Map on Garmin Vivoactive

My 5-year old Garmin Forerunner 305 was on its last leg: its battery couldn't even last a 1.5 hr ride last time I tried. So I need a replacement. And I found the Garmin Vivoactive released in 2015 quite interesting: Garmin marketed it as a smart-watch (think Apple Watch) as well as an activity-tracking device (think FitBit) And the battery is supposed to last for 10 hours with GPS on (Yes, I did 3 10+ hour rides in the last 5 years) I just got it tonight and immediately paired it with the phone (installation of the Garmin Connect mobile app was required and I created a new Garmin account) and my old heart rate monitor from the 305. I also linked my MapMyRide account to Garmin Connect. Then I did a quick indoor ride just to test its HR tracking ability. That ride was sync-ed to Garmin Connect right after (via my phone) and also to MapMyRide as a workout. So the activity tracking part of the watch seems not bad (wish it doesn't require a chest-strap HRM though) Next task was to prepare for my weekend ride. Forerunner 305 allowed me to load a route to it and display as a map on screen to provide some "rough" navigation utilizing the GPS. (I would manually create the route on MapMyRide, export the route and convert to GPX, import to the PC software and then finally sync to watch. Yes, I know those are a lot of steps) I was hoping Vivoactive would support the same (if not better) out of the box but it doesn't. Fortunately, the smart-watch side of Vivoactive allows third-party developers to create app for it. And one such app seems to fit the bill: dwMap. First, open your Garmin Connect mobile app and enter the Connect IQ store. Search for dwMap and download it. It will sync the app to your watch eventually. Second, go to dwMap's website dynamic.watch. Click 'Link to watch' and open the app on your watch to see the code to be entered to the website. Then log on using your MapMyRide (UnderArmour) account. The website will show 20 of the routes you bookmarked in MapMyRide. You could "star" one of those route and next time you open the app on your watch. This will be the route to be displayed. Hopefully my Vivoactive experience will get better and better and I could share more here.

(BTW, found a pretty good page that compare all watches for running.)

Hicks Road

As you could see from my previous posts, I learned about a lot of those routes from books, e.g. Big Basin, Clayton, Mt. Diablo, Calaveras Rd....... Hicks Road is one of the few left that I always wanted to try but didn't get a chance to for some reason, until this labor day (I rode Big Basin with my buddy on the 2012 Labor Day weekend)  Maybe it's kinda down south and hard to gauge the time needed to finish the ride because of the climb. Also, I had no idea where to park in Los Gatos (It seems like there are plenty available in the residential area on the streets near Los Gatos Blvd.) The 2 Cat-5 and Cat-4 sections (Shannon and Kennedy, respectively) in and out of Los Gatos were actually quite good for warmup/cooloff. Of course, the biggest "attraction" was from the bottom of Hicks Rd to the summit (before getting up Mt. Umunhum. The Mt. Umunhum climb was one of the hardest in the area and was NOT part of my route) And both sides of Hicks Rd from the summit is kinda symmetric: one steep 1.5 mile stretch on each side so you could pick your own "poison" To me it's a pretty good challenge since I got too familiar with the routes in the peninsula already. The steep downhill is long enough to "re-train" my descending skill without scaring me too much. The shortened version could easily become a 2.5 hour routine weekend ride with my SJ friends.

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Wunderlich County Park

I got a request to blog about this hike we did on Sunday. I think it satisfied the 4 criteria I mentioned before: (1) shades (2) elevation change ~950ft (3) ~5 miles, i.e., 2.5 hr (4) good scenery.
The parking lot (right off Woodside Rd) is kinda small and luckily we got the last 2 spots. However, people could still easily park close by, outside on Woodside Rd. Compared to Rancho San Antonio, this trail seems much less crowded even though the parking lot was full. And people ride horses on the trails (no bike though) so hikers need to beware of horse manure. It could get a bit dusty too. Still, it's a pretty good trail for those who likes to hike with less people around.

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踩遍天下

去年前介紹過一家單車旅行社的泰國柬埔寨遊路線，日前讀一本戶外活動雜誌又介紹了另一家專搞全世界各地辛苦探險團的公司：Tour d'Afrique,不少路線要露營度宿！我對其中中國（上海至香港段）及北美（Banff至Helena段）都頗有興趣。

Off the bike and hike

I suppose most cyclists enjoy the nature and don't mind to hike once in a while. Hiking uses a different muscle group than cycling and it would be good to train those too.

