Saturday, April 19, 2008

Grrrmin 705 bike computer


I'm really enjoying the features of the Garmin Edge 705 computer with all the bells and whistles. Already I've loved ducking out of the bike path onto the road and using the GPS to get home- I've already discovered great ways to get home that of course I should have known because, well, it's just around the corner, but then again it further justifies the exorbitant price to someone like me.
Several things about today's ride and use of the computer were annoying, due of course to user error, but still it's easier to blame it on the computer which I will now call the Grrrmin.
Grrrmin requires you to hit start and stop which I forgot to do. So this lovely ride today, courtesy of the GPS, was not recorded. I liked the "Avoid Major Roads" feature today which we just discovered- I got freaked out last time I programmed a route because it brought me to a very may-jah road (and yes, I had it on the "bicycle" setting).
So, the avoidance of major roads created a scenic, backroads route to YogoMango, through Harrington Park- very nice! It sent me on this teeny tiny little road and I actually smiled as I turned- it was an adorable little diversion.
Well as I was waiting for Matt and Gray (who were stuck in traffic, haha!) I attempted to find my ride details only to realize I had forgotten to hit start. Annoying. Then I remembered I wasn't wearing my heartrate monitor either. Double Grrr. Oh well.
Fast forward to later- I was at my mother's house and rode home, riding as fast as I could for much of it. I wanted to get a new personal best for this route. I have to say I was pretty happy with myself- there was a significant headwind and I still rode between 20-25 for large parts of it. I especially love the "Grade" feature- I find I'm becoming obsessed with knowing what the %grade is for each section of road- why, I don't know.
I stopped along the way to ask a stopped cyclist if she was ok- she was giving someone directions, so I stood and chatted for a few, waiting for the ridiculously long red light to change. Then I slowed significantly to talk a little with this lady who had just had knee surgery- I offered to pull for her and she sat on my wheel for a little, but then turned off.
I got home and brought Baby up, leaning her against the wall where she stays. A few minutes later, Matt asked if I hit "stop". I had not.
Then I realized my next folly- forgetting to hit stop and chatting contributed a whole bunch of 0 mph to the average speed so as I uploaded the ride I sadly came to realize my average was 7 mph. I was expecting 18-19. Pooh.
Well, when all else fails, read the instructions.
I would love to post a picture of the speed profile but darn if I haven't figured out how to do the simplest of actions on this Mac. Mac lovers, thou have forsaken me.

7 comments:

Unknown said...

It does not require you to hit stop and start. It requires you hit start when you begin your trip, it will auto-stop any time your speed drops to zero. It will then auto start again when your speed becomes greater than zero.

Zero mile per hour sections are NOT included in the ride average data, as (if you're correctly just hitting start at the beginning of the ride and letting it pause when you pause) you're not moving during zero, so there's no distance vs speed to calculate.

What your overall average WILL do however is give you averages of your speeds approaching zero. As you slow for a light, as you speed up after the light. unless you program the computer to "stop/pause" at a certain speed, like 2mph or 3mph. That's also in the settings/manual.

If you'd like to see how fast you go on a particular section, hit the lap button (the same button you press and hold to reset) when you start the section, and hit it again when you stop. That'll give you a time for your "lap" which is different than your overall average.

You can save that lap in the computer and you can re-run that lap against your previous time. RTFM.

Screen shots on mac; Command-Shift-3. Results in an image saved to your desktop called "Picture 1" If you want to capture a part of your screen only, hit command-shift-4, brings up cursors, you click hold while dragging from one corner to the toher you want to capture. When you let go, image is taken.

We haven't forsaken you, you haven't asked any questions.

Unknown said...

Btw, when i say that zero mph sections are not included in averages, they ARE if you hit start while you're stopped. So if you override the auto-stopping at zero mph, that'll be averaged in ,because you're telling the computer to do so.

The garmin does a lot of great things, you should really read the manual a bit to get some of them down, they're really cool.

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Jenni said...

Yay, David's feeling better!!! You're not dead.
I have to read the manual to figure out what RTFM means...hmmm...
Ok, I'm going to go home later and take a picture of the speed graph and maybe you can show me what I did or didn't do. I don't think I intentionally overrode the auto start/stop. And hey, I read the manual a lot- I learned a bunch already, just I guess I don't know what I don't know until I need to know it.
Ah.

Anonymous said...

Auto start/stop is not a default setting and must enabled. (At least it did on my to my dismay.)

And we totally need to get together and geek out on this thing, share settings and info, since there's a lot I don't know about it, and have been RTFM'ing as much as I can.

As for the Mac stuff... ask away.

Jenni said...

Does anyone have books I can read/reference? I went and bought the Macs for dummies but I would much rather save the money and return it.
I'm totally up for getting together and contributing nothing but gaining much knowledge. That works for me.
Incidently, Matt just installed some Garmin software to help with getting routes IN to the comp, but it doesn't have a Mac application so back to the ol' PC. I'm definitely finding I want to set my routes rather than have the comp choose.

Unknown said...

Garmin's mac software (the full fledged routing/mapping/etc stuff) is in Beta now, it's called Bobcat. You can upload from your garmin now, download some data not routes yet.

Garmin's been incredibly slow in getting macifified. they promised full mac support 3 years ago. Zzzzzz.

You can come over any time with your mac for lessons.