Synthetics

Synthetic fabrics are once again mainstream, and I have found myself among their biggest fans. When I was young, polyester and lycra were equated with cheesy clothes worn by throwbacks or the vain. Now, with innovative weaves, different weights, new mixes, and more creative implementations, synthetics are everywhere, and they are my favorite fabrics.

Cyclists are constantly clad in synthetics when they ride. When I renewed my cycling lifestyle, one area I entered with trepidation was dressing like a cyclist. Having added the pounds of a sedentary lifestyle, I was nervous for more than one reason. Not only did I worry about how I'd look, but I worried about being perceived clad in spandex as bizarre.

So, I dipped my toes into the synthetics pond very gingerly. The first items I bought were jerseys, and one pair of simple bike shorts. Occasionally, I would ride in this new garb, but usually would just ride in cotton shorts and t-shirts. The difference between the two modes was immediately apparent. Despite how these new clothes might be perceived, or even how I might look, they worked very well! Even though I snickered at the concept of "wicking," I enjoyed the benefits, and covertly noted that wicking was a true phenomenon cotton clothing didn't attain.

My pace of acquiring synthetic cycling gear accelerated, and continued through the seasons of the year, from sleeveless jerseys for the hottest summer days to cycling shoe covers to headgear and glove liners and vests and bins full of odds and ends. The jersey collection has become seriously overwhelming at this point, with each season adding jerseys from birthdays and charity rides to the already substantial base array. Because these synthetic jerseys are so durable and stink/stain resistant, even the oldest are still holding up well, so there is very little built-in obsolescence. And the collection grows.

Now, integration of synthetics into other areas of my life has accelerated, from t-shirts to shorts to socks to even some suits. It seems that most fabrics I find appealing and that work well for me have some percentage of a synthetic material in them, often for resiliency and breathability.

At the same time, companies like Life is Good have introduced cotton weaves in their t-shirts that seem to absolutely trap body heat and moisture, driving me further away from tossing on a simple t-shirt in the summer. Contrasting cotton t-shirts with synthetics makes the benefits of synthetics all the more stark -- they don't stain very easily, they don't stretch out of shape after being worn a few times, and they feel as good late in the day as they did at the beginning.

So, sorry cotton industry, I think our relationship may be ending, at least for shirts. It's definitely quitsville on the cycling clothing. You just don't have what it takes!

Solitary Refinement

There are times during the year when the urge to fly free on my bike leaves me, and I want to endure the unrelenting grind of hard, isolated training. For some reason that I can't quite grasp, there are times when I just want to insulate myself from normal aspects of riding and go out alone with my bike into the realm of pure and solitary effort -- repetitive climbs, speed drills, repeats, and sprints. It's as if I crave a brainless time of muscle and effort in order to purge myself of any residual stress normal cycling can't whisk away on its own. It also results in noticeable improvement of basic dimensions of solid riding.

Most rides involve thinking out a route, following landmarks, dealing with busy roads with potholes and debris, and chatting with others on the ride. All of these things are typically quite pleasant, or, in the case of potholes and traffic, are tolerable. Scenery and speed more than compensate for any distractions or stress from the surroundings. The freedom of the bike is its own reward.

During repetitive training, I usually find a closed route of about 2-3 miles of hills, and ride up and down the same set a dozen times or more. Gearing increases as I go or, if I'm doing sprints, I try to stretch the sprints until my muscles are literally blazing with fatigue. In the silence that mainly accompanies these rides -- on lonely roads at odd hours -- my only companion is my breathing and the occasional mechanical sound of the bike changing gears, the soft purr of tires on pavement, and the ambiance of surroundings.

In this isolation, cycling becomes mentally undemanding. I don't have to think about gearing choices, varying terrain, pacelines, traffic, or route. Each repeat is the same as the previous one, with perhaps a single change of gear or cadence that, once inserted, requires no further attention or thought. This zen-like quality of empty focus is perhaps what I crave. In fact, the feeling of clarity is most akin to what I've felt when I've tried meditation -- shedding worldly concerns and finding the essential. On these special rides, the normal world of cycling is set aside, and the pure essences of rider, bike, and slope meld for an hour or two, with a clear mind and active body generating unpolluted thought and effort.

