It's my first steps

I'm starting to log some time on the Kurt Kenetic trainer using the Powertap Pro, but not near the amount of time that I would like to log due to my work schedule. During the week I am getting 30 to 45 minutes a few week day evenings and then a long ride on Saturday and sometimes I get to slip out for a ride on Sunday.

Brewcrew - North Adairsville Loop

MotionBased Ride Data Link

With all the cycling groups around Atlanta and various group rides held around the city each weekend, I can honestly say that I feel like the NARC "Brewcrew" is the best group for me. This group is a mix of guys and gals with a variety of ages above 38 years, but they all have a commpetitive spirit and each seem willing to push themselves just a bit more on each ride.

This past Saturday was no exception. My goal before the ride was to be consistent with my effort and to minimize coasting and drafting more than my past rides. The route changed as we forged ahead, but the speed seemed to keep climbing upward and that was right on with my training plan. Normally I struggle to hold on to the group, but I believe that consistency during the week on the trainer using the power meter is starting to pay off. There were points in the ride when we had a structured paceline and other times there were moments of break aways and I was able to parcipate in both the break aways and with a good amount of time up front pulling, but it seemed that almost every person in the group had their share of working and creating excitement during the ride. For a route that was not fully planned it turned out to be a good combination of flats and hills. At the end Diane stated that she planned to go back on Busch Drive just for me so I wanted to make it worth while. Rather than falling off the back of the group like in weeks past, this time we raced the last miles on Busch Drive reaching and holding 30 miles per hour for a short section. That evening my legs definately felt the effort as they began to hurt almost immediately following the ride. Sunday I went to Blanket's Creek to do a loop on the mountain bike to get a little bit of the soreness out. I only did one loop and called it a day. Monday morning I was supposed to train legs, but after a brief workout I opted to spend the rest of the time stretching. Tonight it is back to the trainer.

This coming Saturday I hope to go up to Dalton and participate in the 2nd Annual Raisin Hope Foundation ride.

2008 Beautiful Backroads - Metric Route

Metric Route Map View

MotionBased Ride Data - Metric Route

I have to start this blog entry with appreciation to my fellow NARC leaders for putting together another great ride, with good sag stops and even better festivities following the ride with a small buffet of food available and tents available for us tired and hungry cyclists. Thanks to all of those who were unselfish with their time and served us at the sags stops, for the sheriff department controlling traffic at certain intersections and helping us stay safe and thanks for putting together a new route for 2008 that was really great with little traffic for the most part and had great stretches of road to get a good pace going. It seemed flat, but I still ended up with more than 3,500 feet of elevation gain for the 66 mile route. Thanks to the Budweiser Cartersville plant for hosting the event and for letting us use their parking lot on weekends as well. I wouldn't be able to guess as to how many riders signed up, but it did seem that more cars were in the parking lot than in past years.

I was excited about riding the metric this year. I have done enough centuries for 2008 so my goals was to set a good pace early and see how long I could keep it. We started before the mass start at 7:30 and our group was Jack Shippee, A friend of his (sorry - bad with names), David Marion, Gary Quellet, Mike Quick, Edgar Lebron, Keith Bolton* and me. I was just grateful to be hanging on Keith's wheel for about 39 miles. He looked like he was a man on a mission.

We started off and the air was a little breezy and cool, but it didn't take long to warm up once the sun started coming up. At about 8 miles Edgar, Keith and me started putting on a little harder pace. Within a few minutes I looked back and the rest of the guys were not in sight, but later we heard that David had a spoke to break. For many miles the three of us keep up a very good pace. We caught up with a group of about 10 that were generous to let us mix in with them for a few miles, Keith and I kept going to the front of their group and pulling hard. We eventually pulled away from that group and the three us continued on our fast and furious pace. Around mile 30 another group comes by and we mix in with them until the 39 mile sag stop, which was our first stop of the day. I barely got down half a banana when the fast group blows by us and the guys were wanting to follow them. I never saw Keith again, but soon after I saw Edgar start to give up the chase for the ultra fast guys. Edgar and I stayed together trying to help each other because it seemed no matter where we turned we getting hit by a head wind. Now that I have the data uploaded I see that the general trend for the last half is in elevation gain. So I understand now by looking at the profile how we had such a good pace in the start and now my 19.5 mph average in the first 40 miles was in jepordary of dropping the last 26 miles.

At the last sag stop (56 miles) for the metric Gary, Mike, Jack Shippee and friend pull into the rest stop. Edgar and I joined back in with Gary and Mike to finish the last 16 miles. Jack had intention of doing the century so we parted ways and tried to keep a good pace back to the waiting festivities. Toward the end I was starting to believe my legs were cooked for the day, but in the final stretches I was able to muster up some speed for the pace line with a fellow cyclist joining in our group. Mike Quick put on an awesome display of power output in the final stages pulling away from us pretty easily. Gary and I were content roll in at a good finishing pace.

For me it was a good day. Except for the last miles I did the majority of the ride with Edgar and he dropped off in the last few miles to deal with sweat getting into his eyes, but we worked together for many miles and had a good performance for the day.

It was good at the end to get a plate of pasta and a couple pieces of baked chicken, sit under the tent and talk with my buddies about the ride.

What is next for the gang?
For me I look forward to continuing riding with the brew crew on the same roads, but October 4th there is the Raisin Hope Foundation Ride that I really enjoyed last year. The route will probably have Fort Mountain, which is a very nice climb if you like that sort of thing.

Creating Routes for Garmin Edge 205 or 305

I am often asked how to create a course (route) to use with the Garmin Edge and how to upload a route to the Garmin Edge. The following steps may be helpful as a simple guide through the process.

