07.24.2014 | 12:22 pm
I love looking down at my bike computer. Love it.
I know, I know. I should be looking around, at the great outdoors and stuff. But sometimes I just can’t stand the thought of taking in another majestic mountain range. I find myself rolling my eyes at picturesque valleys and burbling streams.
There are times, quite frankly, when the thought enduring yet another waterfall makes me want to scream.
But staring at my Garmin 510 never gets old. The speed! The time! The elevation, grade, and total ascent!
My heart leaps, just looking at that rich mine of information, all there for the seeing.
Garmin’s done a good job of making a suite of GPS devices for bikes. As I’ve written before, I’m a big fan of the Garmin Edge 500, and next week I’ll be writing a long-term review of the Garmin Edge 510.
But whether you use a Garmin Edge 200 (the entry-level model) 500, 510, 800, or 810, you’re going to need a way to put that GPS on your bike — a GPS mount.
There are a lot of different kinds out there, and not all of them are equally awesome. But I’ve been using some of the most popular ones for a while, and think I can give some good guidance for which ones you ought to use.
The In-The-Box Options
To their credit, Garmin ships a pretty darned good mount with the GPS you buy: a light, round little disc that you put on your stem with a couple of the included tough-but-stretchy O-rings (several are included, with different lengths to match different stem circumferences).
The GPS twists on (or off) with a quarter turn, and you’re ready to go:
The problem with this mount is that, as the Garmins get bigger, this mount has a tougher time holding the GPS in place. With the 500, I never noticed the GPS drifting to one side or another. With the 510, a rocky ride will make the mounted GPS slide to one side or another.
Some Garmins — the 510, for example — also come with a mount that sticks out beyond the bar:
For road bikes in particular, this type of mount is fantastic: you don’t have to look down as far to see the GPS when the mount puts your computer further forward.
(For mountain bikes, this kind of mount is a bad idea; they put your GPS in too exposed a place for when crashes happen.)
But of all the mounts in this blog post, this is the only one I recommend strongly against.
Why? Because it damaged a very expensive GPS. One time, when The Hammer was descending and went over a cattle guard using this mount with her Garmin 510, suddenly her GPS flew off her bike, tumbling to the road.
To Garmin’s credit, the strong casing prevented the GPS from being broken altogether. It’s a little banged up, but still works.
However, the interface to the mount was damaged. Take a look at the left side of the disc — the tab has broken off:
This broken-off tab means that The Hammer’s GPS no longer sits as securely on any mount.
Did this break happen because of the GPS or the mount? I don’t know for sure, but both are broken in the same place, and both are from Garmin…and I’ve never had this happen with any other mount on a Garmin GPS. So for myself, I’m swearing off this particular mount forever.
For the Road: Bar Fly 2.0
Instead of the Garmin mount, I am now using the Tate Labs Bar Fly 2.0 as the mount on our road bikes:
Honestly, I have nothing but nice things to say about this mount. It goes on very easily with just a single bolt tightening down a plastic clamp — so no worries about damaging your carbon bar, and it’s simple as can be to adjust the viewing angle of the GPS.
Then the shape of the mount means that whether you’re using a smaller Garmin (a 200 or a 500) or a larger one (the 510, an 800, or an 810), it’s going to fit without any adjustments made to the mount. Pretty elegant.
Same bike, same mount, different-sized Garmins. A 510 on the left, a 500 on the right.
And Tate Labs has done a great job with the product material: it doesn’t seem to be wearing down the tabs on my GPS very quickly at all.
Finally, if you’re using a Shimano or Campy electronic shifting setup on your road bike, the Bar Fly 2.0 has a place to put the shifting module out of site on the underside, a nice tidy place for that little black box.
By way of full disclosure, the guys at Tate Labs sent me one Bar Fly 2.0 to try out. I liked it well enough that I’ve bought additional ones for all of the road bikes in the family.