Best of all, after these times, the desire to fly free returns acutely, and I've gained a refined climbing style, new bursts on sprints, or extended endurance on long stretches. And I can rest assured that the werewolf-like desire for isolated training will return, unheeded, to make me better yet again.

Scents

If you can follow your nose through the many scents of a ride, you should feel very fortunate. Cycling provides an unmatched and, unfortunately rare, opportunity in this modern world to move in the open air rapidly from place to place. Most people spend the majority of their time trapped in insulated, odorless (or nearly so) offices or cars, shielded from moving air and traversing space in a bubble of artificual scents. We are luckier. We travel through a continuum of diverse worlds, and environmental scents are a big part of cycling when you pay attention to them.

The olfactory bulb, the seat of scent, is actually a part of your brain, and is the only part of your brain exposed to the outside air. Cyclists’ olfactory advantage has to do with their probable lack of olfactory fatigue. Olfactory fatigue occurs after being in the midst of any scent for a few minutes or longer, as the olfactory bulb becomes saturated with the scent and stops sending signals to the brain about something new. Sedentary people tend to not notice the olfactory world because they don’t move through enough air to avoid olfactory fatigue. Their scent system is always fatigued, so they smell nothing much at all.

Meanwhile, cyclists are constantly stimulating their olfactory system with new smells. When we ride, we avoid olfactory fatigue because we’re always encountering new scents and clearing out old ones. On any ride, the smells are myriad, some familiar, others jarringly strange. Fresh-baked bread. A cluster of hydrangeas. The soft smell of natural gas on cold mornings as furnaces kick on. Fresh peat. Fresh mulch. Gas stations. Bad car exhaust. Skunk. A fast-food joint. Perfume from the lady joggers. Wet grass and leaves. Water. The array of smells is astounding, and we get to savor them all.

Follow your nose the next time you ride. Enjoy freedom from fatigue.

The Wind

The warm, calm air of summer has been shoved aside by the winds of autumn, and riding is once again a battle against this, the toughest of the elements for cyclists.

Some experts ask us to greet the wind as a training partner, comparing riding into the wind with climbing hills. There are a few problems with this comparison. Before I climb a hill, I either know the hill already, or can visually assess its grade and length, and then gear down as needed. Also, the grade tends to be pretty uniform, so I can find a groove and crank away, steadily eating away at the definite distance to the top. Finally, once I'm over a substantial hill, I can recover on the descent if I choose, or if the ride isn't whipped up by competition.

Wind, on the other hand, is invisible, so there is no way to assess it. It comes in tumultuous gusts, swirling around you, most often catching you in gears that are not suited to riding uphill or against such an obstacle. The wind wears you out faster and consistently. It never seems to stop once it has started as the calendar ticks into and out of winter. A windy day is just that -- an entire day of wind. Worse still, if climbing is part of your ride, you can bet on a howl of wind being unleashed upon you just as you crest any moderate to major hill, taking away the feeling of accomplishment and replacing it with a stinging slap of cold.

In my cycling log (kept in Excel), the wind comes in five categories -- light, moderate, strong, gusty, and swirling. The main categorical tensions emerge amongst strong, gusty, and swirling. Strong winds are, in my mind, sustained with possible gusts and swirls, but their main feature is their constant presence on a ride. If I feel I can't get away from the wind, there is no respite, then it is a strong wind. Gusty winds, on the other hand, come and go. There may be stretches of light winds (in sheltered valleys or when hugging ridges), but there are strong, sudden gusts punctuating the ride. Swirling winds I added only this year, after becoming dissatisfied with using "gusty" or "strong" to describe certain experiences in the wind. Swirling winds are those that seem to come out of nowhere in particular, are constant and strong, yet never yield a consistent headwind or tailwind. These odd situations deserved a descriptor of their own.

The winds on these chillier days of late fall and early spring steal the warmth of the sun, depleting your enthusiasm as you go. Wind chill is amplified by speed, so it can easily double and drive a 50-degree air temperature into a 30-degree epidermal wrap. A vest is crucial. Gloves need to be heavier than usual.

