Years ago, when Strava was newer, and more appealing I eventually decided to pay for Strava because I wanted to support the project. I wanted to help make them sustainable. The same is true with Zwift. When both of them got VC funding I ended my subscriptions rather than renewing for another year. This was years ago.
For me, it’s simple. If we are paying for a site like Strava, be patient, and use our money to improve things incrementaly.
For years I have used Sportstracker, and then Strava and Komoot and others. Whether I use one platform or another isn’t much of a concern. I can send my data everywhere. The question is whether I make that data public, private, or a hybrid compromise.
With Suunto and Sportracker I usually keep almost everything private because I can’t highlight zones that I want to keep private. With Komoot it requires cropping the start and end point to hide where you live.
A few days ago I went on a group ride. I noticed that a high percentage of bikes had bike radars so I checked to see the price of these devices once again. For a year or two I have considered getting a bike radar but didn’t because I found that the price was too high. I believe that recently either the price went down or the offer of cheaper alternatives improved.
I see people. I see them say that they have given up on wearing fitness trackers and smartwatches because they hate the tyranny of the device. I have felt an intense dislike for Apple behaves in particular. At the same time I have been playing wit Sportstracker for eighteen years or so. My fitness tracking habit is old enough to drink and old enough to drive.
This isn’t a post about drinking, or driving.
For years I wore no watch, and then I took up scuba diving, and then I wanted to wear a watch when climbing, and then it escalated from there. Now I have Garmin, Suunto Apple, Casio, Xiaomi and other watches. It’s easy to justify wearing the Apple watch because it’s a smart watch so it has a niche. It’s harder to justify the Garmin, Suunto, Xiaomi and Casio watches because they overlap each other.
I saw that a Garmin Epix (Gen 2) watch was lying unused for a few days in a row so I asked if I could borrow it to experiment with and the answer was yes so that’s the Garmin watch I am wearing now.
The watch that I usually wear is a Garmin Instinct Solar. By now it’s quite an old watch, surpased by the Garmin Instinct 2 Solar. The Garmin Instinct Solar is a solar powered watch that can charge itself, and in the right conditions remain charged for 99+ days in the right sunny conditions, and with the right usage conditions.
Yesterday I wore the Suunto Peak 5 alongside the Apple Watch SE rather than the Apple Watch SE and Garmin device as I usually would. The reason for this is that I want to continue playing with Suunto devices, and I’d like to wean myself off of the Apple Watch, for at least a week or two.
In the process of doing this I was reminded that although the Apple watch is pivotal within the iOS app ecosystem Garmin is very well connected with other services.
People will always ask me why I wear two watches and the answer is now “because one is a smart watch and the other is for sports, and people accept that quite easily. The reasons I used to give are no longer needed. I learned how to keep a short answer convenient, and easy to accept.
I saw an article today that said that people prefer the Series 8 and 9 to the Apple Watch SE and the Ultra.
Yesterday I was reminded of why I stopped wearing the Garmin watch, replacing it with Casio watches instead. It’s because Garmin, Suunto and Xiaomi don’t count walking as real sport. Imagine, you’re wearing a watch twenty four hours a day, seven days a week, every day, and charging it every month with the Garmin Instinct, and every few days with the other devices, and you see the absurdity of certain trackers.
During the Via Ferrata I did on Sunday I was asked why I wear two watches and I answered with a joke before giving the serious answer that I wear two watches at once because I want the data from both watches. I was asked why I need the data from both watches and that’s where there is a change that is happening at the moment.
A Waning in Garmin Watches By wearing the F-91 for a few days and wearing the Garmin watch less and less I find that my desire for heart rate, steps, recovery and other things to be recoreded is declining over time.