Initial Hammerhead One review

Warning! This review is long. You've been warned.

I finally received my Hammerhead One a week or two ago. This thing's been a long time in the making, starting as a kickstarter (or one of those crowdfunding sites, I'm too lazy to go back and look it up) that I was really excited about. If you're not familiar with a Hammerhead One, it's a bicycle navigation device - here's the manufacturer's own video:

Hammerhead One demo video

It's a really, really cool concept, so I was more than happy to back them.

The process took a while. I knew this from the start, but it certainly seemed to go on quite some time. They were good with updates to the process, but I quickly learned that "we think we'll be shipping it by {insert some point in the near future}" statements were not terribly likely. Eventually, I decided "okay, it'll happen at some point, and it'll be a pleasant surprise when it does". Finally, about a month ago I received an update message that said they'd be shipping out soon. It showed up on my porch one day, and I was pretty stoked!

Initial thoughts

• It's a clean design
  The final shipped design is awfully close to the initial designs, and is really clean. Non-cycling friends can (and have) made jokes about the new sex toy, but aside from that it's a pretty cool looking gadget.
  
  
• No documentation at all in the box?
  The box looks pretty good, but one thing I noticed right away is there's no documentation either in the box or on it. If you're going to ship a device with no form of instructions included, you'd better make damn sure it's super intuitive to use and has no gotchas. Turns out, this isn't the case.
  
  There was, however, a nice thank-you card which lists the names of all the initial supporters. Yep, I'm on there, along with two friends that I know supported it. Cool.
  
  The only instructions that I received with the unit came in the shipping email:
  
  "Once you have unboxed your Hammerhead we suggest you connect it to the app and update the Firmware immediately: This video will show you how to update the firmware, and here is an initial turn instruction guide."
  
  As this was the shipping email, I initially missed it, and as we'll see, that turns out to be not quite enough.
  
  
• Reusing the Garmin mount is a clever approach
  The mount on the Hammerhead uses a standard Garmin bike computer half-turn mount. It's simple, it works, and opens up the ability to use a bunch of other mounts.
  
  
• Sparse documentation online
  After some initial setup issues, I hit the "Help" link in the app which leads to their online FAQ. They've bolstered it quite a bit since I got mine, but at the time, it was really sparse. The only other thing I managed to find were the videos which we've already discussed.
  
  
• Setup video says iOS, no separate video for Android
  Although the app looks almost exactly the same between the two platforms, the setup video that they linked to in the shipping email clearly says "iOS" in the title. So I look for the Android version, and I don't find it. Good thing I know Android and iOS well enough to be able to translate what they're trying to do in the video. It's not hugely different (beyond it actually working in iOS - but more on that in the next section) but it's still different.
  
  
• No GPX import?
  Playing around with the app, it looks like a fairly basic navigation app. I find I get the best results planning rides using a computer and web-based tools instead of an app on the phone - and then being able to import that route into an app on the phone when it comes time to follow it. This doesn't appear to be an option, and it doesn't even look like I can use another tool and then import that path. I understand that this could lead to issues - if I give it a route that's not on its map, how will it know where to turn, and if I go off-route, how will it figure out how to re-route me? It's probably not a trivial solution, but I sure hope that they figure it out.
  
  

Android problems

I have two phones - my own Android (first gen Moto X) and an iPhone 6 from work. This turns out to be a good thing, because about two weeks into having my Hammerhead, I've still yet to get it working with the Android phone. I've discovered a bunch of fun things, and have been seriously frustrated up to this point, but so far their customer support has been pretty good. Here's a rundown of the problems I've discovered and not yet surmounted:

• You don't pair it with your phone like a normal Bluetooth device.
  If there were instructions, I might have known that before I started using it. Having missed the one paragraph of instructions in the shipping email, I figured "Okay, it's bluetooth. Let's get it paired up and see what this thing can do." So, I went to the phone's Bluetooth setup menu, just like I've done for all the other Bluetooth things that I have, and tried to set it up. This failed with an "invalid PIN" error. I checked the instructions I received for what to do in that situation and oh wait - I didn't get any. Hah.
  
  Turns out you have to do the pairing in the app. Why? Fucked if I know. I've got theories.
  
