My recent racing history has a few unfinished courses in it, Rather than lament getting lost, I am actively looking to improve the things that make it more likely to finish.
Navigation has been a big challenge for me. I was skilled enough with a map and compass, but the modern world has placed all sorts of handy devices in our hands that in theory allow us to follow a route with ease. Sadly, these devices have just as often allowed me to go astray.
In Kyrgyzstan, my bike computer showed my route as a line that was exactly the same colour as all the more substantial roads, When the route intersected a major road, it was anyone’s guess which of the dark grey lines was correct. Another issue was battery life, and I used most of my dynamo power to charge the computer instead of my lights. That same computer had another major flaw, and it sometimes just stopped working at cold temperatures. This was fine on my local loops, but not so fine when I didn’t know the way. Undeniably, had I studied the SRMR route effectively, I would not have made my 8 hour navigation mistake that cost me my finish, but it would have been nice to have some functional electronic routing.
I brought a tried and true solution, popular with other ITI racers for Alaska, but tried-and-true also had an interface that seemed from the 1990s. It would show me (buy not warn me) if I was off route, and it would show me where I wanted to go, but it wouldn’t route me on trails to get to the place I was going. I had basically 3 places where I could get misrouted on the ITI, and I did in fact take advantage of all 3 to get misrouted. I could not read the screen without my glasses, and even then, it was so pixelated that it was not clear what was an artifact, and what was a straight line. I could not read the display in bright sunlight. Zooming took many seconds, and real time navigation was slow enough to prevent me from trying shortcuts that probably could have saved me hours.
I have now purchased a Coros Dura, several friends, like Chris Penasky from Bikepack Adventures Podcast, and Janice Tower, of Tower Coaching have shown me that it does what I want. It may not be perfect, but it works in the cold (so far only tested my me to -28ºC), can be read by me in the sunlight or the dark, and warns me when I go off route.
I also finally paid for a subscription to RideWithGPS. This allows me to use my phone to get voice directions, including offline, which is me all the time. I don’t know why I waited so long, I have known about them since they were new, and I knew that they started well and have consistently stayed ahead of the competition. I’m stoked about it, and I wish I had upgraded from free sooner.
While I can’t promise I will never lose my way again, I will now havefewer excuses. So far, I seem to have found myself.