Our go-to trail was the Dish near Stanford. As it's under maintenance for the past month, we tried some alternatives too. Rancho San Antonio has become our new favorite. The Wildcat loop takes us about 2 hours and that's ideal.

And we are also looking into venturing outside the Palo Alto-Los Altos area. The criteria includes: (1) must have some shades (2) must have some elevation change, e.g. Rancho San Antonio has ~800 ft (3) ~2-6 miles, i.e., 1-3 hr. (4) good scenery. We have already been to Big Sur, which is beautiful (and tough!) I think we should try these in the future:
[SF] Mount Sutro, 1.8 miles
[San Bruno] Junipero Serra County Park, 2.1 miles
[Oakland] Redwood Regional Park, 3.7 miles, 700 ft elev. chg.
[Palo Alto] Monte Bello, 6.5 miles, 1000 ft elev. chg.
[Cupertino] Stevens Creek County Park, 6.1 miles, 1100 ft elev. chg.
Angel Island, 5 miles
 
Bay Area Hiker is a very informational website with all trails ranked by difficulty.

環加單車賽、衝線

「加」是指加州，不是加拿大。加拿大作為全球第二大國，要辦橫跨全國如環法環意的比賽實在不易，其實環加也是名不符實，一星期的賽事只是由北至南（或由南至北），中文傳媒硬加一個「環」字。這項賽事歷史雖遠不如環法環意等悠久，但不經不覺也已經舉辦了十年！本地聖荷西市是唯一一個十屆都有一站的城市，可見大會對矽谷社區的重視！電視轉播比賽沿途吶喊助威的觀眾，我也是一份子，算是對車壇的一點支持。當然，這些賽道不只可以觀看，更加可以親自踩踩，比賽期間播放California Dreams Big系列廣告也強調這一點：其他體育界知名場地，如非頂尖或職業運動員，相信試玩的機會不大；但公路單車就不同了，職業車手所踩的路線，你我皆可踩！雖然要完全跟隨也不易，除非有人接載，因為通常起點和終點不同。看了一週的賽事，啟發我在週末也要踩踩比賽路線，這次踩的包括了去年和今年部份路段：去年賽事由San Jose Mt. Hamilton Rd (130)上山，今年賽事路段則是在山腳（註：今年方向相反由Livermore那邊上山往SJ）轉入Quimby Rd,再上一小段至Summit 2200ft（有一Buckeye Ranch），然後在短短4英里急降2000尺，真是看也腳軟！接著踩San Felipe Rd入Evergreen區，越踩越少人煙，在Metcalf Rd（今年Stage 3終點）的Motorcycle park回頭，全程～50英里

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說起單車比賽，也想提提剛看完的香港無線電視劇《衝線》，其實我甚少看電視劇，看此劇是因為其中一個主題和單車有關，出現了不少在台灣踩車美麗風光鏡頭，雖然劇本及演員水準相當一般，踩車練車鬥車情節也完全脫離現實，不過如果拍得像環加一樣，師奶觀眾肯定不明所以。（例如主角在台灣租的單車有問題，以他們的經驗，肯定不會將問題置之不理，就算自己不動手維修，也會立即回程退換）無線最成功的可算是不停洗腦式播放主題曲《美好的時光》，此曲已成為我踩車在腦中自動播放的歌。吳若希唱的無線劇集主題曲實在不錯，另一首《愛我請留言》我也相當喜歡。

Road biking route suggestions

The previous post was for mountain biking. Now I'd like to mention a few good ones for road biking:

• Stanford cycling team's favorite routes listed a lot of the steep climb that I've done, like the famous Old La Honda, King's Mountain, Montebello and hidden gems like Moody, Joaquin, Golden Oak and Westridge. 
• The Egan Ride is a group ride that starts at the Egan Middle School in Los Altos. Their page listed many local routes from 15-30 miles with GPS/map. Very useful.
• Monta Vista Velo's page listed quite a few looooong rides (>50 miles) which includes Big Basin, Jefferson, Portola. All familiar names!
• Some routes in South San Jose Santa Teresa area.