  
• If you manage to lock it up, the only way to reset it is leave it alone and let the battery run out.
  In the process of trying to figure out how to get it to talk to the phone (remembering that I missed the one paragraph of instructions with links to videos for a mobile OS that I was not using) I managed to lock it up. The device has one button which is ringed by light when it's on, and at some point this went solid greenish-blue and the device stopped responding at all. The phone wasn't able to see it anymore - it was locked up. With no troubleshooting instructions and nothing of use I could find on the FAQ (which was much less populated than it is now and had almost nothing about connectivity issues) I was left to my own troubleshooting steps. I'm a computer guy, I've got decent troubleshooting skills. The first thing I tried was to press and hold the button, as many electronic devices honor that as a "turn off regardless" indicator. Holding the button down for well over a minute made me think that wasn't the case. Tapping the button did nothing. There are screws on the back of the unit and I considered opening it up - they're just T-6 Torx, which I have - but at this point the thing is brand new and I decided I didn't really want to do that.
  
  Ultimately, I left it alone and let the battery die off. Once that happened, I could start trying to use it again, until I locked it up again and had to let it die all over again. Speaking with support, I was told that I could reset the unit by "Plug in the USB cable and hold the main button for 6 seconds. Then remove the USB cable and hold the main button for 3 seconds." This procedure kinda sucks since I need to have a USB cable on hand and leaves a bunch of questions unanswered:
• Do I keep holding the button when I unplug the USB or do I let it go?
• Does the USB cable have to be plugged into the wall, or would a cable by itself do the trick?
• Most importantly, why didn't it work with any variation of the procedure that I could think of?
  
  
• Removing the charging port cover isn't intuitive or documented
  The charging port cover is easy to find, at the bottom of the unit on the back. Getting it off is another matter. It looks like it should just slide off away from the bottom of the unit, but trying to do that by hand without forcing it wasn't resulting in anything. There's a tab on the back of the device that looked like maybe it needed to be depressed in order to let the cover slide off, and I tried that. Turns out that's exactly what you don't want to do as it keeps the cover in place and pressing on it increases the lock, not decreases it. I see the FAQ entry has been updated to state this now - but that wasn't there the other day when I tried it. Also, the FAQ entry had one single photo with an arrow on it pointing to the charging port. The problem here is that the photo looks like a quick shot with a cell phone camera in crappy lighting so the arrow points to an area on the phone you could have found on your own (I did) and the relevant point on the unit is a featureless blob of black, so you really don't get any information from the photo which isn't already obvious. See what I mean?

  

  Crappy white balance and exposure make this photo useless.

  
  
  With a T-shirt providing a dark background so it doesn't throw off the auto exposure and sunlight from the window by my desk, I managed to get this photo:

  

  Less than a minute of work and a much more useful photo.

  I didn't include the cover because I took that off and just left it off.
  
  I eventually managed to get the cover off by sticking the point of a screwdriver in the space around the tab that holds it in place and pushing it away in the direction I guessed was right.
  
  
• The charging light is hard to see
  When I first let it die off because it was locked up, and then plugged it in, no lights came on. Considering the thing is covered with LEDs, I was kinda surprised about that. No form of indication if it's charging or done? Fail.
  
  Well, turns out I was wrong. There's a small green LED on the side of the unit which shows when it's plugged in. I had initially missed it. Let's see why:

  

  The charging light is on. Can you see it?

  

  See it now? The viewing angle is quite shallow.

  I also don't think the light changes based on the charge level. It's just an indication that it's plugged in. So, is it fully charged? Well, the app can tell you that, but a simple flashing during charge, solid when fully charged would remove the need for the app.
  
  
• The firmware process isn't well documented or intuitive
  The only instructions for upgrading the firmware are on the iOS video. It just shows the procedure happening once and leaves out pretty important details. I managed to assemble the proper procedure from the video, the light sequence demo video, and other information I managed to find online.
  
  
• Lack of information on firmware versions
  Since the only place you can update the firmware is through the phone app, you never have to manually download it, and that's nice. However, there's no way to see what the current released version of firmware might be - or changelogs, or anything like that. As a computer guy, I'm used to things like this. For the general user, not a huge problem, but since they recently uploaded a video mentioning firmware 1.5, and I'm at 1.3.x, I have to assume that it hasn't been released because "Update firmware" is greyed out in the app. Or maybe something's broken. I can't tell.
  