The first step is using a mapping tool like Course Creator or Map My Ride. I have a link list on the right to several online mapping tools. Each of these online mapping tools have different layouts and controlling variables. I find that my friends may choose to use a different map tool than I use, but the process below was from Brad Culberson's Course Creator. You may prefer to use another mapping tool.

Select an image for a larger view





Create the route you desire.






Once the route has been created and saved it is time to export the file.










Course Creator or other online programs may save to an XML file.









The file may be saved as BurntMt58.crs.xml










Select the file to rename using Windows explorer or file management window.











After you back space off the .xml you may get the following dialog box. Select the Yes button.
BurntMt58.crs.xml should now be BurntMt58.crs





With your Garmin GPS device connected to the computer. Open the Garmin Training Center software that comes with the device.
Select the File pulldown menu and select Import. Select Courses.







Select the course file that you created from the online mapping tool.









Use the Send to Device button circled in red.






After the course is uploaded to the device you can check by turning on the Edge and scroll over to the menu items. Select Training and at the bottom of the list select Courses. Once you select the course on the device you will be given a few choices.

There are other methods of creating a route and uploading to the Garmin Edge and once you get used to the common features you will be able to select the mapping tool and method that best suits your purpose.

May 2009 Blog Update:
Since first writing this blog entry I have observed a few things that I wanted to give an update. For a few months I have been using the Garmin Edge 705 and really enjoy having a somewhat detailed street map on the Edge. If you are not familiar with the 705 and are considering the purchase, please understand that the 705 is typically loaded with a "basemap" that only shows major highways and interstates. In order to get the detailed maps you will need to either purchase a preloaded SDmicro card or buy a map program like Garmin NT Navigator and load a 2GB or less SDmicro card. Another note to consider is that a 4GB SDmicro card will not work in the 705. At least that is what I found. If you purchase the Garmin NT Navigator program you can create a route (type of turn by turn route, *.gpx file) in the program and upload directly to the 605/705 units, whereas, you cannot do this with the 205/305 units. Although my preference is to use a course file because you will be able to see the terrain profile, such as, summits and valleys.


Several of my cycling club members use Edge units and we create maps early in the week and distribute those files to the users at least a day before the ride. This helps our group in a number of ways, but lately we have observed a problem with creating routes with Mapmyride. We have experienced files with errors, therefore, I may start using Bike Route Toaster as my new route creator. I had like Mapmyride because I could just share a link to the course online and let other club members download straight from the site, but there were too many complaints about not being able to load or initiate the course created from the website. I was able to correct some of the files in a round about way, but it is too much to type out how to do a "work around" to fix the files. I will say that for the most part Mapmyride is pretty stable in creating courses, but I thought I would just state my recent observances.

I have also noticed that most of the web based route creators now output straight to a *.crs or *.tcx file without adding the xml extension so that step may not be necessary anymore.

Fairmont #2 - Brewcrew Cycling

MotionBased Ride Data

It was another fast and furious day on the bike with the BrewCrew. I am not sure how many were in the group today and I am not going to try recalling all the names at this point, but everyone seemed strong. I wanted to try something a bit different today because I have been spending too much time sitting in the back. Today I had a mission to do my work on the first half of the ride and since I had the route in the Garmin Edge I didn't mind if I fell off on the last few miles. I also brought my trainer bike (Felt F45 - 9 speed) since I wanted to measure the data with the power meter and today's route was pretty flat so that bike worked out okay.

After a few miles I went ahead and started my plan and put on a good pace and just as I expected the guys (Alan, Edgar, Blake, Keith, Mike & Rod) were on my plan and raising the bar even higher. We kept a good pace, but the pace kept creeping upward to the point I eventually fell off the back. Jamie, Diane & remaining riders caught up with me and we stayed together to the store stop. I had an 18.8 mph average by the time were at the store. Leaving the store a few other NARC members hooked up with us and started the ride back.

About 10 miles out I was content to fall off the back of that group. My legs were spent, but along comes Jamie and Diane, who had stopped to help some lost riders. Both Jamie and Diane were my tow trucks pulling my tired carcass the rest of the way in. I told them to go ahead, but they are always watching out for me and others so they kept encouraging me to get into their draft for the remaining miles. A great day with the BrewCrew!!

Jamie & Diane - True Champions and Motivators!!!
I told them I would say something nice on my blog and they deserve it

Gary's Birthday Ride

MotionBased Ride Data
I was traveling back from Kentucky when I got the news that Gary was picking a Ball Ground route for his birthday ride. I had this instinctive voice telling me not to go because of the hills, but I wanted to tough it out and ride with my good friends. Because I was out of town I had no idea how many guys would show up for the ride, but we had a good group with nine guys. Driving up to Ball Ground the sky was looking somewhat darker and the wind was picking up. I wondered if the outer bands of the hurricane Gustav were starting to make their presence and they were.



The route was good with more substantial rolling hills than we typically experience at the brewery, but no real sustained climbs like one would experience by traveling a few more miles north of Ball Ground into the base of the north Georgia mountains. Still I was struggling to keep up with the group and was frustrated with myself, but there was nothing that I could do except continue to pedal. No real stress of getting lost since I had the route in my Garmin 305. As I looked ahead the guys would get strung out a little, but for the most part they all stayed together with me and Dick lagging behind the group.

The most important aspect of today is that Gary enjoyed the day since it was his birthday ride. I believe he had a good day on the bike from what I could tell and looked strong on the climbs.

Happy Birthday Gary!!!