The last time a speedometer was on any of my bike was ~12 - 13 years ago... Never bothered with these stuffs on mtb
Late last year after a hiatus of 10-11 years from riding roads, I resisted putting anything on the Stanyan. Errm ok, I tried to revive my antiquated 25 yrs old wired Cateye but then the display was all browned out and the sensor was only intermittently working.
But it was a good thing in a way without having anything on the bar.. paring the re-discovered manual estimation of cadence with old memories when I was riding road bikes...
...and remembering all the various gear inch ratio I liked...
Then I discovered modern tech on phones... Yes I graduated from my cave! Using a couple of bike apps like Map My Ride which gave the stats via GPS tracking.. but I never did mount my phone, its always in the frame bag. Personally it just looks absolutely fugly with a big piece of rectangle on the bar.
Finally got to looking around but was confused by the array of gadgets available these days.
Keeping it simple, I decided to go for the most basic stuff from Decathlon.A BC-500-- no fumbling with magnets on spokes and another sensor piece on the fork.
Just one sensor on the hub and keep the meter within a 3m distance. All set.A tad slower than the conventional magnet type speedo.. but no big deal.
Jan 2021-- Pushing hard just to finish 10 laps of my "Daily Rabbit Loops" and keep an average of >25km/hr.
Then.... yes.. surpassing the psychological 30km mark came in Jun 2021..
Sliding back?. .Well, not really. By now I have also gotten a "smart watch" - Apart from all the usual speed and distance that can also be uploaded onto Strava, most importantly is the monitoring of heart rate.. Yes a chest strap monitor is more accurate but I'm already cluttering with too many things now.
And new target?- - Work towards that 30km/hr again but at twice the distance previously covered. That is 2 x 10 laps/ session now. While keeping to HR average in Zone 3.
Still some fine tuning to do as these monitoring and the gauge are all age based algorithm. While I'm sticking to the defined range based on my initial settings, think i can push it beyond but let's do that later.
More daily confirmations of the average speed with increased distance ridden.... "28.8, 27.7, 28,8..."
Update: Rain stopped... time for a ride. New tires... knobbies on the gravel rig. Makes for a harder ride.. but judging from the results as compared to the above with 28c slicks on the Stanyan, average speed is ok on these 27.5" Continental Race Kings 2.0".. not too bad I guess ~26.5km @ 125-135BPM avg...
21 Jul- Stanyan @Coastal
Could have gone faster... haven't gotten to a point of being out of breath. But HR was maxing out so had to drop off a little each time it beeps. But given the relatively relaxed effort.. Im beginning to wonder if its better to do a VO2 max assessment and see if fitness level allows for higher HR range in the training zone...
Update: 21 Aug: Same route but 6 weeks later... more start/stop and a stronger headwind but then again, I dropped 1.7kg from racks and fenders off the bike last week and a swap to a 53t ring over the old 48t....
Reckon with a bit of +/- its a ~1km improvement on average speed... for now.
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