Garmin Connect can BITE ME!
I know that I haven't done it much this summer since I haven't ridden in that many interesting places but typically, after going for a cool ride, I'd upload my gps info to motion based and then export that to google earth so that I could post a pic showing my route with roads, topo (not much of that on coastal maine though) etc all showing up. Well, the geniuses at Garmin have decided to ditch motion based and came up with this fantastic new site, Garmin Connect. Not only is it new but it's also useless and a total chore to work with. On Motion Based, I could easily click on the ride I wanted to upload and I'd be on my way. Stupid f'ing Garmin Connect makes me "un-click" all the rides I DON'T want to upload before proceeding and since I've had my Garmin Edge for a few years now, that's hundreds of f'ing un-clicks. Douche bags! Of course that is only a problem if Garmin Connect doesn't freeze up before I even get to start the un-clicking. Totally frickin useless.
Thankfully, the Training Center software I have allows me to upload directly to Google Earth but the line comes up fat and nasty because it shows every single piece of gps data collected. That is totally sweet when I want to see what my heartrate was at a specific point in a ride (which I do check out quite frequently) but a total suckfest image wise. Oh well. One of these days I'll figure it out.
Anyway, now that my real racing season is over and training doesn't really matter I was finally able to make it out yesterday for a sweet and quite physically challenging 3 1/2 hour road ride. Where was that sum-bitch earlier in the summer? Basically, with us having to put Chance down on Friday I found myself in a world of hurt (much more so than expected) and needed to get out of the house Sunday so with an afternoon of football and prime rib planned at a friends house I decided to hit the road in the morning and meet Marcy and B there. Being the good cyclist that I am, I couldn't take the shortest route, instead I decided to hit some roads I was unfamiliar with and take the more scenic route.
Overall it was a sweet ride and at one point I was, once again, reminded how much I enjoy riding in traffic (in town traffic at least) when I was heading through Brunswick with it's frequent stop lights. For me, there is no better interval workout than trying to hold a car's wheel between stops. My heart rate was through the roof. Of course, the intervals came in the early stages of the ride and left little in the tank for the remainder of the ride including a cruel 10-15% climb out of town in Hallowell. Of course, totally emptying the tank made me feel a bit less guilty when I downed 8-ish beers and about a pound of steak afterwards...
oh, and garmin connect can SUCK IT!
there, I feel better now.
4 comments:
I probably won't buy another Garmin product. They hold your data hostage. The new Garmin Connect takes a 10 year step backwards. There is no way to export a GPX file after uploading to Garmin Connect. Training Center does not let you export GPX either. Only Garmin's proprietary TCX data format. The rest of the world works with the XML format GPX file. That really pisses me off. So if I want to get a GPX file out of my Edge 705, I first upload to TC, then export a TCX file from it, then upload a TCX file to MapMyRide, which will export a GPX file for me. Way too much monkey business.
You can quite easily change line properties in displayed route, including point markers, transparency, width, color, etc. Just right click on track in left side bar, click properties, may need to click share, then experiment away.
glad to see I'm not the only one.
thanks for the tip for google earth. I figured there was a way to fiddle with it but I hadn't had a chance to mess around much.
If you can export a KML file from your garmin device, you can upload direcltly to google maps, bypassing Garmin Connect altogether, and store your own tracks right in google.
I'll try that channing. thanks.
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