Upload From Garmin Directly to Strava

I found an excuse to upgrade my Garmin to a 510 (currently have 500).  I now there have been some new features added to the new hardware, with one of them being able to upload your data wirelessly.

The default method is to upload to Garmin Connect.  You do this by downloading the  Garmin Connect app on either your Android or iPhone (don’t know about Windows phone).  Then you establish a Bluetooth connection between your Garmin and your phone.  Once you do this, when you finish your ride, you hit the save button, and it proceeds to upload the data to connect.garmin.com.

However, if you’re like me, I hardly ever go to connect.garmin.com, and rely heavily on Strava.  What I really want to do is upload to Strava.  It turns out someone else already has done the hard part.

You go to http://www.copymysports.com, and it has a tool, where it will look up details of your account through one of your existing Garmin activities (it authenticates you from Garmin to Strava), and once authenticated, it will now copy your activities to Strava.

This does not happen immediately (the site advertised 15 minutes, but it’s more like an hour or more).  But the cool thing is, I didn’t have to manually upload via a USB cable to the Strava web site.  It just does this on its own.  Let’s just hope Garmin and Strava don’t change its api too much, because it is working now.

Quimby LKHC and the Adventures Getting There

I decided to ride over to the start of the LKHC on Quimby. I decided to use ridewithgps, and plot a route to the start. I then exported it to my Garmin. I figured I would follow the course on my Garmin. Great idea, right? Well, it got me lost. I probably should experiment with this a bit more before trying this the next time.

I finally got my way to Tully, and I hooked up with Ben. Nice way to meet, eh? Well, this stretch of Tully was horrendous. Traffic was awful, even at 9 am on a Saturday morning. But I guess this is normal for Tully.

The start of the LKHC was up the road from the school, where we all checked in. It was about a 8% climb just to the start.

I wasn’t sure how well I would do on this ride. I don’t do this climb very much, plus I’ve been suffering through some pains in the lower back, so I’m trying to not strain it too much … Well, I say that now, but once I got to the climbs, I threw caution to the wind.

It was a mass start, and I started out near the back.  Most of the riders I talked to, who were around me, were of the sentiment of wanting to finish, and not too concerned about placing, or even placing in their own age category.  Since I had done this climb at least once before, I did have confidence that I could complete it … I just wasn’t sure how slow I’d be.

There were two runners on this climb … kinda weird to see two runners in a sea of cyclists going up this epic climb.  In fact, you might be able to see them in the video.

I ended up riding with about 3 other riders who were in my same ability.  We kept trading leads throughout the climb.  There was also a tandem out on this ride, and I used them to help me pace myself up the hill, before I just went ahead of them.

Probably the hardest part was the last two switchbacks, with grades in double digits.  It was just tough, and I could just hear my breathing, which kind of served as a metronome, to pace my way up.  I ended up passing the rest of the riders I was climbing with, and when I saw the big crowd hanging around at the top of the hill, I knew that was the finish … so I shifted up a couple of gears, and turned my body inside and out.

Photo courtesy Josh and Erica Hadley

I later found out I got a personal best out of this, by 4 minutes.  Official time was 35:34.  I’m pretty with this result, even though I was last in my age group (45+).  The important thing is I had fun.

More Garmin 500 Woes … #30daysofbiking

So Garmin release a new firmware for the Edge 500, to fix some problems with data being lost once you hook up your USB cable in.  Well, even after the firmware update, I found that once you power off, then sync, it loses the data.  That’s odd … fix one problem, start another.  Where do they get these QA Engineers from?

Well, that’s nothing.  Wait till you hear what later happened to me.  I’m riding into work, then hit a bump, and my Garmin goes flying off.  After going back and retrieving it, I try to remount it but I couldn’t.  Well, it turns out the plastic mount on the bottom unit chipped away.  After doing some google searches, I found this is a problem with the unit.  Well that sucks.  Luckily, my unit is still under warranty, so I’ll be sending it in.

It’s actually still functional, so I figured I would just put it in my pocket, and it will still record data.  Get ready to go for a ride this evening, then try to turn the unit on, and guess what … it won’t turn on!  I try plugging it in to my PC, and the Garmin software doesn’t recognize it.  WTF … not only is the mount defective, now I can’t turn on the unit, and can’t get anything to recognize the Garmin unit via USB.  This just sucks, royally.

Update: I later found out how to reset the Garmin.  Hit Power/Light, Page/Menuy, and Lap/Reset buttons all at the same time.

Well, I do have an RMA number, so I can send this in … but this just sucks.  Luckily, I still have my old Garmin 305, so I can still record data.  But tonight’s ride … no data.  Oh well.

Garmin 500 Losing Data

The most frustrating thing is when you use your GPS to track the progress of your ride, and then you download to your PC to refer to it later, and when you download, there is no data.  Damn.  Well, this has happened to me … twice.

I went out and did a ride from SF, going to Mt. Tam and back.  Great ride, great people.  When I get back to the finish, I hit the start/stop button, to stop data tracking.  Now, while I was chatting, I couldn’t remember if I stopped the GPS, so I hit start/stop button.  I realized I already stopped it, so I hit the start/stop button one more time.

I bring the unit home, try to download to my PC, and nothing.  I check the activities folder from the Garmin mounted drive, and there is no data.  What the hell!  And it also seems that I am not the only one this has happened to … https://forums.garmin.com/showthread.php?t=4996

Wow, this would really suck if I was on a century or a double century, and don’t have the data to prove that I did it.  I have a sneaky suspicion, that whatever change they did in firmware 2.20, introduced this problem.  I should never have upgraded.  I didn’t start losing data until very recently.

Almost RMA’d my Garmin

My HRM (Heart Rate Monitor) on my Garmin gave out a while ago, so I have been training without knowing how my HR is doing on the climbs.  I figured it was because I put a heavy dumb bell on top of my HRM and probably shorted something out, and that was it for the HRM, and the HR function on the Garmin.  I checked for a replacement, and they were asking for $60 for it.  $60?  I decided to pass on that.

So I went ahead and bout a Trek altimeter, with HR functionality.  I was using that, in combination with my Garmin.  It felt kinda silly to have two computers on my bike, but see others had too.  I still think it’s odd.

Anyhow, a few weeks ago, I was at Sports Basement (my favorite store), and saw replacement Garmin HRM … $50 … well, ok, impulse buy.  I tried it out, thinking I will now have HR functionality … but guess what.  It still didn’t work.  What gives?  I tried so many things … wet the HRM, replace battery, leave it out to discharge … still nothing.

So I was getting ready for a ride, and I put on my HRM strap for my Trek.  I happen to turn on the Garmin, and wow … it’s registering my heart rate!  I guess it would make sense, that it should be able to pick it up, assuming it operates on the same frequency.  But why would the Garmin HRM not be able to pick it up?  Maybe the HRM strap I got works on the 605 and 705, which work off a different frequency?  Oh well … if anyone needs an extra Garmin HRM strap, who has a 605 or 705, let me know.  I’d be interested to see if my theory is correct.

This is just totally ironic.  Well, now I can track the HR on those tough climbs, like Montebello, Bohlman/On Orbit, Sierra, and yes, Quimby!