Luckily, there is hope in a well-planned ride. The most sensible advice about riding on windy days remains, "Ride into the wind on the way out, and catch a tailwind on the way home." If the wind direction is reliable, you may be tired when you finally reach the midpoint of the ride, but when you do turn around, the push of a solid tailwind will soon have you cheering.

Aero bars provide some relief on certain stretches. In fact, they are one of better additions to a bicycle at this time of year. Just watch for unpreditable handling in crosswinds. My new wheels have bladed spokes, and handling is dicey in a crosswind. There is less leverage with aero bars, so a strong gust could have you crashing into the bushes faster than you can say "Rasmussen."

So, here come the seasons of winds. The best we can hope for now are those hushed winter days after a substantial storm, when the sun beats down warmly, the spray from the roads is clean, and the winds have abated. Those lovely winter days of quiet peace lie ahead.

Up Early

Dawn is something you get to know as a cyclist, and noticing its waxing and waning intensity is how to judge the passing of the seasons. From the weak dawn of April to the full dawn of July to the fading dawn of September, getting up early provides you with a time-lapse vantage point to witness the figure-8 interplay as the tilted Earth circles its sun.

Cycling in the midst of a busy life (family, work) means adjusting your schedule to fit. Getting up early is the easiest way to accomplish this.

Getting up early has a feeling of determination about it, a sacrifice that is soon rewarded by gaining the road and generating speed in the nascent sunrise, while the rest of the world snoozes. Being up early lets you see things you'd normally miss -- the furtive fox scurrying away with its breakfast, the mist hanging over the hollow of purple flowers, and the delivery trucks dropping off the baked goods that will be sold as "fresh" for the next few hours. At dawn, birds are stirring, and the scrabbling of a squirrel on a pine trunk can sound as loud as firecrackers.

Danger also lurks at dawn in the form of solar glare. Pick a road that goes straight into the sun, and you virtually disappear from the view of traffic behind you. By the time the aurora ahead diminishes enough for your shadow to become visible, any driver coming up from the rear will be too close to adjust. Ride accordingly. Best to stay in areas with lots of trees and on roads that don't crest with a great view framing the rising sun.

As the seasons cycle through their phases, darkness returns, and the point of getting up early gradually recedes. The time you can steal with this technique diminishes and ultimately disappears from weekdays. But a dawn ride on a chilly fall weekend morning can be one of the most invigorating experiences, as it starts out cold and slowly warms, and as the smells of fall permeate the air.

Get up early. Say hello to the joggers, the birds, and the delivery trucks. The warm light of a fresh sun beckons.

Haunting Weather

Riding year after year and keeping a log of rides can help you spot connections and trends that would otherwise go unnoticed. You can measure and quantify improvements in speed and endurance, and observe yourself tackling the same routes better and better as fitness increases. In addition to time, speed (avg and max), perceived difficulty, and distance, my log includes observations about the weather on various rides, and analyzing this dimension has provided some spooky insights.

I first noticed the synchronicity on a June commuter ride home, which I happened to take on the same day (+/- for calendar shifting) three years in a row. I can remember it because, each time, a local high school has been setting up its outdoor graduation ceremonies, and they appear to be quite elaborate, with plenty of white wooden folding chairs and a big platform with a podium. Each year, the temperature and wind have been almost identical, a few degrees off in temperature either way, but it has been extremely windy, with the ride notes recording very strong headwinds. The same relative day in June, very similar temperatures, and tortuous headwinds. In fact, this ride has been noteworthy each year because these winds make it one of the harder early season efforts.

After this initial observation, I started to look more methodically across the years in my bike log, and began to notice very similar notes in the weather documentation on the same relative day more often than not -- similar temperatures, winds, and experiences.

So, as August approached this year, I felt confident about a few things. First, a two-day ride I typically do at the start of August would have beautiful weather. After all, it had been beautiful the prior two years, and I had a hypothesis! Sure enough, the weather was fabulous, perhaps even more intensely ideal than it had been the year before, with better breezes and lower humidity. Maybe this was the year of similar weather at greater intensity? My hypothesis had a corollary!

