Yesterday, I took a ride in the same direction we went on Sunday. This time, I was more conservative with the plan. As much as I'd love to spend the whole day riding, my legs thought otherwise and the animals would have been peeved if I missed meal time. Nice weather can be misleading, you know. When the wind is calm and the sun is out and temperatures are at that perfect degree, you think that you can do anything, so you try. You get a bunch of days like that in a row, and you burn yourself out, not mentally, but physically. So, I'm turning over a new leaf here in Luxembourg by being responsible and taking things at a no burn out pace.
Just an hour ride yesterday.
I was really slow heading east. How slow? I don't know because my Cat Eye has been on the fritz since we moved here. All I can say is, I was pushing and pushing and not really getting very far. So, apparently a pretty significant headwind comes down the river valley. It wasn't until I passed the camp ground and saw their flags snapping that I saw how significant a wind it was. Ow, but at least there's a reason for this lack of progression down the trail.
Turn around time. A crosswind hit from the north for about a mile, then all of a sudden BAM! Suddenly, I was flying back to town. I got back five minutes faster than I should have and had to head the other direction a bit to get the full 60 minutes in. Fun times.
In other news, I've been trying out this new cycling app everyone has been raving about lately, Strava. Yeah, I know I'm late to the game here. I haven't come to a conclusion yet. Obviously it's for roadies so that's the crowd in the athlete list you could can follow. That's not why I wanted to try it. I do not need to see how slow I am compared to the Strava users or that I ride less than everyone else to know that I'm slow and don't ride very much. Plus, I don't know anyone riding around here anyway, but I can tell you they are fast, skinny, unhappy roadies just like in the US. Really, I wanted to try Strava because everyone was raving about it.
A few things I like about it so far:
1). It accurately tracks the route, something that MapMyRide continually has failed me on.
2). It easily tracks self improvement. While I'm not interested on how everyone else is doing, it's nice to see my progress on the same route as soon as I pull it up.
3). Segment creation is pretty cool. I'm going to have different speeds coming in and out of town due to varying degrees of pedestrian congestion, garbage truck traffic, etc. With the segments, you can just track the sections of your ride where you can count on more consistency and less variables. Its a more accurate way of tracking your progress.
A few things I'm not a fan of:
1). The display gives you ride time, mileage, and average speed on the iPhone app. I really wish they had also included current speed. Seems like a no brainer, and would really be helpful with the whole non-functioning Cat Eye situation.
2). The app could use some more features, like adding rides manually. Unless you purchase one of the far from cheap Garmin devices that is compatible, you have to trudge up to the computer, login, and add them by hand when you use a trainer. You can't log heart rate that way at all, unfortunately.
3). It's pricey. If you want the full experience of Strava you need to drop at least $228 on a Garmin device and then an annual or monthly subscription fee. Of course you could combine your subscription and get a Garmin for a mere $278. I dunno, cycling is expensive enough.
We'll see how it goes, but I'm not ready to commit.
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