Keeping things charged has never been my strong suit. Phones, ipods, my Garmin. I can’t tell you how many times I have set out for a ride only to find that one or more of those is flashing “low battery” at me. At some point my dear husband even began plugging my phone into the dock - probably because he was sick of me swearing at the top of my lungs when I discovered that red warning.My Garmin is a piece of technology that I tend not to think of. For one - that sucker stays charged FOREVER. Seriously, though my general lack of skill on the bike would contradict it, I spend a lot of time in the saddle. 6 days a week with two of those being long rides. A couple weeks back I downloaded the info off my Garmin (which happened to coincide with the need for a charge. The last time it had been downloaded was January 18th. You can tell I put stock in those numbers lol) Do I have a miracle Garmin? Perhaps. But I get about 2 weeks out of it.
ANYHOW - when I went out for my long ride last weekend the Garmin was dead. I was planning on climbing as much as I could and would like to see how I was going. Fully kitted out there was no way that I was going to wait 30 mins for a charge, so I hit the road anyways. And had the best ride I had had in a long time. My climbing felt SO strong. I have no idea how fast I went or where my heart rate was but the thing I noticed was that I had FUN. On hills!!!! I stopped obsessing about hitting my max HR, and what my speed was but rode according to how I felt. Pushed myself when I could and hit a nice tempo.
This makes me think back to when I was a spin instructor. I taught for 8 years in the dark with the techno blasting. Last year we got new bikes. Those bikes had computers on them and all of a sudden people wanted the lights on so they could see the computers. They freaked out if their computers weren’t working. All of a sudden teaching wasn’t much fun for either of us. Technology had sucked the joy out of the room.
Fast forward to now and I realize that I have done the same thing with my own riding. I LOVE riding my bike, but when did it become about training and not for the love of the road. I’m never going to win anything for my skills except 7th place trophies on STRAVA. Yes, they gave me a little trophy for 7th place. Really I just want to ride for the joy of it. I’m taking the Garmin along, but from now on it’s going in my jersey pocket. I just hope I don’t wash it.