Two Great MTB Mount Options
On your mountain bike, you don’t want to have your GPS sticking out past the handlebar; it’s just not a good idea to lead with an expensive piece of electronics. There seems to be agreement that a mount that puts the GPS over your stem is a reasonable compromise between visibility and protecting the GPS.
There are two mounts that I think are just about perfect, and the fact that they arrived at their solution in different ways is pretty awesome.
Bar Fly 3.0 (MTB)
Before I say anything else, let me say this: someone at Tate Labs needs to hire a guy to name their mounts. “Bar Fly 3.0 (MTB)” is just terrible. They should have named it Bar Fly MTB Mobius:
Or something like that.
Boring name aside, this is a fantastic mount, using the same thinking that makes the Bar Fly 2.0 great (good plastic, one-bolt fastening to the bar, fits any Garmin) and turning it around so the mount is over the stem:
You can’t tell it from this photo, but this puts the mount above the stem cap and faceplate hardware, so that any size Garmin will mount on, no problem. Here’s The Hammer’s 510:
You can see that with the super short stem The Hammer (correctly) runs, the 510 wouldn’t fit with Garmin’s mount on the stem. It fits — no problem — with the Bar Fly.
K-Edge Stem Mount
K-Edge has a couple of different mounts that go around the top of your steerer tube, fastened down by your top compression cap:
Replacing a 5mm spacer, this mount has a couple of pretty fantastic advantages. First, it takes up no real estate on your handlebar at all, so if you’ve got a GoPro or a phone mount that needs to mount on the handlebar on both sides of the stem, you’re still in business.
Next, since this sits above your stem, your GPS is going to fit, no matter how short your stem.
And finally, with the adjustable version (like the one shown in the photo above), you can adjust the viewing angle by loosening a bolt.
Designed and made in Idaho by cycling gold medalist Kristin Armstrong’s family, these K-Edge mounts — made of machined aluminum — are far and away the coolest-looking GPS mounts out there.
This is the GPS mount that The Hammer has on her singlespeed, and she loves it. Enough so that I’ve bought one (the one on The Hammer’s bike was sent to us no charge) for my own new singlespeed, though I’ve bought the less-expensive non-adjusting version:
All in black for me, of course. If I could have things my way, there is no bike product that would not be available in straight-up black, with no color accents allowed, with the exception of white and silver.
The adjustable version of this mount does have one pretty significant drawback: price. $39.99 MSRP (and a street price of $35.99) is a lot to pay for a mount, no matter how cool and shiny it looks.
PS: My next post will be a review of the Garmin Edge 510, now that The Hammer and I have been using it for about a year. Spoiler: I don’t like it as much as I like the 500.
Comments (29)
07.22.2014 | 9:29 am
I had a great vacation in NC with my family. Except for one day: July 12, the day of the Crusher in the Tushar. I love that race, and was bummed to be missing it this year.
So I tracked it, as best as I could — watching for Twitter, Facebook, and Strava posts.
Eventually I saw that Levi Leipheimer had posted a fast time for the race, so I left a comment congratulating him. Which made it so that I started getting notified by Strava whenever anyone else left a comment.
And there were quite a few. Some positive, some critical. And up to that point at least, all very well-considered. That conversation has snowballed a bit since then (partially fueled by a tweet of mine about it, maybe), but I liked that Levi seems willing to talk.
So I asked him to do a recorded chat with me to post here. And I do mean “chat” here; we ramble and jump all over the place, which made for an interesting conversation. We talk about the Tour de France (racing it, crashing out of it, watching it after you’ve crashed out of it, whether a normal human could hang on for even a single stage of it), whether 155 pounds is too heavy for a 5’7” cyclist, the 100 Miles of Nowhere, whether doping benefits a racer even after they stop doping, and a lot more.
It’s long — just under an hour — but I think it’s worth a listen. Here you go:
Technical Note: about halfway through, the software I was using to record the video died on me — a fact I didn’t notice ’til after the interview was over. Luckily, I had taken the precaution of recording the audio redundantly, so I have the entire recording — just no video for the second half. This just means that at some point you’ll see still shots of our heads as we talk, instead of us talking as we stare at our respective computer screens.