Fast-forward two weeks to a ride that had been a rainy slog at the start last year. The forecast a week beforehand was for nice weather, perhaps a light shower toward the end of the day. Foolish meteorologists! I could have predicted this a year out! Yes, you guessed it, not only did the ride start with heavy rain, the rain abated only briefly, to return colder than before, and accompanied by headwinds to help it really penetrate and chill. The Intensity Corollary was proving itself true.

And now I sit in dread, thinking that if my hypothesis is correct, the next big ride may be my undoing. Last year, it was cancelled after 80 miles due to snow on the passes and hypothermia among the leading riders. If I'm right, this year we will not only encounter snow, but famished yetis will attack and disembowel us on the slopes.

Of course, the hypothesis (and its corollary) will not stand the test of time. The sunspots will continue their 11-year cycle, and these small observations are too closely spaced to be reliable over the long term. Other, macroscopic trends are already at work to supplant them and spin them differently. But, for the year directly in front of my nose, they have proven preternaturally reliable.

So, please remember me in your prayers as the weather closes in for this last big ride of the year, and watch for a resurgent yeti population now that their food supply is about to be replenished!

Dangerous Cycling

There is a fundamental issue in cycling these days, and it doesn't involve cyclists who know what they're doing and log a lot of miles. Instead, it involves people on bikes who apparently don't know the right side of the road to ride on, and a host of other rules that increase their safety, could increase their enjoyment, and make cycling a sport viewed more widely as safe and pleasant.

Why is this a fundamental issue? Because the statistics and stories these novices generate are cycling statistics and anecdotes, and any accidents or near-misses these people have increase the perception that cycling is inherently dangerous. This continues the downward dynamic that has made cycling less mainstream than it should be, as people avoid something that is not only strenuous but also (they perceive) dangerous. It also makes more cycling novices to drive the statistics further down.

This problem becomes clearest when I see parents -- many of whom might not have been on bikes for years -- riding along sidewalks with their kids, going the wrong direction (against traffic). Not only that, but often the parents send the children out ahead, so the parents can (ostensibly) observe them and herd them along.

Let's think through the myriad problems with this particular configuration.

First, there are the problems of riding on the sidewalk, notably the poor condition of many sidewalks, limited range of options in case something unexpected occurs, competition with pedestrians, and lack of visibility to cars coming out of driveways and intersections.

Second, there are the problems of going against traffic, mainly that drivers coming out of driveways and side-streets will first look the other way (toward oncoming traffic) as they emerge, and be unaware of approaching sidewalk (or road, for that matter) traffic coming from a direction it shouldn't.

Third, there is the problem of sending children ahead -- they are the smallest, least-visible part of the parade, and also the least experienced at anticipating and avoiding collisions.

Added up, this configuration has the smallest, least prepared, and most unsteady riders approaching intersecting traffic from the wrong direction with few escape routes.

Why do parents persist in riding this way? Well, it seems the safest way to the uniniated I suppose: you are keeping your kids off the road, where cars are; you are riding behind them, so you can yell a warning or command if you need to; and you can see on-coming traffic so no worries about being struck from behind.

Yet, the chances of being hit from behind by a car when you ride with traffic are very small. In fact, it's one of the least-common cycling accidents. To keep kids off the road yet allow them to still ride "in traffic" (with cars coming in from intersecting streets) doesn't make sense -- either they are ready to ride in traffic or they are not. If they are not, keep them on rail trails or bike paths and completely out of traffic. Once they are steadier and more mature physically, ride on some nice streets with wide shoulders. Finally, the illusion that a parent can use the rear guard position to adequately warn a small rider about a car that is coming out of a driveway is just that -- illusory. A more realistic picture is that a parent can provide a riding companion with traffic, and both will be more likely to be seen riding with the flow that intersecting drivers are first to observe and most likely to acknowledge.