  
• The Android app won't actually talk to my phone
  After finally managing to update the firmware on my device, I tried to use it with my Android phone. I can create route instructions, but when I try to ride it, I get the following error:

  

  "wait for some time." ?? Dafug?

  Despite "waiting for some time" - it never sees my Hammerhead.
  
  
• The Android app crashes repeatedly
  Related to the above point, when I click "Skip" on the "Connecting to Hammerhead" prompt above, the app closes and I get this:

  

  Yay, crashed!

  
  
  
• All of this works on my iPhone
  I guess we know where they spent all their development effort and QA testing.

Test drive on my commute to work

So yes, I know that my first test with this thing should be on a bike, not driving in a car, but time constraints combined with curiosity/impatience led my first test to be my driving commute to work. It's actually not awful because I know the roads between home and work pretty well so should be able to follow pretty close to the route the app suggests, and it'd be interesting to see how it handles things. The key, however, with anything that gives you directions is you should get familiar with it on roads and paths that you _know_ so you learn its quirks - you don't want to find these out blindly following it where you have no idea where you _should_ be going.

For this test,  I had the hammerhead propped up in front of my speedometer so I could see the lights out of my peripheral vision, and the iPhone was in my phone holder so I could see the route it had planned out for me.

• It really prefers bike paths to streets
  This isn't too surprising, since it's designed first and foremost for giving directions to road bikers. Still, the roads around my house are quite nice and cyclist friendly. Here's the way it suggested I start my ride:

  

  It's pretty, but a circuitous 2.8 miles.

  
  

  

  Perfectly valid route that's a full mile shorter.

  While the route it suggested is pretty and almost completely avoids any roads, the way I usually go is perfectly fine for cyclists and takes 1 mile off the ride before I've even gotten to Route 202.
  
  
• It prefers a shared-use path to a marked bike lane.
  Similar to above, Route 202 has a shared-use path that runs along side the road, separated by a fence. It's a nice way to go - but 202 also has marked bike paths on the road. If you chose to do that (admittedly, few cyclists do, but I have) it will confuse the app, frequently telling you to turn around and head back when the shared use path goes away from the road too far.

  

  Route 202 has bike lanes and a separate shared-use path. gmaps

  
  If you don't already know where you're going, the indication for a U-turn while you're heading the right way on a marked bike lane could be confusing as hell.
  
  If you do already know where you're going, then you don't really need a blinky thing on your handlebars telling you where to go, do you?
  
  
• The routing was pretty good for a cyclist in the area
  Ignoring wanting to use bike paths over roads and insisting on a U-turn when you don't follow it exactly, the routing was pretty good. There are some tricky areas for bikes on my commute, and it managed to avoid those pretty effectively.
  
  
• It tried to direct me over a bridge that has been closed for a month or two
  I use the Waze app for driving. It's a community-supported app that allows you to report problems on the road, including road closures. One of the routes I take to work has a bridge which is currently closed for repairs. I was able to tag the bridge as unavailable in the Waze app so that other folks knew to not go that way.
  
  Unfortunately, Hammerhead's map doesn't know this, and tried to direct me over the same bridge. When I took my usual detour around the closed bridge, the Hammerhead was diligently instructing me to make a U-turn for well over a half mile before it finally figured out the way I was actually going.
  
  
• The amount of pre-turn warning that you get seems to be based on distance from the turn
  Okay, this is kinda a bullshit observation since I was in a car, going far faster than the app was designed for, but the turn notifications I was getting happened *very* close to the turn. At bike speed, that'd be just fine, but adjusting the amount of warning based on the speed doesn't seem like it'd be terribly difficult. More of an observation than a real issue.
  
  
• Several indicated turns that weren't actual turns.
  Driving down a section of road where I had well over a mile to the next turn, it kept indicating left turns. Sometimes those turns seemed to be nothing more than a bend in the road. Sometimes it indicated a left turn on a straight stretch of road where there was nothing beyond a driveway on the left. If I didn't know where I was going and didn't have the map up, that would have been confusing as HELL. Problem is, not knowing where I'm going and not having a map up is exactly the targeted use case for this device.
  
