This post is a rebuttal to Robot’s post on Red Kite Prayer, titled Measuring.
I heard somewhere that the average age that kids are receiving their first cell-phones in 2009 was at age eight. Age eight is third grade; I didn’t get a cell phone until I was 19, in 2004… and I came from a family that had CompuServe in 1993.
I recently bought the Garmin 500 when it first came out. Most of us know what it manages to record but if you don’t, here’s a list:
- Speed
- Distance
- Time
- Location
- Temperature
- Calories burned
- Altitude
- Gradient
- Climb and Descent
- Cadence (With Cadence/Speed Sensor)
- Heart Rate (with HRM)
- Power Output (with Power Meter)
For such a little device, this is a ton of data for one person to process. The Garmin even has multiple screens, so you can make sure you are not staring at too much data at one time.
It is a nifty little gadget.
One can be devoured by the amount of info given by this device, and could even obsess over it. There was about two weeks where I was the gizmo dude tinkering and loving that I could tell you how long we were climbing, and if it was hotter at the summit than it was at the base. Yeah, it was great.
None of this comes as a surprise, because my generation has technology engrained into their DNA. I was still in diapers the first time I played Mario. I was learning HTML before I hit puberty. Our high school photography class was passed over the option to learn/teach digital photography because it was still too expensive, and not yet a commonplace practical skill to learn; it comes to find out we were the last year at our school to develop film in a dark-room.
This shows that data is seen as something that was emerging for my generation. There were options before these developments came out, but why not try the new way? Maybe it is okay to embrace our digital overlords of CPU wizardry. I think these statements are all true, contingent that you know how to perform such tasks without a scapegoat, easy technological way first. I can estimate my cadence, I can guess the grade while riding, and I can tell time by the sun to a pretty high accuracy.
I can’t tell you where exactly in the woods I am if we went out riding and got lost.
I can with my Garmin.
I can’t keep a perfect 90rpm cadence by thought/estimation alone.
I can with my Garmin.
I know how my body feels while going up a climb, but I couldn’t tell you my heart rate.
I can with my Garmin.
I know, I know, I’m starting to sound like a TV commercial… I’m just trying to get the point across that sometimes data does make a ride easier. If I know I have fifteen miles left to ride, and no water left, that’s okay. I know I can make it home. The comfort of knowing how many miles are left, or where I am exactly, or even how fast I would need to go to get to my destination at a certain time really does remove some of the thinking involved with riding; this way you can focus more on the ride, your friends, and the scenery around you.
I am not a professional, but these little pieces of data act as secondary entertainment, and security nets. It is also great to be able to view and share rides with others using Garmin Connect’s route mapping features. There have been TOO MANY times since I have purchased this thing that I went: “oh, I didn’t know we passed so close to THERE…” Which in turn, created a similar, but shorter/longer/steeper/calmer/safer ride by knowing what roads, elevations, stores, or options were available.
I’m sure Robot of Red Kite Prayer could agree with me on some of these statements, but I really think it is an issue of changing of the guards. A generational gap, so to say. It won’t be long before I am passed by in technological terms by another generation. It is just the way things go.
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