wall. It felt like I was climbing that wall, actually. And with gusts coming randomly pushing me into the street, it was a miserable 8 miles where I could barely get the bike to top 10mph.

Not only was it painful, but the constant wind howled in my ears. I wanted to scream back at it. I think I did once.

I wanted to quit. Which means what, stopping and sitting on the side of the road?

So instead, I adjusted my expectations and my attitude. I told myself that this just became twice as hard as it should be, so treat it like the 8 mile, 8% climb that it feels like. Put your head down and keep pedaling.

It was an amazing workout both physically and mentally.

On the return leg, I had to battle south one more time, but I was so looking forward to that north-bound 5 mile stretch. The tail-wind allowed me to average 28mph. I felt like a pro in the middle of a peloton, maintaining over 30mph for long stretches on nearly flat grade.

 

In the end, I was 15 minutes slower than the exact same route the day before.

My reward for battling through that wind? I placed 213 out of 3500 riders on that northbound segment. I don’t feel bad that it was wind-assisted. All those top spots are surely group riders and/or with tail-winds too. Now I wish I pushed it a little harder.

So next time you find yourself in horrible conditions, don’t quit. Adjust your thinking, hunker down, and turn it into a whole new challenge that you weren’t expecting. And feel good about the accomplishment, even though the numbers don’t reflect it.

Here’s the ride on Strava if you want to check out the brutality in detail.

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Categories // Mental

My Garmin Edge 510 Stopped Working

09.12.2017 by Scott Jangro // 7 Comments

So my Garmin Edge 510 stopped working.

Initially, it wouldn’t start a ride. When I tapped on “Ride”, the color block turned white (which is what it normally does to indicate a tap), but it stayed there and didn’t switch into the ride screen.

It was stuck there. 

I did a system reset (losing all my data and settings) and it fixed it, but only temporarily. It did it again, and I went through the reset process, but now I cannot set up activities.

Random text displays in the default activity, as you can see in the top of the image above, and it cannot be edited. The random text even changes when tapping the screen, which indicates to me that there’s some sort of hardware error, maybe bad memory or something.

Of course it’s out of warranty. Garmin does repairs, but they estimate that to be $99.

Rather than throwing good money after bad, I’m getting a Wahoo ELEMNT, which gets good reviews, and seems to be much more updated technology-wise. Plus, I have a Wahoo Kickr, with which this works together.

The Garmin works, but it has been very frustrating even before this problem with very slow startup, touch response, sync errors, and bluetooth flakiness. I’ve even lost a few rides, which is a cardinal sin.

RIP Garmin Edge. Hello new technology. It arrives tomorrow. I’ll post here about it, of course.

[lasso sitestripe=”true” id=”15641″ ref=”amzn-wahoo-elemnt-gps-bike-computer” link_id=”2176″]

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Categories // Accessories

Cycling and Living at Altitude

09.09.2017 by Scott Jangro // 1 Comment

Oxygen is arguably the single most important thing to a cyclist. And at altitude, there’s less of it. At about a mile above sea level, the amount of oxygen available to you in the air you breath is about 17% less than sea level. At 8000 feet, it’s about 25% less.

Interesting distinction: There’s not actually less oxygen in the air relative to the other atoms. It’s still air with the same percentages of each. 20% of air is oxygen in Denver or Boston or at the top of the Himalayas. There’s less pressure, which means that there are less molecules squeezed into a given volume of air. So in the volume of air that makes up your lungs, there’s less atoms in general.

So your body needs to do something different to get the same amount of oxygen. The first and obvious one is that you breathe heavier. If you are dropped at 5000 feet when your body is used to zero feet, you’re going to have to breathe heavier sooner if you are exerting yourself. Eventually, your body will adjust to normal breathing rates by adding red blood cells and changing up heart and kidney functions in ways that I don’t understand enough to explain. But it just does.

This means that the possible altitude gain in most single riding sessions probably isn’t enough to make much difference to you as long as you are adjusted to the base altitude in the area.

Which is disconcerting because I’ve been living at altitude for several weeks, and I wanted to blame altitude for my poor performance. I haven’t been exercising though, so maybe my body hasn’t fully adjusted yet.

Or maybe I’m just out of shape. It’s probably 90% fitness, 10% altitude.

Either way, the cure is the same: Keep at it. And shut up legs.

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Categories // fitness

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