Just In Case An Hour Isn’t Enough
By the way, Culture Pop Films just put out a documentary detailing a little more about Levi, what he’s doing now, and Levi’s GranFondo — it’s definitely worth a watch, which you can do here (though you may want to see it nice and big on the Vimeo site instead):
PS: If you watch Behind the Curtain, be sure to watch the outtakes reel.
Comments (10)
07.21.2014 | 8:35 am
A Note from Fatty About Today’s Post: This is part 12 of my 2014 Rockwell Relay Race Report. The previous installment, part 11, is here. Or if you need to, you can go to back to the beginning.
The most reliable indicator of a successful blog post, as far as I’m concerned, is that upon reading it, you will admire me. You will find me insightful. Athletic. Witty. Strategic. Smart. Handsome, even.
This will not, as measured by any of the above metrics, be a successful blog post.
Handoff
We got to the Cedar City exchange point with enough time for me to get changed, get my bike ready, and then stare over my shoulder, waiting for The Hammer.
It also gave me plenty of time to worry: This is a big descent, with a lot of wildlife. We left her out on her own for a long time. She could easily have hit a deer. Or a pothole. Or a patch of gravel.
And it was cold up there. She wasn’t wearing gear for what was bound to be a chilly descent. She had already been through one descent where she was violently shivering by the time she got to the bottom. Why hadn’t I had her wear more?
I waited. Probably for as long as five whole eternal minutes I waited.
It’s possible I fret too much, and too often. Over a woman who has never shown herself to be anything but incredibly strong and capable.
I’m her husband. It’s my job.
And then, there she was.
With a smile on her face.
My relief was intense. I put out my hand to take the baton as The Hammer slowed:
We had learned our lesson about rolling handoffs for this year; maybe we’ll try them again…some other time.
And then I was off.
My final chance for glory — my big opportunity to show exactly how strong of a cyclist I am — was upon me.
Stand and Deliver
Hey, see if you can find the common theme in the following pictures from my final turn in the Rockwell Relay. Here’s one shot:
Oh, and here’s another.
And here’s me, again.
(I especially like this one because the angle of the shot makes it look like it’s a tiny, tiny bicycle I’m riding.)
OK, one more.
You could say that the common theme in all those shots is that I seem to be drawn to riding in places with scraggly bushes nearby. Or that I seem to be as drawn to looking at my stem as Chris Froome.
But of course, the real common thread is that in each of these photos, I’m standing. And it’s not like these are cherry-picked photos, either. These are all the photos that were taken of me during this leg of the race.
If there’s any kind of incline at all, I stand.
Parents, let this be a warning to you: don’t let your kids ride single speed mountain bikes, or they will become hopeless mashers, thinking that the way to go fast is to stand up, pick a big gear, and pedal big fat squares.
Idiot Race Tactics
But I wasn’t just standing and climbing. Nope. I was standing and chasing. On this long straight road, often at a mild incline, I could see riders ahead of me, even when they were far ahead of me.
And by “riders,” I of course mean “carrots.”
I chased one racer down, got behind his wheel for just a moment to catch my breath, and then passed him, signaling that he should hop on his wheel, that we should ride together.
But I didn’t mean it. I so didn’t mean it. As soon as he got on my wheel, I ramped up my speed to a level that I knew was unsustainable, testing the guy, seeing if he could hang.
He could not. Within a minute I was riding alone again.
That’s OK, though, I could see another guy up ahead. I chased him down, did the same thing: catch him, catch my breath, go ahead for a pull, and try to ride him off my wheel from the front.
But this guy was staying with me.
“OK,” I thought. “Here comes a steeper hill; let’s see if you can stay with me going up that.”
He couldn’t. I popped him off the back, and was alone again. Which, apparently, was the way I liked it.
I continued on, riding solo. Racing out of my head. Attacking, attacking, attacking.
