Bike gadgets can be helpful or a big distraction while riding. The last three bike rides the PowerPod fell into the distraction category sad to say. But on today’s bike ride whatever I did fix the problem and it is no longer a distraction though I watched it more than usual to be sure it was working properly. After running through the calibration at the beginning of the ride the PowerPod reported watts but they were lower than my past numbers. When I stopped at the Mobil station in New Caney for ice and water I adjusted the tilt a little and the watts looked more like past rides. I installed an app on my phone from Velocomp titled Power House which may have helped getting the PowerPod talking with the Elemnt computer. I used it to tweak the “profile” settings in the PowerPod, I think.

Thinking back to one of the first gadgets I bought for a bike it was an odometer that had no electronics (this was 1979) but attached to the front fork and a thing rotated each time the wheel turned advancing the numbers that showed trough a little window on top of the odometer which were big enough to read while I rode. That was on a Huffy that I bought at Woolco in Humble, TX. When I graduated to a Schwinn a year or so later I bought one of the early electronic bike computers. And the gadget craze began. They are great when they work but a major pain when they don’t.

I set out on today’s bike ride at 10:04 am on the “New Caney – Tavola – Valley Ranch” route and biked 34.18 miles. This improved June total to 741.66 miles leaving 58.34 miles to reach June’s goal of 800 miles. Looks like I can do that if the weather cooperates. Unlike yesterday no rain during the ride. Weather during the bike ride: start 85 (77% humidity), a few clouds, wind SW 5 mph. Finish 92 (56% humidity), partly cloudy, wind S 8 mph.

Until I made the adjustment to the PowerPod tilt the watts reported bicycling to Tavola looked like I was almost coasting though I was really pedaling. There aren’t many hills to test my output but the incline going up to Community Drive at SH 99 (Grand Parkway) just got over 100 where on previous rides sometimes I saw 200+.

The only stop was at the Mobil station except for traffic lights and stop signs which got back home by 12:42 pm making the riding time 2:30:32. Overall time came in at 2:38:12.

SportTracks Bike Ride Summary