So, please ride correctly, parents. Keep your kids off the roads until they are ready. Use bike trails and rail trails and the local cul-de-sac until they are steady and confident. Once they are, ride on the road, with traffic. They are safer this way, because they are more likely to be seen, they will have more escape routes, the roads will be in better shape than the sidewalks, and you won't be sending them out like canaries in the coal mine with empty "I'll be right behind you" reassurances as they ride against the grain and nearly invisible to cars coming from all angles. And then the next generation will have more cyclists who know the rules, and we move back into a virtuous cycle for cycling.

Cars, Cars, Cars

It's hard not to become slightly anti-auto as a cyclist, even though I personally love driving, and have nothing but sympathy for drivers when I cycle. We share roads that weren't built to be shared, in many cases. It can be very trying and difficult on modern roads, at the speeds we force each other and ourselves to drive, to also slide by a cyclist when there isn't much shoulder, when terrain ahead obscures oncoming cars, and when you're on your cell phone (or doing any of the myriad other things -- shaving, reading, singing -- that drivers often do behind the wheel). But once I slip out of the driver's seat and into cycling gear, one problem with our reliance on autos become much clearer.

Sure, there are the usual gripes about consuming natural resource, creating pollution, and propagating the sedentary lifestyle. But my main complaint is that cars slow me down when I ride my bike!

Cars get in my way. I have seen my average speed drop 0.5 mph in just a couple hundred feet of slowly weaving my way through streams of traffic at a congested intersection. The home stretch on my commute is flat and fast on weekends, but clogged with cars on weekday evenings, and picking my way along the shoulder while avoiding cars that wander right, cars that turn right, and cars that let oncoming cars turn left, is pretty mind-boggling, and definitely steals speed.

Just the other day, I was driving my car into work, and passed a cyclist pedaling his recumbent along. He was doing a decent 16 mph, perhaps, and just cruising along. I thought I'd seen the last of him. Well, about 20 minutes later, after I'd been stuck at a major traffic bottleneck for a while, I was passed by Mr. Recumbent, who was still at his stately 16 mph, and happy as a lark. After he passed, he had to stop, as the cars coming from an intersecting side road had pushed their way across his path.

A local construction zone makes matters worse, as the cones and lane changes were engineered with perhaps a Hummer in mind, but not a cyclist attempting to co-exist with a phalanx of autos.

Of course, there are some moments of fun in the midst of this, especially in the spring and fall when windows are rolled down. Cruising by a car's passenger side at close range can elicit all sorts of surprised exclamations, from startled teenage passengers to mothers pointing out the cyclist to the kids in the back, buckled in their child seats. When stopped at about the same point, you can even have some nice conversations, and when wearing a well-known local jersey, you might even get a shout of encouragement (I think what they shouted amounted to encouragement . . .).

Cars aren't slow. We just have too many of them. The automobile passed well into the realm of the irrational long ago, and we are allowing them to squeeze the joy and fire out of many aspects of life. They make alternatives (cycling, running, walking, scootering) nearly impossible to consider at times. Let's find a better way.

New Heights

I recently undertook a long high-altitude event, going from a home altitude of 435 feet to an even altitude that varied between 4,500 feet and 7,630 feet. I gave myself 3 days to adjust to the new altitude pre-event. It wasn't enough, and I learned a lot about athletics at altitude.

Altitude is a pernicious challenge for those of us who live nearer to sea level than to mountaintops. The world looks the same -- same sunshine, clouds, people, trees, cars, and dogs. If the air is cold, you feel it. But it's not as if going to an elevation of 6,000 feet tells you how to respond. In fact, the world can be deceptively similar to the one you usually inhabit, while at the same time being dangerously different.

Adjusting to altitude takes a long time, a lot longer than most recreational riders have in their calendars. Finding two weeks to spend pre-event just preparing to ride at altitude is unimaginable for those of us with families, careers, and other demands on our scant vacation time. Some know-it-alls claim that, barring a 2-week adjustment period, your only choice is to arrive the day of the event, and ride the event. I don't buy that advice. Mostly, that's the day you feel the most wiped-out.

In addition to thinner air, another atmospheric trait correlates strongly with altitude -- dry air. Not only is the air thinner (less oxygenated), it is less humid. This increases evaporation rates from skin and lungs and nose, meaning that riders feel less sweaty while simultaneously perspiring more (and losing more water as they breathe). Compounding the dehydration cycle like this makes it nearly impossible to stay hydrated during a long event.

