Beautiful thing about the Denver area is on occasion, you get to steal a warm sunny day in the middle of winter while the mountains and eastern prairies are getting pounded with snow and wind.Saturday , January 5th was one of those days and provided the first real training ride of '08. For the first time since the end of the race season I felt worthy of calling myself a racer in training.
Having blown the 11:00 am start time to ride with a half dozen other COMotion Sports racers, I opted to just take a couple of laps around Bear Creek Park and Reservoir. Sitting at the edge of the southern metro, the wide open space has few trees, gets plenty of sun and has a great system of hiking and biking trails.
The my-own pace allowed me to fiddle with the new Garmin bike mounted GPS a gift from Teresa Claus. I was sceptical about it's accuracy so for the first few miles, I carefully compared speeds and distance to the tried and true Shimano Flight Deck setup. At the 12 mile mark, the difference was a mere 2 hundre
ths of a mile between the two instruments. Good enough. The GPS data can be downloaded to my PC and processed with a 3rd party mapping software. From there, I can get other information about the route including total elevation gain and loss. The route tracking feature and compass will come in handy when trying to re-trace steps and return to point "A". Or in the case of Bear Creek, I could also look down from the top of the dam and see the parking lot on E470 where I parked. GPS results were 21.38 miles in 1:34 minutes. Max speed 32 mph...I can beat that.
ths of a mile between the two instruments. Good enough. The GPS data can be downloaded to my PC and processed with a 3rd party mapping software. From there, I can get other information about the route including total elevation gain and loss. The route tracking feature and compass will come in handy when trying to re-trace steps and return to point "A". Or in the case of Bear Creek, I could also look down from the top of the dam and see the parking lot on E470 where I parked. GPS results were 21.38 miles in 1:34 minutes. Max speed 32 mph...I can beat that.Great to be back in the saddle...more snow is due in today so back to the stationary trainer and Mountainside Fitness until the next gift of sunshine.
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