Liz Randall's Cycling Blog - a life behind bars

"With ordinary talents and extraordinary perseverance, all things are attainable"



Saturday 20 February 2010

When electronic gizmos let you down

as they surely will do sooner or later and Murphy's law usually has a say too.

For the last 18 months I've been training  with an SRM powermeter on my road bike and since  Late last year one on my track bike too.  As a result I'm grooved into training with power input.  My training instructions are along those lines..eg 20 min efforts at 170-180watts with a cadence of 75-85..that sort of thing,

On Monday I asked my coach how long I could expect the batteries on the cranks and the powercontrol to last since I'd like them to be working for the every km of the 3,500 km I'm going to be cycling up the length of Italy come May and June.  We'd decided I'd probably better get then sorted before I left for Europe and then...bugger me... but the battery on the cranks failed totally on Thursday...did I jinx them or what?   

This would have to be my only gripe about my SRM's...there was not one solitary clue  that the battery was about to turn up its toes...one minute there, the next.....not.

So today's training ride (Croydon to Yarra Glen and back) was a 2 hours ride with efforts as described above but was a bit hit and miss as I had neither watts nor cadence-enjoyable for all that.

With the bike 140gm underweight I'm deciding how to fatten it up...I had thought to change the seat post, but I'm a bit anxious about changing anything and so will probable secure some lead onto the underside of the seat instead.

Uh, oh...single figures now...9 days 6 hours to go

2 comments:

Judith said...

At least it is now......that it has conked out.....I just have my POlar HRM....boring.....I want to invest in Power...but it is too much money.........

Liz said...

but worth every penny .
I started off with a Powertap then moved up to an SRM and wouldn't go back to HR only. Check out secondhand wired SRM's..now there are wireless ones (in SRM and Powertap) people are changing over and selling their wired versions....