  I should note that these were indicated left turns - not the slight turns shown in the video. I did see one slight right on my route, which was accurate.
  
  

Conclusion - so far

I still think the Hammerhead is a great idea and a slick design. It shows real promise. However, I can't help but wonder what the hell they did with 20 months of development time. I can't imagine they offered these to too many folks for beta testing... or is that us, the initial backers? I can't imagine how they managed to go 20 months of development without writing any type of useful doc, or taking more than a single crappy cell phone camera when a simple lightbox setup with a good SLR would have been so much more effective. It's just been a really frustrating first experience with the device.

Given some time, I think that it still shows huge promise, and I'm not giving up on it yet, but I certainly don't think it's ready for the big time, and I sure won't be using it alone to figure out how to get somewhere. It needs a bunch of work before I'll be ready to trust it that far.

Full list of the Strava segments in Nockamixon

Most of the Strava segments in Nockamixon are my work.  After seeing the awful mess that is segments in Wissahickon, I decided to create what I thought were the key segments for Nockamixon and hopefully that would prevent everyone and their mom creating new, conflicting segments.  The only problem is sometimes I have trouble keeping track of all of them!  Plus, there are a couple good segments that were created by other folks.  Just creating this post so that I have a list of all the Nox segments, and can refer to it if I need.

Full Lap Segments:

Nox Full Loop (S/F at Tower Rd trail split) (http://app.strava.com/segments/2214794)

Originally, someone else created "Full Nox Loop" and it was good, except Strava's segment matching is kinda crappy, and if you left out the Hammer trail, you'd get a match, which is why Bob Eichlin isn't the KOM.  Someone else created Nox short loop CCW which cuts off the Hammer trail, but this doesn't fix the Strava matching problem, and so still matches both types of laps.  Someone else created Nox Full loop S/F at lot entrance tower rd sign, but that one starts at the trailhead of the lot.  I'm not a fan of that, since there is a bunch of two-way traffic on this part, and as such I prefer to roll in on that bit of trail easy, and then get going once I hit the trail split about 1/4 mile from the parking lot.  One thing that would be nice to add is a segment that matches if folks start at the 563 entrance, but since I don't do that, I probably won't bother.

North segments:

The north section of the park includes the Cold Spot and Hammer trails.

Cold Spot CCW (http://app.strava.com/segments/1079674)
Cold Spot CW (http://app.strava.com/segments/1172770)

Hammer CCW (http://app.strava.com/segments/1079793)
Hammer CW (http://app.strava.com/segments/1292643)

Cold Spot and Hammer CCW (http://app.strava.com/segments/1172780)
needed - Cold Spot and Hammer CW ( )

Central segments:

Since these two loops (Haycock Run and EWR) are rarely ridden as loops, I split them into upper and lower segments to improve matches.

Haycock Run uphill (http://app.strava.com/segments/1267108)
Haycock Run downhill (http://app.strava.com/segments/2200638)
Haycock Lower SB (http://app.strava.com/segments/2118401)
Haycock Lower NB (http://app.strava.com/segments/2119306)

EWR lower (connector) NB (http://app.strava.com/segments/1079884)
EWR lower (connector) SB (http://app.strava.com/segments/1079866)
EWR upper NB (http://app.strava.com/segments/1204480)
EWR upper SB (http://app.strava.com/segments/1247461)

South segments:

Since this is a loop that starts and finishes in close to the same area, it matches in either direction, so there's no point for CW and CCW segments.


Jaywalk and South Park: (http://app.strava.com/segments/1181277)

These two are little mini-segments starting from South Park Rd and climbing away in each direction.
South Park Rd climb (http://app.strava.com/segments/1254148)
S Park to Dam (http://app.strava.com/segments/1886087)

Fun with GPS tracks

So I'm whining to Jason P. about the lack of good climbing in our area.  I went out this morning for the Six Sisters hill repeats, where the biggest climb is a whopping 220 feet of elevation gain.  Even doing hill repeats, I averaged just under 80 feet climbed per mile ridden.  For me, it's not a real climbing ride until at least 100 feet per mile.  The best ride in recent memory was the Stoopid 50, which came in at 127 '/mi.  Jason lives in VA, where there's a number of pretty decent sized hills right in the area, so it's really easy for him to find good climbs.