So, your body is fighting for oxygen and water simultaneously. What a great situation! No wonder muscle cramps, dehydration, and labored breathing are the hallmarks of events at altitude.

Also, there are suggestions in the medical literature that the better your condition, the more susceptible you are. In addition, the more often you go between high and low altitudes, the more likely you are to adjust badly, as if your body's ability to adjust degrades with repetition. I think these are likely both correct.

So the next time you think about a new far-away ride, think not only of the distance across the map, consider the heights you'll be scaling. There is likely no perfect way to deal with it, but knowing that you will hurt more, struggle more, ride more slowly, and need more all along the way will help set expectations, and help you complete the work you've set out for yourself.

September

The intensity of August -- when cycling is about hot weather, nutrition, endurance, peak performance, long rides, and numerous events -- has given way to the freedom and triumph of September. The air has cooled, the events are once again months away, and riding has regained a sense of joy, sharpened by the conditioning a few thousand miles will convey.

September is a favorite month for cycling, as leaves crunch and acorns pop beneath tires, fall colors dapple the landscape, and crisp mornings become the norm. Arm warmers emerge, knee warmers are located (probably for later, but you never know), and glove liners come out. It is a time to ride fast, with enough strength to also completely enjoy your surroundings. Training is no longer the goal, nor is optimizing performance. This is the pay-off. This is about riding the momentum of training into transition, into the end of the season, and loving every minute of it.

On the downside, school and the rigamarole of the normal has resumed, so roads are more crowded during commutes, and mornings are constrained. Shorter days also eliminate optimal stretches for riding, as dawn moves from 5:30 to 6:00 to 6:30 and later, and sunset arrives alarmingly early some evenings, especially when the longer shadows also dim the roads prematurely. Weekends become crowded with other activities -- apple picking, soccer, and yard work. The time to ride begins to drain away yet again.

Nevertheless, September reigns -- riding tempos are faster in September, and speeds reach their zenith. The air is less humid and cooler. Mornings are resplendent in color and change. September is the greatest month to cycle, so bask in its long shadows and warm sunshine. The chill of October, and the grim grip of winter, is just around the next corner . . .

Slow Riding

Most riding I've done over the past five years has been focused on training -- speed, comparisons, endurance, effort, and all the mental games that go into seeking improvement. At the end of this summer, I began craving the simpler rewards of cycling, the engagement of all five senses and the relaxation of having a day before you, two wheels to carry you, and nothing but improv as a result. Luckily, my wife had been cycling a fair amount this year and last, and was also interested in getting away on two wheels under our own power. And so we went on our brief but wonderful slow cycling adventure.

The weather cooperated, and we had a stupendous weekend cycling around a local haunt, visiting areas we had never seen together and enjoying the days tremendously. We were like two buddies cycling, joshing each other, sharing stories and observations, and attending to cycling courtesies.

Payoff for me arrived when my wife observed that cycling was definitely the best way to travel because the pace is human, you are part of the environment, and you experience everything. Eureka! Once again, the magic of traveling by bicycle had converted another person!

One road in particular, on the second morning, will remain embossed in our memories. The grade was gentle, the pavement clean and smooth, the breezes light, and the air cool and fresh. Occasionally, a pasture of vibrant green would open to either side, or a jolly wall of mossy stone would shoulder us along. Above us, intertwined branches arched a ceiling of comforting complexity. And through this, we pedaled, our tires whispering against the road and our voices pitched warmly toward one another.

As we rode along, more slowly for me than normal, I found myself in a dreamlike setting with my true love. There is nothing better. I had not found my top speed, but I had found the perfect speed.

GPS

Measuring speed and distance have been my two main sources of feedback and documentation these past few years of re-emergent cycling. The nice little magnet on my front wheel, the snap-on cyclocomputer, and the ride summary dutifully recorded in my ride log -- the ritual of it had become second-nature. Then, beckoning from the glossy pages of a winter cycling magazine in early 2006, there she was -- the GPS cyclocomputer, a culmination of technology and utility I soon found irresistable.

