Why keep stats?

Feelings are tricky things at the best of times. Feelings within relationships are a mine field. Anyone who bases a love relationship on feelings is pretty much stuffed (lets not go there). But how you feel on the bike is just as subjective. July is mid-year, Tour de France, winter in melbourne. In terms of motivation on the bike it is easy to beat yourself up that you are not doing enough, not strong enough, not as fit as last year. But what data do you have to really benchmark how you are going?

Garmin Forerunner 305

For the anal-retentives and super organised, elaborate spreadsheets or training diaries are kept of each ride to the extent that when you farted and shiverred is even recorded. However most of us just want to ride and the only really ride analysis is "how did I feel" or "how do I feel now." To tell you the truth I am feeling a little under done in my riding at the moment. Too much work, lots of family commitments and plenty of unstable weather. I knew that on raw kilometres ridden I had a pretty strong winter in 2010. Already I knew I had not done as many kms year to date this year as last year.

Thankfully I do use a Garmin 305 for most of my rides. Most rides I do, whether on road bike or single speed MTB, I strap on the Garmin and press START. This gives me a good record of total time, elevation, distance, average speed and heart rate.

Report from "Garmin Connect"

Garmin have a handy online feature called "Garmin Connect." This site has a "Reports" page which mean I can ask for my stats year to date for 2011 and compare them to 2010. To my surprise and reassurance my stats for this year were not too bad compared to last year. My total hours of riding for 2011 Feb-July was only down 7%. My total kms ridden was down 16% from the same period in 2010. However I was encouraged to discover that my total elevation was up 7%. This made sense because I had been commuting more on a SS MTB doing shorter commutes but with more climbing. Also almost all of my long weekend rides (when I did actually get out) had been in the hills. No flat bay rides for this bunny!

No eveyone has a GPS bike computer (I was given the Garmin as a hand-me-down from a friend and have loved this addition to my cycling kit from day one.) But a simple spreadsheet of kms ridden, average speed and time would go a long way in actually comparing your data with your feelings. Just a thought!

Sure I still need to pull my finger out but with 6 months to go till Alphine Classic it is good to keep things in perspective and more importantly keep motivated and keep enjoying my riding. Just remember - life is better on a bike!