JP: "here, i'll make a little loop for you, hang on"
JP:  http://ridewithgps.com/routes/1441153
JP: route starts 2 blocks from both bryce's house and my house
JP: 176 ft/mi
me: Yeah
me: wow
me: super
me: okay, I'm gonna draw a little route for you
me: http://ridewithgps.com/routes/1441152
me: go take a hike. ;)

What?  I can be bitter.

Strava guide to a full lap of the MTB trails at Lake Nockamixon.

A proper full lap of Nockamixon involves going all the way around in a clockwise direction, making right turns most everywhere there is an option. No crossover or duplicated riding.  (one exception, noted below)

The trail map at ridenox.com helps greatly in following these lap directions.

Start off from the Tower Rd parking lot, do the Cold Spot and Hammer loops by staying to the right at the first split. Early on, you'll come to a four-way intersection with another trail -- keep going straight, that other trail is just access to the lake for the fishermen/fisherwomen.  Soon after that, the trail comes to something like a "T", where you need to make a right turn.  Making the left skips the 1.4 mile Hammer trail -- see the Caveats below.

Coming across the stream at the end of the north trails, take the right and do the short section of trail that does not have a Strava segment.  (I informally call this one the "DMZ", although it's technically the lower part of the Haycock Run loop.)  This puts you onto the connector trail southbound, which dumps you out onto the "Sidewalk" stream crossing with the big flat rocks.

That leads to the South loop, officially two loops, Jaywalk and South Park. This is the biggest segment.

At the end of the south loop, you re-cross the stream at the "Sidewalk" crossing.  This is the only place that you ride the same trail in both directions, but only to the entrance of the Eastern Woods trail northbound. Eastern Woods takes you to Haycock Run uphill which leads you back to the stream crossing. (watch for the right turn after the stone buildup over the big log)  Cross that, ride to the split before the parking lot, and you've just done a full loop of Nox!  You are now free to revel in your awesomeness.

Have fun, ride fast, but ride safe.  Sightlines at Nox can be very short, and if you run someone over because you're chasing segments, or don't help someone who needs it for the same reason, you're a twatwaffle and should stop riding.

Caveats:

• You have to make sure to stay to the right when you get to the Hammer - otherwise, your lap is bogus and if you get the KOM, you're totally lame. (unless you're just out having fun and happen to accidentally match the full loop segment because Strava's segment matching is pretty crappy, in which case, bummer.)  If you get a bogus KOM because of shortcutting, don't be surprised if Bob Eichlin comes out and scorches the earth trying to beat you. 
• The "Bump Track" on the South Park loop is not a favorite of some, and some shortcut it. Technically you should do it if you want an honest "full lap" but I don't find it particularly interesting, and most GPS units aren't good enough to reliably report if you actually did or not sooooo...
• I've done crossovers to change things up every now and then, such as riding the Hammer trail in the CW direction, then continuing on when you get back to the Cold Spot.  It'll still match, and if anything, it'll make your full lap time slightly slower.  The key is to hit all the trails.
• Going in this direction, you will very likely miss the "Gnome Home" on the South Park loop, unless you know where to look.  It's just after a fairly large log over which is built up on either side with dirt.

Bay to Bay ride

Yesterday I did the Bay-to-Bay century ride down in Maryland.  We started off at Betterton, MD, a beautiful little town on the Chesapeake bay where one of my friends has a really, really nice condo on the water.  Another perk of his condo is the location, only about 1/2 mile from the start of the ride.  It used to be even closer, but folks complained about the little bitty hill (a nose-bleedingly, ear-poppingly massive 0.3 mile climb that averages 2% grade and gains 38') heading away from the start, so they moved the start to the top of the hill.