Except there was nobody else to attack. For the rest of the leg, I was on my own, racing into what was at times a headwind, and at other times a crosswind.
I finished, feeling spent. Feeling proud. I had given it my all.
And then, less than one minute later, the two guys I had dropped came cruising in. Working together.
Which is where I had my monster epiphany: I am a cycling strategy idiot. In my first leg, I had gone out completely at top speed, on my own and in the wind, even though I knew there was a guy just a couple of minutes back who wanted to work with me. A guy who I knew was strong, and would have made us both faster.
And now I had done it again. If I’d gone smarter — not harder — I could’ve worked with these two guys, and all three of us would’ve finished faster.
But no. I had to beat them, even though I was competing in a different division than them. Somehow, at the moment, that had been more important to me than putting in a faster overall time.
I’m all legs and lungs, no brain at all.
G’night Everybody
With my final leg of the race over, I now had a delicious luxury ahead of me: no more preparing for the next leg. No more taking care of other racers (Kenny and The Hammer would be taking care of Heather during her final leg of the race). And no stress over our place in the coed category: barring a crazy circumstance, we knew our place as third coed team was pretty much sealed.
So I had a celebratory cold soda, generously provided by the exchange volunteers:
And then I had another:
It’s possible I had a third, as well. My mind’s a little hazy on the whole time period.
Then I had a Klondike ice cream bar, sitting and relaxing in the exquisitely air-conditioned van:
And then I laid down on the bench seat, intending to get out my iPad and see how other teams were doing.
I believe I lasted less than a second before falling asleep.
Yes, I’m cuddling my phone in one hand and an iPad in the other. My devices and I are very close.
How It Ends
As you probably expect, I have no recollection of Heather’s final leg of the race at all. I just remember waking up as the van pulled up to the park where the finish line was, with The Hammer telling me that the team had decided that nobody wanted to wake me up and so this year we wouldn’t ride across the line together; Heather would have that honor solo.
Which she did magnificently:
And I have to say, it was extra-awesome to cross the finish line this year, because Dave Towle — the biggest and best voice in cycling today, was announcing finishers.
We got the post-race team photo:
And then we went to Kenny and Heather’s house — just a couple miles away from the finish line — and went to sleep for a couple hours before the awards ceremony. As expected, we were third with our time of 29:32: almost an hour and a half slower than the first and second place coed teams.
Obviously, it wasn’t even close.
And I don’t care. We could’ve been last place and I would’ve enjoyed it just as much.
The Rockwell Relay continues to be the funnest, most intense, most beautiful, outright best race I’ve ever done.
And I can hardly wait ’til next year.
Comments (18)
07.17.2014 | 8:23 am
So, I’m in Austin all this week. Working. Which is fine. But what I’m about to tell you is not fine. It is dumb.
Or more to the point, I am dumb.
I got to the office early, so I could write the final entry for my Rockwell Relay race report before heading out to an offsite meeting. I unlocked the office, set up my computer, and then went to use the bathroom — which is down the hall from my office.
So far so good.
But when I finished and headed back to the office — which nobody else is at, cuz they’re all going to the offsite — it’s locked.
And my key is in the office. As is my computer.
So instead of a story about racing, today you get this story about doofishness, which is about as much as I am willing to write using my phone.
Also, you get this selfie, to give you a sense of how smart I feel right now:
For those who are wondering: I’m renting a Kia Rio. And yes, I luckily had the keys to my car in my pocket, instead of leaving them in my computer bag like I usually do. So I still have a way to get to the offsite.
I just won’t have a computer.
Or any snacks.
Comments (45)
07.16.2014 | 7:27 am
A Note from Fatty About Today’s Post: This is part 11 of my 2014 Rockwell Relay Race Report. As a refresher (or if you haven’t read it yet), part 10 is here. Or if you need to, you can go to back to the beginning.
You can feel a lot of emotions, all at once. And when you’re tired and sleep-deprived, those emotions can swing pretty fast.
I have examples.
