Technology

I've always been an early adopter when it came to technology on the bike. When Greg LeMond was winning the Tour de France, I had an Avocet cyclometer on my bike. Then when heart rate monitors came out, I was first in line. What a great leap that was, we finally had something concrete to train by other than perceived exertion.

Then came the ultimate cycling tool: the power meter. I can't remember exactly when I bought my first SRM but I think it was 2002 or 2003. I used it for a year and sold it! WTF, you say! Well, honestly, at that time we didn't really know what all those numbers meant. No one had compiled enough data over a large selection of riders to really know what to compare all those neat numbers we were looking at. Thankfully a small group of engineers and bike geeks kept at it and through some other riders, coaches and a newsgroup called Wattage, we did start to figure out what those numbers meant and I was back on the bandwagon again with a new SRM.

Then Hunter Allen and Andy Coggan wrote a great book that put everything together and made the power meter easy to understand and use. Today I have almost four years of pretty decent data on me, and three, yep count 'em, three SRM's. An old amateur version on the Velotron, a Dura Ace Pro version on the race bike and now, for my post racing days, a new wireless Gossamer compact SRM coupled to a Garmin 705 that is mounted to my Ritchey Breakaway.

And boy am I geeked out! This new Garmin 705 is truly too cool to believe. Tracking your training has never been better; power, distance, time, heart rate, altitude, course maps, GPS, the list goes on. And it not only can track your bike workouts, I have now used it back country skiing and walking my dog! Collecting very useful data with every pedal stroke, kick turn and stride. While it is brand new and I am still figuring out what it is capable of, it hit me tonight how truly far we have come since my old Avocet. Thanks Greg.

TMac