2015-03-04 - Aborted Lear Road Loop

Bike: Road
Miles: 14.9
Start Time 4:23
Moving Time: 1:19:39
Elevation: 530
Avg Spd: 11.3
Max Spd: 25.9
Temp Out: 62
Temp In: 57

Most of this ride was either uphill or against the wind, the story of my life. Ha ha! This is also the second consecutive ride where I have misjudged the temperature and been uncomfortably cool the entire way. I started out to do the Lear Road Loop, a route I use occasionally. I got out to the top of the hill at 6.5 miles and realized that if I persisted not only would I be even colder but I would probably ride in the dark for 20-30 minutes. After minimal contemplation I turned around and came back through town to JTNP HQ then home down Utah Trail. I got home at 6:00 and it was just getting dark. If I had continued on the original route I still would have been 3-5 miles from home so it worked out about right.

This was the first ride using my new phone and fitness band. I had not intended to get a new phone but I purchased a modestly priced band last week and when it came I really liked the looks and potential of it but it wold not sync with my phone which uses Bluetooth 3.0. The band and much new stuff requires 4.0 and BLE (Low Energy). After messing with it several hours including trying to find an inexpensive phone with BLE 4.0 LE I gave up an arranged to return the band. I ordered a cheap "smart" watch in its place. Sunday or Monday I happened to stumble on the phone I received today, a Blu Energy Unlocked Android unit running Kit Kat (Android 4.2.2). I ordered it in spite of some lukewarm reviews. It came and to my surprise meets or exceeds the expectations I had for it and performs better than my current phone, a Google Galaxy Nexus, vintage 2012. The only issue I have with it is that is uses a smaller SIM card that the Google unit so I gave to get a new SIM from TY-Mobile. Some reviewers panned the camera. The title picture is from the new camera. The following four photos were taken, the first of each pair with the old phone and the second with the new. The old camera is slightly sharper but the difference is not enough to bother me but you decide:

So far I am pleased with the new phone and band but I will not get the full use of the band's features until I have a proper SIM card in the new phone. On this ride I ran the sports app that meshes with the fitness band and it gave me a GPS track. Eventually I will get the bicycle speed and cadence sensor that matches the app and the phone (Bluetooth 4.0 LE) for more complete and accurate results. I also ran the Velodroid app on the old smartphone I carry on the handlebars and uploaded the track file to Strava as usual. A high tech ride with 3 phones and one fitness strap. The sports app feeds data to the main app that runs the band. The band is primarily a digital watch, pedometer which also alarms and displays notifications from the phone. The whole setup is somewhat extraneous but I like numbers and stats so what the heck? We all need some vice.

Edit: I may be able to tweak the new camera's settings to make the colors a little better. We will see.