Jealousy
Kenny started his final turn in the Rockwell Relay just as the sun was starting to really show. The day was — barely — warming up and we were moving out of the desert and into the mountains.
Instead of terrain like this:
We now had terrain that looked like this:
The difference was striking, and welcome. And Kenny had a big ol’ smile on his face, even as he climbed as if he were being chased by Visigoths.
Meanwhile, I was jealous. Last year, this was my favorite stage: almost a pure climbing stage, one that really tests you.
It was my moment of glory. Except this year, it was Kenny’s moment of glory. It was my moment to knock a completely full glass of iced coffee onto the floor of the van.
Here’s me, after The Hammer cleaned up my mess and refilled my glass.
The thumbs-up sign is me indicating, “This time, unlike last time, I have full control of my glass.”
And, yes, on my lap is two slices of pizza, facing together, so they don’t make a mess.
Oh, and don’t worry, the van was parked when this photo was taken. Which is to say that I wasn’t looking away from the road while no-handed driving on a curvy mountain road with a bunch of bike racers around me.
I am a doofus, but not quite that doofy of a doofus.
Pride
Kenny put on a climbing clinic, doing that 37.6 miles with 4116 feet of climbing in 2:12, averaging 16.7mph.
Which is to say, he kicked butt. Which is all the more impressive, in my humble opinion, when you consider that — as far as we knew — there was absolutely nothing on the line. No reason at all for him to put himself out there like that. We had no chance of catching the first and second place coed teams, and the fourth place coed team had no real chance of catching us.
Sure, anything can happen and there was a lot of racing left to do, but barring a crazy event, our third-place coed finish was a near certainty, whether Kenny raced his guts out or just phoned it in.
And he raced his guts out. Which is the way to do it, in my humble opinion. If you’re in a race, act like it. Whether you’re going for first, second, or second-to-last.
I’m pretty sure, to be honest, that for Kenny there was never any other possible option.
Concern
Let me tell you a little secret about Team Fatty’s race tactics for the Rockwell Relay. The “why” of our race order.
A big chunk of it has to do with Kenny and me being ridiculous.
See, I know The Hammer is a strong, independent, capable woman. She doesn’t need me to look after her. Likewise, Heather is a strong, independent, capable woman; she doesn’t need Kenny to look after her.
But once The Hammer and Heather had settled that they would be racing the second and fourth legs in the race, respectively, I called Kenny. “You need to race leg one, and I’ll race leg three,” I said. “That way we’ll both be able to prep and send off our own women.”
Kenny agreed without argument.
I say the above as supporting context for the fact that I was hugely stressed out about The Hammer’s next — and final — leg of the race.
I was worried that the descent was too dangerous — after ten or so miles of climbing, there’s twenty or so miles of fast mountain descending back into the desert.
Also, I was worried that she’d be too cold. It was early in the morning, and she’d be going fast down the mountain. I didn’t want her freezing.
Meanwhile, here’s how The Hammer looked as she waited for Kenny at the exchange area:
Yeah, she didn’t seem particularly bothered.
Urgency
But as we got near the top of the climb and told The Hammer she was on her own for the descent so that we’d be able to get to the next exchange in time for me to get prepped for the handoff, I fretted. I stressed.
And in short, I needed to poop. NOW.
And so, as I sat alone in the woods — Kenny and Heather parked and patient on the side of the road — The Hammer passed the van and shouted, “Why aren’t you going on ahead of me?”
To which Heather shouted back, “Elden’s pooping!”
To which The Hammer yelled back, “Of course he is!”
Team Fatty kept no secrets. And furthermore, we don’t keep our secrets in a very loud voice.
By the time I finished and cleaned up (nice that Kenny keeps a shovel in the Sprinter), Kenny and Heather were antsy. “We need to hurry or Lisa’s going to get to the exchange before we do.”
Which seems like a gross — but not half-bad — place for us to pick up for the final installment of this story.
Comments (7)
« Previous Page — « Previous Entries Next Entries » — Next Page »
