Buying a Garmin, Part 2: My cycling just got more interesting

It only took about five minutes in the end. Once I had my mind made up I knew I couldn't hesitate. Not over that amount of money otherwise I would tell the bloke behind the counter, "I'm going to think about it and come back," before driving home as fast as I could, burying my head under the sheets and convincing myself it was okay and that I would go back to the shop a braver sole the next day. So I walked in, demanded the product, slapped the cash on the counter, and stormed out with it under my arm. Okay, not quite.



I looked at it, I checked everything was in the box, I made sure there was a solid warranty, and I asked the man behind the counter what he thought of them, as if one more opinion would make or break an already made up mind. I made the payment and high tailed it home to help the wife with baby duties waving the new Garmin box in front of her face and responding with "You don't want to know" when she asked how much it cost?

Money well spent if you ask me -- especially when it was $80 off. And anyway, money is trivial if it's something you really like or want. I've always liked mapping my bike rides, looking at the profiles and spending hours on MapMyRide.com looking for potential routes I could take. I spent a long time mapping all five bike Tours I have done in the past so that I could display them on here (something coming very soon, I promise!) and I enjoyed doing it. Had I had a Garmin at the time though (they didn't exist) I'd have saved a lot of time and had way more data with which to display. Indeed, for a cyclist like myself, the Garmin is a great device.

I'm the casual, go out and ride in the country side, kind of cyclist. Or, seek out and destroy some trails on the mountain bike. I started racing the mountain bike again late last year, but I haven't raced the road bike in years. I might again, and I might enjoy it again, but right now I just enjoy turning over the legs, getting fit doing it and seeing the world go by. Now with this little device, I can do so but explore new roads and/or upload a memory of my ride.

I only got turning the thing on late last night, but I did all the necessary registering and downloading and what not so this evening I will take it out test ride. I got two mounts with it -- one for each bike -- but tonight I'll settle for the mountain bike and go off riding some park trails for an hour to see how well it records and to see how the mapping works. I'll maybe even try out the heart rate monitor though I'll keep the cadence calculator for my road bike. All being well, I'll take the road bike for a spin on Friday and we'll see how well I'm going.

One thing I really like about this Garmin is the ability to set an average speed for the computer and then race it. It'll tell you the distance and time you're behind or ahead and as the year goes on you can really challenge yourself to beat it. Likewise you can set lower and upper parameters for speed and heart rate and the device will warn me when I go past either threshold. I foresee hours of experimenting and entertainment. Expect an avalanche of maps, profiles and data in the days and weeks to come...