I thought that with the area being predominantly flat, and us bringing six strong guys, the century would be easy, but that turned out to not be the case, but not for the reasons I expected.  My fit on the bike isn't quite perfect, and I quickly discovered that being in a paceline means holding more or less the same position for quite some time, and that gets uncomfortable quick.  Plus, there are only two interesting places in a paceline -- at the front and pulling, or at the back where you can relax, stand, whatever, and you don't have to worry about the guy behind you -- because there isn't any.  (second wheel isn't bad if the guy pulling is solid) In the middle, you have to be diligent and focused and although you're using less muscular energy, you're using more mental energy.  I guess that gets better with a bunch of paceline experience, which I don't have.  Worse yet, because this is a big organized ride, a paceline passes many single riders and smaller groups, many of whom gladly attach themselves to the paceline, despite a lack of experience themselves.  We had one guy early on who was really quite squirrely, and kept doing dumb things like overlapping wheels, and getting into an aero tuck on downhills.  I was really glad when him and his buddy opted to keep going through the first rest stop.  Many of the other guys who rode with us were pretty good, but ultimately, a bigger paceline just means more time in the middle, where it's frankly quite boring.

So, by the second rest stop at mile 38, I was mentally exhausted, wishing passionately for a real climb, and frankly quite done with the ride, but Rule #5 (and being 38 miles from the start) prevented me from giving up.  (the interesting discovery that horseflies know how to draft and as such can't be ridden away from didn't help, either)  I spent the next 15 miles slowly rotating through the paceline and watching the miles tick off.  One of our guys started having trouble with the pace, so he and another guy dropped off, so I dropped off as well to ride with them for a while.  Riding in the smaller group was far better, and I started to enjoy the ride.  We regrouped at the next rest stop, and I wound up with the big group again, and got into the rotation again.  I began wondering how you could do an organized ride with a good group of guys, but also manage to keep the "unknowns" out of the line.  Personally, the "unknowns" just wound up annoying me and made the line bigger, and more boring, even if they took their pulls and were good in the line.  I guess it's a mindset thing.

After the last rest stop, I pulled out first and took the lead for 2.9 miles -- 9 minutes.  (it was a looong, easy start, and I wasn't fully up to speed until the first mile was done) Rolling off at the end of my pull, I saw the group going by.  Four of our guys, two "unknowns" who we'd been riding with for a while, who were solid riders, but at this point, I was just tired of riding in a paceline, and made no effort to catch the last wheel.  I started to recover from my pull, and brought my pace up, and stayed within a couple hundred yards of the group for quite some time.  This was at mile 87, and I knew this wouldn't last, but was curious how long I could keep them in sight riding solo.  Soon, however, I saw a guy walking on the side of the road with his bike, so as they rode by, I stopped next to him to find out if he needed help.  Turns out his issues weren't mechanical, but severe cramps, and unfortunately there's not much you can do at that point, so I verified that he was okay, and rode on now completely alone.

Here's where it started to get interesting.  No longer was my effort dictated by the group, so I could ride as hard or easy as I wanted, and I was soon up to some pretty high efforts. I rode hard but controlled, and caught one or two other riders, then came across one of our own guys who had been shed from the paceline.  I swung around him, sat up and cruised for a little while, but he made no effort to grab my wheel, so I rolled back onto the power and kept on up the road.  I soon found myself at the bottom of a long climb, and recognized it as a climb which we had done the previous morning.  Since there was no previous Strava segment there, we created one, and I had been tied for the KOM at 2:56 until Dave uploaded his ride and got 2:55.  I had joked with him that I was going to take the KOM back by riding a 2:54, and coming to the bottom of this climb at mile 94, having been riding by myself for 7 miles, that is exactly what I did.  (What really sucks for Dave is that his phone locked up and stopped recording early in the ride, so even though he probably went faster up the hill with the group than I did solo - he doesn't get any credit, or the KOM.)  Halfway up the climb, I saw another rider up the road, so used that rider as my rabbit, and managed to chase down Brian, another one of our guys, right at the top of the climb.

