My plan was to once again (for the third consecutive year) participate in the Le Tour Challenge, a crazy online virtual challenge where those of us with Tour de France fantasies can compare stats and compete for prizes and points on a leaderboard. It's far from scientific, but it has been a kickass challenge to force myself to ride for virtually every day in the glorious month of July, then collapse on the couch with a giant bowl of Kashi Go Lean (best cereal ever invented) and blueberries (best fruit ever invented) and watch the day's stage of the real Tour.
The plan started to go south last Tuesday when some of us fools got caught out in a torrential storm during the Tuesday Night Races. I've never cycled through such a heavy downpour and the lightning was a bit too exciting for my tastes. I also knew that my hard-working Garmin Edge 205 would be suffering as well. I've logged over 10,000 miles with my Garmin since ordering it in the spring of 2009, and starting last year it started to crash after riding in the prolonged rain.
The day after the deluge it was functioning fine, but the day after, I started it up and then it would automatically stop. I kept having to press the start button to get it going again. I put it in a plastic bag with some rice to dry it out (advice from tech support at Garmin), but things only got gradually worse as the week went on.
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| Le Tour Challenge 2011, Stage 1 |
To fully participate in the Le Tour Challenge and have your rides ranked, you have to submit data from a GPS device like a Garmin or a smartphone. So yesterday I rode a pleasant 58 miles, mostly with Dave, around Genoa, Lansing and Salmon Creek, and the Garmin started crashing on my repeatedly. I remembered how to reset it, but every time I reset, I lost some miles and the average speed and calorie estimates got totally messed up. I submitted my data and emailed tech support at MapMyRide, asking them to ignore my average speed data, which evidently they do anyway. The worst part about this was getting distracted from an otherwise nice ride.
I was hoping that another night in the rice bag would get my trusty Garmin back to working order, but I was sadly mistaken. I headed out for a moderate ride, meandering up through Cayuga Heights, then through Cornell campus and off to the familiar Ringwood, Midline and Ellis Hollow/Ellis Hollow Creek route. I really felt like a fool as I stopped or slowed down at least 14 times to reset the damn computer. I realized fully for the first time that my frustrations in my quest for data was completely ruining my cycling experience. I was far from being in the moment as I kept my eye on the odometer to see if it would once again lock up.
Why was I doing this? What really was the point of participating in this virtual challenge anyway? And why do I feel the need to log every single cycling mile and compare the stats with the previous year or week or whatever? Well, if you know me at all, you know that I tend to be obsessive and I take my addiction very seriously. It seems that the older I get, the better I get at following obsessions to their logical conclusions. I'm not interested in changing this undeniably annoying personality quirk, since I honestly believe that it's O.K. or even fantastic to embrace your obsessions as long as you pick the right ones. However, I feel like this one particular activity is actually not worth the stress and frustration. Why do I really care how far up the leaderboard I go? In the first year I won a heartrate cycling meter, so there is the allure of winning stuff and the recognition that I could do pretty well when competing with thousands of others around the world. However, I don't think it's worth getting worked up over anymore. I remember last July I was pushing so hard through the month that I was actually greatly relieved when the event was over. I was really strong by the time August rolled around, but I think I can ride just as much and have more fun if I lay off a little and just ride for fun. Maybe my Garmin issues are a happy accident that led me to a helpful realization.
I'm still leaving the Garmin in a rice bag overnight, however...
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