So I’m sending in my entry for my first competitive trail drive today. It’s a 25 miler and you must come in between 4h20m and 4h50m. When I’m riding I can pretty accurately figure my pace etc but I don’t quite have the feel of miles/ timing yet in the cart and my Garmin that I use for everything else on earth doesn’t seem to exactly recording right (it can’t decide what sport I’m doing lol) . My DH who is a big mtn bike person suggested a bike computer that you can input the wheel size on. Does anyone else do this? Suggestions?
I don’t have any suggestions but am curious for ideas. When I drive I use the Equiab app which is definitely calibrated to riding. It tracks the milage well enough, but not gaits/times at gaits.
Competitive trail driving sounds awesome! Any links/groups you can share on that??
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I’ve used Equilab while riding before but I find the more elevation gain/ loss the more inaccurate it is?
For my area, the organization that puts on the competitive trail drive is ECTRA. They pretty much cover Maine thru northern VA, with most of their rides being in PA, NJ, NY and MD.
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Its pretty flat in my area so I’ve not run into that, but it wouldn’t shock me if it doesn’t account for it very well.
I have a Garmin watch, don’t you tell it what sport you’re doing? Plus all the GPS activities calculate mileage/speed the same way so it doesn’t really matter. And my watch can also input wheel size no need for the bike computer, you just need the speed sensor that goes on the actual wheel and measures the rotations.
But if I create a sport for driving- it will mess up my stats for V02 max, calories, training threshold etc because it will think that we’re moving under my power?
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Use the eBike or eMTB sport? I assume Garmin set those up to not mess with that stuff. Also, I think they calculate calories/training readiness/recovery based largely on heart rate. VO2 max and threshold on a bike activity is only if you have a power meter
ETA: my watch doesn’t have it on board but yours might: there’s a “Driving” activity, probably for a car but physically it would seem similar to a horse?
All the hand helds will not be accurate in tight turns and sometimes deep cover. I have a wahoo speed on my wheel that connect via Bluetooth to the odometer on the dash. I used to have the wahoo odometer but that’s best in class for cyclists and quite pricey. So when it finally died I replaced it with one of the many inexpensive versions out there that are compatible with the wahoo speed device.
You get a ton of useful data from these things and if you’re anyway serious about the fitness program, I consider it a pretty good investment.
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This is the speed sensor, it wraps around the wheel axle as close to the spokes as possible. I bought it as a stand-alone, but it looks like it’s packaged with the cadence sensor now. But there are plenty of other models out there
This is the odometer I use, it came with a mount that works nicely on one of the bars on my Marathon dash. You customize what you want to see on the screen, I have kph, km, change in elevation and time elapsed
Here’s some of the data once you sync with your phone
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I did check but apparently the eBike messing with stats is actually an issue that a lot of people have with Garmin.
I can choose a sport but if I don’t, the watch decides what I’m doing for itself. Most of the time it thinks that I’m on an elliptical? The best though was that it decided I was fencing one time hahaha
I did try it just on mountain bike last night (and then deleted the data afterwards). I used a training route that I know very well and it came out pretty accurate.
@DMK thank you I will check out the links. I know nothing will be 100% accurate, I just want to be as close as possible and keep it separate from running and endurance riding data
Edited to add- so the wahoo sensors will connect okay with that odometer even though it’s a different brand?
Yup! Although I bought it because it said it was compatible with that brand of sensor. But it looks like most of them are pretty cross compatible and the odometer that I linked also has a speed sensor available
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thank you!
if you are looking for a phone app to try, maybe Ride with GPS? I found it more accurate than equilab but not as accurate as my garmin watch… so may be accurate enough for keeping your driving activities separate.
I forgot about Ride with GPS. I will give that a try. It would be nice not to have to buy another gadget
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