Comparing Polar H7 vs Wahoo Tickr

Recently I bought a Wahoo Tickr heart rate monitor to replace the Polar H7 that died on me. I actually own 2 Polar H7 HRM, but I haven't had much luck in terms reliability. The first one I bought worked for about 10 months, then it started to malfunction. The symptoms were no bluetooth signal. I sent it in to get it serviced, which took about 2.5 weeks. I decided to order a new Polar H7 before I sent in the old one for service. That first unit ended up malfunctioning again after 2 weeks, so I sent it back again. The second time, Polar gave me a replacement, which seemed to work. A month after that, the soft strap started not working. I figured this out when I tested each sensor with both old and new straps. Once I realized the strap was bad, I ordered a new one and threw the bad one away.

Another 2 months after that, the second H7 started to go bad, so I sent that in for service. Even after getting it back, it still didn't work. I gave up and decided Polar's HRM isn't reliable over time. It works fine for the first 6-10 months, but soon after that it fails. Since I had great service from Wahoo for my speed/cadence sensor, I thought I'd give Wahoo Tickr a try. There's a couple of things I like about Tickr. The first is the 2 lights on the front that tell you the batter is good and sending bluetooth signal. The second is the strap is different than Polar soft strap. With the polar soft strap, the electrodes are bonded to the elastic strap, which over time gets stressed and worn out. In 16 months I've killed 2 polar soft straps. The wahoo strap has a different design, which I "feel" could improve reliability. The electrodes on the Wahoo strap are bonded to a material that doesn't stretch, which means the likelihood of it getting damaged is less likely. In terms of comfort, it feels about the same as the Polar soft strap. The second thing I like about Wahoo strap is it's easier to buckle compared to the Polar soft strap. A third benefit is the Tickr supports both ANT+ and bluetooth. When new firmware is available, you download it to the sensor. Polar H7 doesn't do that.

So far the Tickr hasn't had any issues. Only time will tell if Tickr will last longer than Polar H7. One thing is clear though, Wahoo's customer service is better right now.

Power meter

Over the holiday I decided to get myself a power meter. I spent many months researching power meters and read about Stages back in Feb 2013. Early in the season I upgraded the FSA crank to Shimano 105. The change is noticeable. The FSA crank isn't nearly as stiff as hollowtech crank and also it's heavier. Part of my reason for changing cranks is that Stages didn't support FSA cranks at the time. Fast forward to December. I pulled the trigger and ordered it. In late Jan I got the crank and installed it.

Now that I've been using it for a few weeks I'm quite happy with it. The installation was a breeze. I spent more time cleaning and oiling my bottom bracket than installing the left crank arm. I've noticed a few things about my power output the last few weeks.

The first one is correlation between cadence and power. My natural cadence is around 100 rpm. When I tried to follow sufferfest ISLAGIATT cadence, the power output was lower and more erratic. I've known that I prefer spinning to mashing, but it was great to see real data. At 100-105 cadence, my power varies .4watts, which is decent.

Overall, I've quite happy with the stages power meter.

Sufferfest

The last last few weeks, the weather has been cold and I've been on the trainer. The thing is, I used to hate the trainer. By that I mean this. I counted every minute and wished I was done. I tried watching daily show, colbert report, bones, top gear and a bunch of other stuff, but the most I could do was 25 minutes. Every minute felt like torture.

Since I have Strava premiun, I decided to give sufferfest a try. Two friends suggested. The first one I tried was rubber gloves. I had no clue what kind of suffering it would dish out and to my surprise, I managed to finish the whole thing. When I got done, I shocked myself by hitting a max heart rate of 194. Prior to this, my max heart rate with HRM was around 185. At the YMCA, I've gone over 190, but I thought it had a large margin of error. Life cycles and spin cycle HRM aren't that accurate.

After rubber gloves I tried fight club and revolver. Both of them are geared towards sprinters, so I don't really like them. Last week I decided to get rubber gloves due to poor streaming quality from Strava. The next day I also purchased the long scream and ISLAGIATT.

Watching sufferfest videos, I'm getting a better workout and have done several hour long sessions the last 2 weeks. I don't love the trainer yet, but I no longer hate it. That in itself says a lot about sufferfest videos.

Mavic wheels

Now that I've been riding the Mavic Aksium wheels since March, I can report they are faster. I've gone down the same hills enough times to know at speed they give me an extra 2-3mph. When group rides go down route 62 from princeton center, I no longer get dropped. Instead, I'm right there with the group. Usually I have the wheel inflated to 100-110. When the wheels are under inflated, I notice the crappy roads less. On smooth roads, the Mavic are faster than the stock Giant wheels that came with the bike.

Is Mavic Aksium wheels a good value? I would say yes. Given what I paid at Nashbar and the miles I've logged so far, they've been great. A couple of times I hit a pot hole pretty hard and the wheel didn't go out of true like the Giant wheels. The stock tires that came with it are junk though, but I don't mind that. Once the tires were slightly worn, I replaced them with Gatorskin Hardshell 25. I like the extra air that 25 provides. Oddly, I feel the 25 are faster than 23 tires. The first 1000 miles were on the stock mavic tires and they got 2 flats. If the roads were in better condition, it probably wouldn't matter as much.

Overall, I'm very happy with the Mavic wheels and how they've performed.

Mashers and Spinners

Tour de france is into the third week. One thing I noticed is Jens is a total masher. Every time they show Jens in the break away, I can tell who is Jens. His masher cadence is so distinctive. Compare that to Contador and Froome, their cadence is so smooth it's hard to tell who is who by cadence alone.

Thomas voeckler also has a distinctive cadence. Though some might not really consider it cadence. Voeckler never really looks smoothe or effortless like Contador or Froome. His style is erratic and looks awkward.

Nutrition and Riding

Lately I've been thinking about diet, nutrition and the impact on performance. One personal pet peeve is this whole chocolate milk commercial non-sense. The chocolate milk isn't better than plain milk as a recovery drink. I'm not going to bother providing links, since there's too many of them. Before Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution fought to ban chocolate and strawberry flavored milk, there weren't many commercials for chocolate milk. Chocolate drinks like Yoohoo and others had plenty of commercials. It used to be milk commercials showed the familiar white milk mustache.

I don't buy the whole argument that if it wasn't for chocolate milk, American children wouldn't get enough calcium or minerals in their diet. Most of China, Japan, Korea, Thailand and Vietnam don't drink regular milk. Do their kids have issues with nutrition due to a lack of milk? Nope, they don't.

I think milk is great, even if I am lactose intolerant. I use Lactaid in my coffee every morning. My kids drink milk and love it. Nutrition for me is about finding the right balance of healthy fresh foods. Not eating processed frozen junk with a ton of chemicals. I find that when I eat a balanced healthy diet, my performance on the bike is much better.

In the mornings I eat some carbs, coffee with Lactaid and fruit. Lunch time it's usually leftovers from the night before, which is rice, veggies and some meat. Night time is usually rice/noodles with stir-fry and meat. Every now and then I splurge. Usually once a year I'll go nuts on a bag of Doritos, since they are wicked evil good. Yes, the ride after the Doritos-fest I ride like the Titanic. If I wasn't so lazy, I would show the nutritional information for plain versus chocolate milk, but that's too much work.

Funny video

I happen to come across this video about Dave mathews getting picked up by a fan.

dave mathew hitches a ride

I happen to notice dave mathews is riding a specialized s works. Can't tell which model, but the SWorks is prominant.