I’m running a Garmin Edge 530 and I’m pretty much going full nerd mode for my upcoming events which I’ve never done before. I’ve always just shown up to ride and let the course present itself to me. However, I’m looking to prepare and perform at higher level since I’m only getting older, and every little bit helps.
My question and the advice that I seek it was are your essential data screens for your gravel races. If I could be more specific, it would be what is your optimal setup on your Garmin when you are doing a novel course but have information for the rest stops and course data from Ride With GPS. I’m looking to pace myself on the course, mark the rest stops, and have relevant data shown. I was thinking that having distance to each rest stop would be nice. Other data I usually have are power, cadence, distance, elapsed time, elevation, and calories burned. Is there a data field to pace my effort like tss or IF?
My first real event is this weekend so I’m going in with a learning attitude but want to be prepared as possible so I can make some tweaks as the year goes on.
I could take or leave the Speed, it just fit my page to have another field.
I’ve been toying with the idea of having a print out of key points stuck to my top tube. I think there’s a market for a sticker maker to do them properly.
For some events, I make a printout showing the important elements of the race or fondo. I do them in Excel, print them out, and then use clear packing tape to “laminate” them and attach them on the top tube. The content varies, but typically I will show the distance to each feedzone or rest stop that I plan to use, plus key climbs. For the climbs, I sometimes also show the length of the climb, elevation gain, and sometimes my target power or expected time on the climb.
So it might say:
Feed Mile 28.2
Climb 1 Mile 30.1 245 watts 23 mins
Feed Mile 58.4
Climb 2 Mile 60.0 255 watts 18 mins
Finish Mile 71.5
Similar to @mailman, on my Wahoo, I will show the distance so far, the elapsed time (in part to help with pacing of nutrition), the 3 second power, speed, heart rate, and maybe the normalized power. The first three are definitely more important to me than the others.
If it’s a fondo that adds up the time on several segments, I also sometimes ‘favorite’ the Strava segments, so the segment pops up automatically on my wahoo when I hit that point, and shows my projected finish time on those segments in real time. The reliability of that feature varies, depending on the segment and on cell/GPS coverage in the area. Sometimes the live segment pops up, and then disappears mid-segment.
I go with Power, Time, Distance, Normalized Power. That’s all I really care about. I’ll have a second page with all the metrics like avg speed, elevation gain, etc if I really want to look at those. But don’t ever find myself there.
Indeed I will be there, the excitement/tension is building
Not going to make the Friday festivities, unfortunately, as we won’t be leaving San Diego until around midday due to school/work
I’ll be the tall guy riding a Factor LS. Give me a shout if anyone sees me
To answer your question, yes, there are TSS and IF fields on the Garmin. I like IF for a long day like this. It helps me set my own expectation so that I don’t go too hard at the start and can try to prevent the dreaded “last 2 hours of excruciating pain”
Having said that, I don’t race long events, I just ride to enjoy the experience and finish.
In addition to the usual suspects, I’ll have distance to next turn on a screen, an elapsed timer to help with fueling, and on the climb pro screen the bottom two fields will be 10s power and HR. IF is on my main screen
If you have too many data screens you’re not seeing that tree ahead, KISS. Distance is probably the only one thats essential to me in a race. I also have Ave Speed, Time and Timer on my Garmin gravel profile for info.
Thanks everyone for your tips and contributions. I’m going to run about 3-4 screens and see which served me best after the event and then eliminate the unnecessary ones. Cheers!
