I moved houses, remember? The new house is about 3.5 miles from work and there is reasonably safe road and bicycle lane the entire way so I have been commuting by bicycle. Aside from the odd weather fluctuations we have it has been a good change. I get around 40 minutes of aerobic exercise per day and though my weight has been pretty constant (I easily eat back the 300 kcal I spend exercising) the general shape of me is better.
I have been tracking my rides with my little GPS bike computer and putting them into Strava. Strava tracks “segments” which are routes with a defined start and stop and it ranks you vs. other users on the time it takes you to complete the segment. The person with the fastest time through a segment is King or Queen of the Mountain and for some segments there’s some pretty stiff competition for KOM. I have one segment that I have tried very hard on, southbound Guadalupe between 29th and 24th, and I’ve managed to get myself into a four way tie for 7th at 1:10. KOM is 1:03 which is an average speed of not quite 29mph. I also accidentally got 3rd on the segment that is 5th st. from Guadalupe to Sabine the other day but that is almost entirely due to luck with the traffic lights.
My GPS computer is kind of flaky and randomly kills its battery during the day. It also takes a long time to acquire satellites and its accuracy is not the best even when it has a lock. I would like a new one but because I have one that basically works I’ve been making myself earn it. The challenge is thus: I must commute to work a minimum of three days per week until I have commuted 30 days. At the outside that is 10 weeks but I can bring it in by riding more. I must also ride 300 miles which is $1 per mile for the specific toy I want. All rides that count must be logged in Strava.
As of this morning, I have ridden to work 30 days since the challenge began and I am at 290.6 miles plus the 3.5 from the ride in which I can’t log until I get back home.
However, in the mean time, Garmin has announced a different toy. What I was planning to buy is a dedicated bicycle computer, a Garmin Edge 520. The 520 talks to your phone, tracks Strava segments and tells you when one is about to start, and does a bunch of other nice things. The new thing is a new version of their VivoActive watch with an optical HR monitor on the back. It does not do the Strava segments and does not have a bike mount (optical HR needs to be on your wrist) but it tracks other sports and works as a general activity tracker including resting HR monitoring and sleep monitoring. It’s also $50 less than the 520. However it won’t be available until “Q2 2016” which means I have to wait if I want that.
One final wrinkle is that Garmin products have controlled pricing so Amazon doesn’t give a better deal than REI or just buying directly from Garmin. REI co-op dividends will be available in mid March so I could use that to pay for part of it with them and get 1% back on my Amazon CC on the rest. Alternatively I could use CC points at Amazon and get 3% back there on the difference. Ultimately it doesn’t matter that much but it’s just a thing to consider.
tl;dr I did a thing I said I was going to do.