There was no need for Rule #74 until the cyclometer showed up on our handlebars. According to the late Sheldon Brown, the cyclometer has been around since the early 1900s.
“Star-wheel cyclometers, such as the Lucas unit, suffered two serious problems. They made an annoying “tink-tink-tink” noise. At high speeds, the star wheel would sometimes turn too far when hit by the fast-moving striker, then, the next time around the striker would hit the tip of one of the star points, sometimes knocking the unit out of position.”
My thought is, these things have been annoying us for much too long. As a youth no one had any measuring device on their bike. There are no old black and white photos of racers staring down at their front hubs to the Lucas meters. Eddy had retired before the Avocet made its debut. He would have caused his to go to failure or he would have removed it because it was extra weight and rubbish.
I bought an Avocet digital cyclometer as soon as I could. It had two slightly inset buttons to better hold water to seep inside. It read speed and elapsed time. That was something to get excited about. Going from no data to data was big, this was going to improve cycling.
Thirty years and many cyclometers later I’m not convinced. My most recent model was a Cateye wireless cyclometer with heart rate and it demanded a new battery every two months…enough! I needed anything else, which made me ask an obvious question- why? Do I care how fast I’m going? I know it’s not very fast and no I don’t really care.
It’s more a question of how hard am I going? Hard or not so hard and again, I’m not trying to quantify this anymore. I’m no quant. I’m beyond quant. It’s not being too old as much as I’ve been riding for so damn long the numbers no longer interest me. Even if I was training for a specific event I have moved past the desire to have data. I did encourage my wife into upgrading to a Garmin 500 as she is into data. I encouraged her because I wanted to know the grades of some of our climbs. I should have kept quiet and emulated a friend who actually went out with a tape measure and long level and quantified the grades to the island’s most “interesting” climbs, bless his heart.
It’s been gratifying to look around on the Sunday group ride I’ve fallen into and notice that some of my cycling friends also have no cyclometers on their bikes. I’m not even sure it’s an interesting point of discussion amongst us. The people who are training with data don’t show up on this ride often because we spend the first 40 km gossiping, riding two abreast, riding a route too curvy, hilly and breath-taking for staring at a watt meter. The second part, I’ve heard*, turns sporty as the big guns get fired leaving bodies scattered along the route home. Training with data requires control of effort. Luckily my people have little interest in that. This Sunday ride is more pleasure than pain and I don’t need a meter to tell me a serious workout was logged.
I was visiting friends who worked and lived in Monaco and was told about the eighty year old owner of the building they rented in. Most every Sunday morning he and his buddies would kit up and go for a ride either east into Italy or west into France. I assume this had been the routine for decades. Eventually they would stop for a nice long Sunday lunch then they ride to the nearest train platform, roll their bikes on the train and return home via rail. Damn, I want to be one of those guys if I get close to eighty. And damn I wish I had a bike and kit when I was there, it would have been a riot to ride with them. I bet those old dudes have V-meters on their bikes.
*either I have turned back before the official turn around or I’m shelled out so early that all I hear are the distant reports. At some point the return always becomes a death slog and as such, a good training ride.
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My first intro to the meter was in the 70's when a kid in the street had a dragster with the 3 speed T-shift on the curved TT, big bars, long sissy seat, candy apple red, fitted with a Sanyo speedo smack bang in the middle of the bars on the stem. It was sooo cool to get a ride on it when you start off in 1st gear, watch the needle arc over the numbers on the black rectangle box, shift to second hitting 15km/h, shift to 3rd and get to 20-25km/h, then run out of road.
When I took my dad's Raleigh Europa, I fitted a clicker meter which I thought was the coolest thing as the bike talked back to me with how far places are and how far I've ridden. As @Gianni /Sheldon Brown mentioned the problems at higher speeds.
When I started to race I got a Cateye Solar. It was the best! Sat in the middle of the bars and I recorded every ride/race I went on. I became a 'data hound'. Still have the Cateye and log book somewhere in the man cave, or at the folk's place.
I changed bikes and didn't put a Meter on it and felt better without it. Had a few years off and thought I put a Sigma on, rode crapper with it. So I went without and enjoyed and felt better without it. I now have a shitty Meter that rattles. It's gotta go!