Brian misread the arrows on the road, as did I, and we made a right turn where we should have gone straight.  This wouldn't have been a big problem, but I recognized the road as one that we rode the previous day, and had created another segment on... so I turned on the gas yet again trying to better my time from the previous day.  Despite a near maximum effort, being at mile 95 and on my own (Brian hung onto my wheel for a couple minutes but decided to let me go) doesn't stand a chance against three pretty fresh guys sharing the load from the previous day, and my time came in at 9:34, a damn shade slower than the previous morning's 8:26.  Worse yet, this was when I realized that there were no blue arrows on the road at the next intersection -- we had taken a wrong turn!  I broke out my phone and checked the map, and we had gone exactly the wrong direction to get to the finish.  I later discovered we nearly reconnected with the course at mile 73!  So, we had no recourse but to turn around and ride the 3.5 mile segment back to where we'd made the wrong turn.

At this point, I was more interested in finding the short way back instead of finding the course, so I used my phone to map out the shortest return.  I soon realized that I knew the roads we were taking, and these roads went over the few "hills" in the area.  The biggest of these isn't even 100 feet of elevation, but we're now at 105 miles and oddly enough, getting a little tired.  Had I followed the course instead of the "short way" back, I think there would have been a whole bunch less climbing.  We finally made it back to Betterton, and the rest of the guys had finished, but while they only had 103 miles of riding, Brian and I had 111 miles (Strava says 110.8 -- I didn't start the Garmin until after the 0.6 mile ride to the start, so I legitimately claim 111) and had finished with climbs, which we agreed made us the big winners and hard men of the group.

So, the ride was enjoyable, despite my issues with the big pacelines.  I would love to do the ride again, but this time with no more than four folks in a core paceline and some way to keep the "unknowns" from spoiling the party.  Doing it solo would be interesting, but probably also very, very difficult.

One of the reasons I stayed with the pacelines as much as I did was because I was convinced if I went solo, it would take me longer to get finished, but that's not necessarily the case.  Here's the segment between the second to last and last rest stops where I rode with a paceline of about 7 guys:

http://app.strava.com/activities/11635620#z17009|18874

10.2 miles at an average speed of 19.6mph, sitting behind an unknown who would pedalpedalpedal-cooooaaaast-repeat for the entire time.  (granted, his buddy with the tri bars did have a wonderfully long and consistent 20mph pull) Very mentally draining as I was trying to leave enough gap that I didn't have to coast when he slowed, but could soft pedal and not screw up the guys behind me.

In contrast, here's the segment where I went solo after the last rest stop:

http://app.strava.com/activities/11635620#z20951|22843

10.5 miles, including the biggest "climb" on the course (and 3.5 miles in the wrong direction) at an average speed of 20.0mph, while enjoying myself immensely more.  This is even after my 2.9 mile pull out of the rest stop.  Could I have kept that up for the entire ride, hell no.  But still, it's interesting.  I caught two folks who had been shelled from the paceline, and had I not made the wrong turn, I think I may have caught the others who got dropped -- Dave Heller finished with only one other guy.  Maybe... maybe not, but ultimately, it doesn't matter, because that last 26 miles was the best of the ride, because I was riding either solo or with one other person.

A nice, cheap alternative for bike GPS use.

I've become a big, big fan of the Strava ride logging site.  When bike GPS first came out, I was a big fan, and bought in with a Garmin Edge 305, and used it religiously for a while.  But, after a while, it dawned on me that all I was getting for all that datalogging wasn't much more than I could have done with a typical bike computer and a mapping site like "MapMyRide" or "Bikely".  Sure, I got neat little graphs of my speed and heart rate and cadence, but unless I did the same exact ride, it was almost impossible to compare my times and see some progress.  What I really wanted, and spent a bit of time looking for was something that would allow me to see my times on a certain segment, like, say, Tohickon Hill Road.  I couldn't find anything, so the usefulness of GPS logging lost its appeal to me, and I stopped using it as much.
A couple years later, I find out about this new site, "Strava".  Oh, goodie, another GPS logging service.  Well, here's what makes them special -- they have actually implemented the segment matching I was dreaming of all those years ago, and not only can you compare your times against yourself... you can compare against everyone else who's ridden there.  WHOA.  That's cool.

