Garmin Connect actually has all the useful (to me) features Strava has.
If all your buddies have Garmins and post public rides/runs, you get segment leaderboards, friends news feed, popularity routing, kudos, a training calendar that connects to TrainingPeaks and all the stats you could want.
Plus Garmin has very capable sports watches and smart body weight scales to consolidate all your fitness indicators in one place. Also, it's completely free.
The downside is the user base is much smaller so less segments and who knows if your KOM is the fastest time. You also won't get randos on the internet kudo'ing your rides/runs and boosting your ego. Also, no cool extensions like Elevate, StravaSauce, etc.
Yeah I’ve done that, I’ve had the scale for a couple years and the issue was never resolved. If you check the garmin forums for the 7% body fat bug you’ll see it’s an ongoing issue for a lot of folks.
They have become the avocado toast of tech news sites. I remember when they first got started as This Is My Next, when they had Joanna Stern, Joshua Topolsky and Paul Miller, the good ole days...
The reason to have a map on screen when descending is to anticipate upcoming bends. This helps you to take the best line through the apex of the corners. Also mountain descents will regularly throw you very tight, and sometimes blind corners at random, and the best practice to handle these without going off the road is to brake hard enough to scrub off some speed before you begin your turn, then let go so you're not braking while turning. Navigation prompts will not show this because they are not turns.
I am literally dressed and ready to head out for a 3000' training ride with tight twisty descents and IMHO it is quite suicidal to look down at a map when anything like you describe might happen. If I was a riding with you and I noticed you doing what you claim you need to do I would stop, let you go on, and if I didn't hear any crunching noises, resume, never to ride with you again.
Apex "civilization": people trust a fucking tiny map off in some other direction than they are traveling in lieu of the data streaming realtime right into their goddam eyes.
So you're looking at that fucking map, and what do you do when the squirrel/deer/javalina/pile of lumber discard appears in front of you?
I should delete this but no I am going to descend Thumb Butte road in a fury now.
It’s obviously not the information that’s the problem, it’s looking away from the road surface even for an instant.
Cars protect the driver substantially more than bikes and car tires handle small debris in corners substantially better than bikes. Also the rare road surface that supports 80 mph speeds has relatively shallow corners and is closed to bikes. It’s a useless comparison.
That's a great clip to link to because 30 seconds later Tristan says "I don't want to be responsible for you guys beaning it off the side of a hill because you were trying to go too quick," which obviously was him walking back Ben's recommendation a bit because even he thinks it's a safety issue to look at a map while descending hairpins as a tourist.
> Apex "civilization": people trust a fucking tiny map off in some other direction than they are traveling in lieu of the data streaming realtime right into their goddam eyes.
Well, I haven't heard about people driving into a cliff because their GPS told them to in a while, but it used to be somewhat common.
There is no reason to expect people to not the equivalent thing in a bike. There is something about easy information summaries that compels people to get them and act on them.
I hear you but...
I myself, would not be trying to ride the best line, and hit every apex on a descent that I'm not intimately familiar with.
I'd take it slow, and exercise caution until I am intimately familiar with the entire route.
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