Road Cycling Essentials

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Quick question.

I can't run to save my life, but I ended up using a treadmill on Sunday and managed all of 10 minutes before the pain was too much, so I moved onto a rowing machine for 30 minutes. Anyway, I now have DOMS from the running and am wondering what peoples thoughts are as to whether cycling (25+ miles) with it is a good or bad idea, or if it should make no difference either way. Thoughts? Just that if it's not likely to cause a problem then I can interleave small amounts of running in with the cycling.
 
I've just been for a quick spin this evening after a 3 day break. Quite windy, and I tried a new route - here's the Garmin.

I have to confess to doing something really silly. I thought I'd left my mobile in the car, so I took my Supersix out the back gate, popped a leg over to roll the 20 metres around to the front where the car was parked and as I came to a stop for some stupid reason I put my weight on my right foot immediately before trying to lift it off to put it on the kerb and clicked in. Of course I fell sideways and skinned my knee; not really bothered about that, but I also put a couple of small scratches in the paint work on my right seat stay. Gutted :(
 
janesssssy said:
Do any of you guys have trouble with your Garmin HRM? in the first 10 minutes I’m getting funny readings. Spikes of up to 250 bpm. It settles down and seems to work correctly throughout the ride.
I have read that it’s a static build up created by the cycling top fluttering. I have no idea how to stop it. Well... I can hold my chest strap to stop the cycling top fluttering but doesn’t solve the problem.
Any ideas?

I have changed the battery to see if it was that casuing it. no change :(
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Which HRM are you using?
Garmin actually has three.

The first and that is included with the 705 and other products is one that has a plastic strap to the front. Although it's not the most slimline or comfortable, this one is the best because it's reliable and never has spikes, I've had no issues with it.

strap.jpg



The Premium soft strap has a detachable monitor from the strap and connects across your body using a snap popper. There were loads of reports that this Premium version was having spikes.

md_garmin_fr60_s_strap_med.jpg



The latest is a new version of the Premium Heart Rate Strap (I believe it's the one that actually comes with the Edge 800 bundle) which is the same as above, but the contacts are supposed to be improved and the strap is fixed by a small slide in clip, rather than a popper snap. Very similar to Polar straps.


I intended to order the latest premium strap, but the website I ordered from sent me the old one. However I read that even the new strap wasn't that good and the best compromise was to get the latest Polar strap (Which is only a tenner) and the Garmin HRM will connect into the clasps just fine.

So I did that and it did worked very well. The Polar strap is far better than the Garmin premium ones. However I've noticed performances seems to be getting worse and worse. I did a 50k ride yesterday in the heat, so was obviously enough to build up sweat. It only recorded my HR for the first hour or so of the ride.

I'm not in two minds whether to buy some ECG gel to see if that helps, or whether to just go back to using the hard plastic strap.
 
Nexus said:
I'm not in two minds whether to buy some ECG gel to see if that helps, or whether to just go back to using the hard plastic strap.
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Goodness me - ECG gel?! :)

The strap works best if the contacts are slightly damp, so either wet them slightly before you put them on, or work hard and your sweat will do the trick! ;)

I have the Garmin hard HR strap and have had no issues FWIW.
 
Did my first big cycle of 109m yesterday: http://www.endomondo.com/workouts/hDvdAr4Guws. Previous longest outing before that was 38m so quite a bit step up.

Was 100% solo (was just riding from my gfs to home) so I'd like to think I could do better in an event. Not only because there's other riders but also because I wouldn't spend loads of time getting lost and deciphering/guessing Sustrans route signs :p. But I'm proud anyway.

Felt like dieing a number of times and my legs (particularly the tendons behind my knees) absolute cane today.

I think I broke Endomondo as well as it doesn't seem to count mile stoppers beyond the 99th. GPS got lost a couple of times as well and fell back to a straight line so I'd imagine the distance is more like 113 odd miles.
 
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You can download the route as a GPX file, and then transfer the GPX file to your Garmin. I prefer to upload the GPX file to bikehike.co.uk and convert it into a course (TXC file) so that I can just follow it on the Garmin. No idea if this will work on your 500 though, as it doesn't have the same navigation stuff as the 605/705/800.
 
Velo Rapide said:
Goodness me - ECG gel?! :)

The strap works best if the contacts are slightly damp, so either wet them slightly before you put them on, or work hard and your sweat will do the trick! ;)

I have the Garmin hard HR strap and have had no issues FWIW.
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I'm well aware of that.

But as I was trying to explain, the premium straps suffer from spikes and drops which the hard strap doesn't. Even though I wet the strap and was obviously sweating in the heat on Monday, it lost a good few hours of heart rate monitoring. Even when I use it for short distances I'm seeing spikes and drops. I'd seen a suggestion to use ECG gel because it's one way you can ensure the pickups are properly connected, far better than water.
 
A good night last night. Actually, no, it was a bad night.

Came in after a meal to find ANOTHER puncture from the poxy roadworks, but I did then have the motivation to true up the wheel I built for the back of my fixie. Put a few miles on it and it needed a quick tweak to bring it back in. It was running like a dream this morning. Also laced up the front wheel with washers under the heads of the spokes. It seems to be a very thin hub face so needed just a little so that the spokes weren't stressed. I should take some pics...
 
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