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Daily Archives: March 11, 2020

Yet Another Perfect Evening for a Bike Ride (Part 2,793 – Give or Take)

March 11, 2020 12:00 pm / Leave a comment

The weather sucked all day yesterday.  A little bit of rain, a whole mess of cloud cover… even some wind thrown in to make it just that much more discouraging.

Then, at around 1 pm – seemingly out of the blue – the clouds parted and the sun cleared every last low-hanging cloud out.  The wind dropped to the single digits (mph) and the birds sang.  And I rejoiced.

And I prepped my bike as soon as I walked in the door after work.

My target was 17-mph, figuring I’d do 20 on Saturday, 19 Sunday, 18 Monday, and 17 yesterday… but that simply wasn’t to be.  Apparently I can’t ride that slow unless I’m on my gravel bike.  I had an 18.3 average after all of the headwind was done.  That left seven miles of tailwind and crosswind to boost my average.  Well, you should know me and a tailwind by now.  I enjoyed the ride home and finished with an 18.5-mph average over 19-3/4 miles.

Looking at the extended forecast, it’s not all good times and noodle salad, but I should be able to ride outdoors right through the end of the week (at which time I’ll probably need a stinkin’ day off – just about the time rain blows in).

That said, after all these years on a bike, it never ceases to amaze me how good I feel after getting back outside on a regular basis.  Life is good.

How To Convert and Download Route Files to FIT or TCX for Your Garmin Cycling Computer

March 11, 2020 7:00 am / 3 Comments on How To Convert and Download Route Files to FIT or TCX for Your Garmin Cycling Computer

Ride with GPS is one of the better GPS activity tracking sites (especially the paid, upgraded account).  Sure, Strava is big, but it only exports to GPX and GPX doesn’t work on a Garmin… only TCX and FIT files work on a Garmin…

Well, I’m a big route following kind of guy – I like to know where I’m going when riding out of town and I like love the turn-by-turn direction navigation capabilities in my Garmin.

So, what to do?  Well, there are a few ways to go about setting all of this up.  First, you can kick your rides from Garmin Connect to a free or paid Ride With GPS account – RWGPS will export routes in FIT format – it’s exceedingly simple from there.

What if you’re using Endomondo or Strava, though?  You can export the GPX file and convert it to TCX or FIT at this (site).  I’ve already tested it.  You’ll have to set up a free account to complete the process, but it’s simple enough.  I export my files to my download folder, and that’s where the conversion site deposits the new file.  The only other needed piece of info is that you’ll have to rename the file to something that resembles a readable name – get ride of the dashes and percentage signs before you place it in your Garmin “Routes” folder.

I’ve never used a cue sheet, though my buddy, Mike has on a couple rides… and I can’t tell you how glad I am that I don’t have to ride around with a silly cue sheet folder strapped to my handlebar.  Those days are thankfully over.  Today, all I have to do is take three minutes on my laptop to create a route file from any of the tracking sites, convert it, drop it into my Garmin and ride.

If you haven’t gotten a Garmin or Wahoo cycling computer that has turn-by-turn navigation capabilities, they’re the bees knees.  I can’t recommend one highly enough… unless your idea of fun is going out with nothing but a road map and exploring.  In that case, just point your bike and go.

If you need to know how to download a route to your Garmin, click (here).