The Garmin 205 and 305 GPS cyclocomputers have been available all cycling season. Plenty of riders have tried them, and most who have tried them have adopted them. I use mine all the time, every time. But they do have their limitations, including a relatively short battery life and sometimes bewildering "live" readouts. Even then, the way they capture data and the tools available to play with these data make the ritual of using the GPS unit a lot more informative and fun than the old cyclocomputers.

I got my Garmin 205 in early May (the HR monitor and cadence of the 305 didn't seem worth the cost -- I learned how to gauge both my HR and cadence long ago). As a fan of Google Earth and a novice with GPS, I was intrigued to see what the emerging technologies would reveal using geo-location and satellite-enabled speed and grade calculations. I charged the 205 and went for a ride later that afternoon.

At first, I set the display up as if I could and would monitor it at as I rode. I learned not to do that after one good shot into a decent pothole convinced me of my mistake. Also, the real-time readings are often irreconcilable with reality, especially the gradient or grade readings, which can yo-yo between -12% and 24% on the same hill. The reason? It takes strong signals from six GPS satellites to generate an accurate grade reading. Take one or two away, and the little GPS brain gets confused and becomes incoherent. Soon, I learned that one of the nice parts of the GPS unit was that I could review a ride later via software, and recover all sorts of information about gradient and speed, so I didn't have to watch. Better still, the strange readouts magically disappeared when the unit's data were processed in the interpretive software. Great!

Garmin also purchased a cool community-based GPS Web site called MotionBased. This site lets users upload their data, analyze it (in a tool that is even better than the software that ships with the unit itself), and share data with other users. It's a great site, and when I saw that it also acquired the weather data for uploaded rides, I was hooked. The possibilities here are amazing.

Once the data are processed another way, you can upload them into Google Earth, which is a lot of fun, as well. You can share the data with ride buddies, too, so they can keep the ride record themselves, or with people who missed the ride or who want to try it, so they can map the route or see it virtually. Over the course of this season, my ride map on Google Earth is fun to behold, with rides in a number of different states and in some memorable settings. I can "fly" to these rides again, and even compare a previous ride with a new planned ride to see spots of overlap and difference.

The most impressive aspect of the GPS unit is that you get not only hill profiles and fairly accurate altitude data, but you get cumulative climbing data, something that has led to some surprising insights. For example, one local ride of about 65 miles nets more than 8,000 feet of climbing, yet I never knew that. I'd always assumed it was about a mile, so this explained some things. Then, I learned that one monster 200-mile Rocky Mountain ride nets just about the same amount of climbing as the local 65 miler. Comparing these to another local century that generates 9,000 feet of climbing over 100 miles changed my perceptions of difficulty, and made using the 65-mile local ride for training a more attractive because it's a more efficient use of time. Without the GPS telling me all this, I never would have known, and would have assumed the ride in the Rockies generated the most elevation change and steepest climbs of any (another lesson imparted: the Notches (Crawford and Pinkham) in New Hampshire generate some long, steep climbs, some of which can beat those in the Rockies).

My biggest gripe with the Garmins is their battery life. The batteries last with power to spare through a decently paced century, but for multi-day rides with primitive layovers or double-centuries, forget it. You need to recharge it after about 10 hours, max, or the thing just dies. It does retain the data, but you lose even things like average speed for the last 40+ miles or whatever is left. It might be nice to have the unit ratchet down as the battery dies, if that's possible, so that power consumption is constrained to core functions and the battery's life extends toward completion. I'd take a blank display and data acquisition over a dead battery.

Of course, it is also nice to not have a cable dangling from your handlebars or even a wireless magnet against your front fork. The simplicity of using a GPS cyclocomputer is striking -- just give it a minute to find its satellites, snap it on, and go.

My fear getting a GPS was that I was over-engineering my ride, and wasting money. While the latter may still be debatable, the insights I've gained by knowing where I am and how high I've climbed mitigate any doubts. These are pretty cool devices, and they are only going to get smaller, better, and have more utility. Now, about those batteries . . .