Good to see I not the only dataholic on here, although this entire discussion is clearly in violation of the masturbation principle.
I'd forgotten clicker meters even existed!Made me remember I had one on my old 5-spd road bike BITD but never went fast enough to get any issues with it. Had a Cateye Mity 2 on my first proper MTB, ignored computers for a bit due to batteries running out, had a wireless Trek for a while before batteries became an issue again, now using an Edge 500 and have become a complete data geek. Strava is great if disturbingly addictive, like so many others I find gaps in the calendar annoying and I just enjoy seeing the kms rack up. So much functionality in that little box too - wish id had one for lap data when i raced motorbikes but datalogging cost a fortune! The Garmin occasionally goes in the pocket to ride by the V, but the whole setup has been improved by a Raceware Direct SRM style mount. Looks much nicer now the 3T stem logos aren't obscured.
@sthilzy
I guess the assorted flavour feature is important when you're chewing on your stem.
Topic hijack... the classic Sunday In Hell documentary is available to watch as a legit free stream from the rights holder for a limited time. Superb quality.
If you haven't seen it... well don't tell anyone, but watch it now and pretend you saw it years ago.
http://dafilms.com/film/8352-a-sunday-in-hell/
I already have theme music (and meditations) coming to mind for this weekend's effort. Wrapped the bars in ZIPP Service Course Black and back to 52/42 rings. Black Campagnolo cable housing has replaced the Red. Mechanic and I are now calling my MX Leader The Black Sword!
The Ramones, Blitzkrieg Bop
unversio - Well ya can't write that and not put up a photo! Jeez.
VeloVita - On fire again! You hardly cooled off from the other week.
I wonder if Oreo (Nabisco?) okayed that or back in the olden days things weren't so litigious.
@sthilzy
The Yeller one was called the Lemon(d). I got one for Christmas one year, I was so happy with it, it took me a month or two before I stopped walking around with it in my pocket.
I also got back into the cyclometer after getting a Garmin 500 and have been using Strava. But then the battery died a few weeks ago and I haven't recharged it. And it's been way more fun to ride without it.
The thing a lot of people who don't work with data on a daily basis is that good data is great, but bad data is worse than no data. The data the Garmin reports is always speeds a little off or a little slow or grades a little too steep or not steep enough. The worst is that you can ride the same climb twice and it will report two different gradients. Everyone who ever rides the Kapelmuur should always ride it with the same gradient!
I think a service like Strava is most helpful if its accurate and comprehensive, but too many times something happens; either a workout gets missed, or two are merged together, or the data from the Garmin isn't quite right. I'd love to have Strava be my training diary, but a diary with missing entries is nearly useless and only serves to have you construct a false picture of what was happening.
And to Gianni's point, no computer exists that can measure the V, and that's the only number that matters. How much wattage should a rider my size be able to put out? V. How far should I be able to ride at threshold? V. What makes up a long ride? V.
So I've gotten rid of it again, and I'm back to riding with the V-Meter. On key rides (which are the only ones I was ever posting publicly to Strava) like Cogals, races, and things like Haleakala, I will take it in my pocket and hope the data comes through OK or I'll put it on the bars and keep the screen set to off if I'm worried the jersey pocket will bugger the signal. And then I'll take it off.
Ride on feel, baby. Vive la V-Meter.
@ChrisO
In other words, carry on as usual?
I frickin' love my Garmin. Everything about it. I love the data, I love all the esoteric numbers it give you, I love the beeps, I love the blue backlight, I love the cadence/speed sensor gadget, etc. It is a COOL device.
But then, I'm a bit of a gadget junkie, so why wouldn't I love such a cool gadget. I do like looking at the numbers, but they certainly don't rule my life or take precedence over the enjoyment of the ride. For me, it's a happy confluence of my love for cycling and my love for nifty electronics.
Besides, when you're riding in the dark and the only thing you can see is whatever's visible in the cone of your headlamp, the Garmin display gives you something else to look at.
@mcsqueak the deer in WI are in heat right now, and it's the beginning of gun-deer season. I'm going to have to slalom around the road-kill on my ride this weekend.