mattm

i happened upon a 'world naked bike ride' a few years ago... mostly not something you want to see, with the exception of one woman. but i really could have done without seeing any of it!

bikes + nudity = no

tibaal89

Yea, did it the other night on accident... five miles from home in the middle of the night I discovered my headlight was on in my backpack and the batteries were dead. Not a good kind of naked...

Luckily the moon was out!

Turbocruiser13

I enjoy the heck out of riding with no computers or gadgets. I know when I'm tired it's time to start heading back home. I ride local to my house so I can pretty easily get a rough estimate as to what distance I rode. Average speed makes absolutely no difference to me whatsoever. At this point I'm in it for the miles and the excersize, not too worried about picking up the pace until my body says I'm ready for it.

BarryJo

[QUOTE=Hammertoe;7577851]Oh, not what I thought you meant...

Down in Brattleboro we had quite battle about nudity...

It was legal and quite a site...

Naked bikers everywhere...

Why is it only big people go naked in public...

Anyway, the Selectboard banned nudity in town...

Now everyone wears clothes...[/QUOTE]

And thank god for that! It was getting pretty nasty seeing the naked skaters in the public parking garage. I mean it's Brattleboro, not So. Cal.

edit: I'm addicted to riding with at least my Cateye, but much prefer my Garmin, I need data!

RichinPeoria

I have never owned a bicycle computer or a HRM or PT .... I have enough self loathing without help from them. I dont need any help telling myself Im slow and fat. I certainly dont need any data contradicting my evaluation that Im thin and fast however infrequent that might be.

Hickeydog

I tried riding without my gizmos today and I got my first flat. 2800 miles and the first ride I do without my computer, I get a flat. Go figure...

And I would totally ride naked. well, provided I could have a chamois....

GP

No computer on my single speed but I wore a watch today so I would know if I could order coffee at my halfway point. Caffeine after 4 pm keeps me awake.

If I was doing 600K rides I'd probably get a GPS though.

Szczuldo

crazy single speed hooligans!


On the actual topic, I don't own a computer yet, but that's only because I haven't bothered to buy one yet. I want to but at the same time that's 200$ that could be put elsewhere but even with that I'll probably have one by the end of the year

mattm

but with a ~12-hour battery life, you'd have to do a really fast 600!! i suppose you could charge it along the way.. but it seems like more trouble than it would be worth. my combination of a cue sheet and following riders who knew where the hell they were going did well on the recent 600.

that said, i took my first spin with a GPS unit (sent to me by a mag, not bought) this weekend; it was interesting knowing my elevation at a given point, but i can still click out the route and still get the profile without using GPS. and it's grade readings seemed way off and inconsistent (garmin 205).

(i'm not for or against devices, just getting a feel for others' opinions.)

ZIPP2001

Been riding naked for the past 10 years. Before that I have almost 20 years of riding logs with all the info you can think of. The only thing I still keep track of is distance. I don't need a cycling computer to find that out.

MrCrassic 

It definitely is! There's nothing better than you and the bike; no pouches, computers or anything like that.

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Sinn

I like to ride without a computer. I find that I become a slave to numbers. That's not always bad.

But I am now riding a new bike, and I find that it is better to get to know one's bike without a computer before adding the computer on.

GP

What about some of the other Garmin units? I looked at their site and some had battery lives up to 25 hours. I wonder how they would work on a bike and if they would give you an improvement over the cue sheet.

On my geared bike I use a Cateye Strada wireless. I've thought of upgrading but it gives me the info I need and it's reliable.

grolby

My roadie has a computer, but I pretty much ignore it right now because I'm not training, just riding to school every day. I need to keep track of time and distance for training, the stopwatch is handy from time to time, and I like to know how fast I'm going. It fits in well with my roadie ethos, so all is good.

I had a computer on my commuting and touring bike for the first year or so that I had it, ended up removing it because it was driving me nuts. Knowing distance is really helpful on a tour, but keeping track of speed and especially average speed for most of my daily riding was distracting, pointless and occasionally demoralizing (it can also be really demoralizing on tour, such as when you are crawling up a hill and look down to see that you are moving at 4 mph).

The mountain bike also lacks a computer because, well, why bother?

mattm

true, i hear the 705 has much better battery life. but even 25 hours is a stretch unless you're pretty darn fast over long distances!

and even then, on one 600k i did/attempted this summer they explicityly said "don't use a GPS, it thinks such and such roads are closed." i'm sure some used theirs anyway.

what i'd like is something that told me my current elevation, but nothing else. is that even possible? don't some watches have this function?

iab

1 of 3 bikes has a computer. I use the clock feature, the other stuff I don't care about anymore.

AndyK 

I have limited time in the morning when I do my quick 40 minute rides, so having a computer with the time, and distance traveled is pretty handy. I love my Cateye Strada wireless. It's tiny, and very easy to use. I don't care about stats, but I do like to know if taking a slightly different route increases my distance, how much, how much longer it takes, etc.

scotch

i missed it, but my buddy saw a dude riding down rt. 30 sans clothing last summer.

mandovoodoo

I don't own a bike I've ever had a computer thingie on. It doesn't really occur to me to use one. I don't know how fast I ride. I can keep up and more with everyone I run across. I can go as far as I feel like. google maps tells me how far things are, pretty close. Tells me how much time I need to set aside.

I think it would hurt me. When I ride with my wife I'm always asking her how fast we're going! I'd probably miss corners looking at the dang thing. Or maybe not. When I had one years ago the battery would go dead and I wouldn't notice until someone else noticed!

Altitude and gradient I might be interested in, but not enough to spend any money.

sac02

So does naked road biking give one the same level of zen as brakeless fg riding?

I was born to gather, analyze, reduce, derive, and ingest every bit of data I can get my hands on. I couldn't handle a ride longer than my 2.5 mile commute without a computer and HRM. The only reason I don't have a PM is that I can't afford one.

Mac

Psimet2001 

I've been without my Garmin for a week or so (That stupid shut off over bumps issue). In that time I have done 2 fast group rides and 2 races. While it is cool to just ride by feel (i have done well doing that) I mis it extremely.

Saturday is a TT and I need to nail it so I will most likely resort to one of the computers I have sitting around.

Nachoman

I have a flightdeck computer that I rotate between three bikes. Whenever I forget to put it on the one I'm riding, I end up looking down at my stem all the time and seeing nothing. Kind of like when you forget to wear your watch to work.

Vitus_979

i dont use any at all most of the time.

kudude

i lost my wheel magnet in a crit crash. haven't replaced it (2 months). i ride with my HRM/watch for time, and kicks, but have no clue on distance or speed (except that I know about what 15-20-25-35mph feels like)

3bikes

Sorry, love my Garmin 205 Bicycle GPS. That's all.


Oh wait... love my wife and enjoy the company of our two cats... the cars are friends... I hate our refrigerator with a broken ice dispenser.

(Yes, this is a bicycle forum.)