I am doing the Whiskey next weekend in Prescott this weekend and thinking of loading the route on my Garmin 530 to be able to see the distance to the finish and where I am on the more significant climbs. Just wondering if there are any tips and tricks that folks with experience might be willing to share. I do have the GPX file loaded on my unit but am trying to decide if I should use it or not. I don’t want to use it for the first time and have it be a distraction while I am riding.
When I did Whiskey back in 2022, I loaded the route. Mostly to see the climbs. Turn off tones/safety notifications. It’ll drive you crazy as you’ll get a ‘sharp corner/turn’ tone and notification every five seconds. I didn’t look at the map or distance remaining. Only cared about climbpro screen. I also edited my climbpro screen to show my avg 3s power.
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Yeah. I’m not familiar with that race, but I turn off navigation prompts. So it’s navigating the course and it shows on the map, but it doesn’t notify of upcoming turns etc…
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Thanks for the tip on turning off the tones and safety notifications. I am going to set it up and give it a try.
For the last three years Whiskey 50 has done a bad job of marking the course. I have had many friends take wrong turns on that course. It is very frustrating. It usually happens ~3 hours in on the singletrack. For the race, turn your screen brightness up pretty high. I keep mine low for battery life, but on race day you need to turn up to 80 or 90 at least. Also as you approach the end of the first climb, there are multiple routes to choose from so your garmin might freak out for a moment there.