So I get into it again, religiously logging my rides, uploading as soon as I get home so I can see if I have any new KOMs, and go back through all my long-forgotten Garmin Connect rides so I can import them into Strava, because who knows -- I might have had a KOM long before I knew what those were!  At first I'm using my phone, but I quickly start looking at the newest Garmin offerings.  I'm a little tenative about that, because my old Edge 305 wasn't exactly problem free.  After the warranty expired, I had to send it back to them for a fix to the tune of $90.  I forgot what was broken, but not too long after, it wasn't finding satellites anymore.  I tried several things, then gave up and sold it to a buddy for a song.  (amusingly enough, he did manage to get it working)

But, I then had the great idea, and found Grace's old Motorola Cliq (MB200) phone, her first smart phone.  I loaded that up with MyTracks, and started testing it out.  Turns out, it works really well.  I tried the Strava app, but had some problems with that, so have been sticking with MyTracks, which is made by the Google team.  (I worked with the Strava support folks on the issues I was having with the Cliq, but since MyTracks worked and the Cliq is an older phone, I didn't push the issue.)

So, before you go out and spend at least $150 on even the most inexpensive Garmin, or the fancy new Motorola that does MP3s as well, consider getting an old, used Android smart phone.  You might just wind up with something far cheaper which has far more features.

• A phone can have a very accurate GPS, especially with MyTracks, which allows you to modify the logging settings.  Nothing short of the ultra-expensive Garmin Edge 800 allows you to do that.
• If you don't like the interface of the MyTracks app, you can run the Strava app.  Or Velox.  Or a large number of other alternate apps.  With a Garmin, you're stuck with the interface they give you.
• In my comparison with logged rides in Nockamixon, my old Cliq with accuracy turned up has logged closer to the state-created trail maps (created with, I'm told, a $20k trail mapping GPS) than anything shy of a Garmin Edge 800, a $450 computer.  Better than an Edge 500.
• A phone has support for wifi, so if you use the Strava app, as soon as you have access to a wifi signal, you can upload your ride automatically.  However, I use MyTracks as it's more stable and precise, so I export to GPX and email the ride on wireless.
• Motorola's bragging about the MotoACTV having MP3 support.  Even old phones support MP3, OGG, and several other video formats, as well as having the ability to play videos.
• Most Android apps work on an old phone.  No apps available for bike computers.  Might not be a huge consideration, but it can be pretty cool.
• Without cell service, battery life is fairly fantastic.  I did a multi-hour ride and didn't even drop down to 50% battery with the Cliq.  If you had the display on, that would wear it down faster.
• Most importantly, an old phone like the Cliq MB200 can be had for as little as $50-70 used. You might even have one on hand already.  It doesn't need to be unlocked, you don't need cell service.

Things to watch out for:

• This is the biggest thing.  Some phones will NOT get a GPS signal without a data connection.  My old Motorola Droid X would not lock onto the GPS without data, no matter how long I let it sit.  I'm not sure the cause, but that renders it totally useless as a bike computer.  I've tried running it where I had a wifi signal at the beginning so it could get a lock, and then doing a ride, but the accuracy was pretty sad.  At this point, I can say that the Cliq and the original Motorola Droid both work without any data signal and make good bike computers.  The Droid X and the Galaxy Nexus both have issues getting GPS without data coverage.
• My Cliq is really particular about getting sweat on the screen.  Whenever I've done that, it gets kinda mental, and won't respond right to touch until I pull the battery, clean the screen, and leave it alone for a while.  I'm wondering if maybe the phone itself is dying, as other phones I've had don't act up the same way.  Still, worth mentioning.
• The Cliq does sometimes have some GPS madness where it doesn't follow the path too closely.  This ride has me riding through the middle of the lake, (pretty sure I didn't do that) but it was also before I tuned the precision in MyTracks.
• Handlebar mounts for phones aren't quite as slick as mounts for bike GPS.  I got this ugly beast.  I don't understand the point of the ball socket, and can't seem to get it tight enough to hold a position.  Most of the time I just put it in my jersey pocket, although accuracy does seem slightly improved on the handlebars.  Some phones also might not like the level of vibration they'll see on handlebars.
• Phones aren't waterproof.  Garmins are.  However, I've found that ziploc snack bags fit even the pretty large Galaxy Nexus with no problem, and are cheap.  I can still operate the touch screen through it, too.

So there you go, hopefully something to think about, and if you happen to have an old phone sitting around from after an upgrade, you might be able to give it a try!