Oversensitive

WAY too oversensitive, reactive and fussy. No, not me... My Garmin. 

First my cadence sensor conked out last week. I cannot figure out what's wrong. It's a new sensor (and a new Garmin), the little green light goes on when the wheel magnet crosses the sensor, my Garmin says "cadence sensor found" when I turn it on, but no data is showing.

Now for the HR fun. Yesterday I had my run HR benchmark... 3 miles around a track to find out my pace at 150 HR. During the first mile my HR was all over the place: 130, 165, 140, 155, etc. Finally stabilized during the last mile. Coach thought perhaps my warm-up wasn't long enough, which seemed logical... 

Until my ride today. I'm riding easy, warming up, and my HR shoots to 177. Then 184. Seriously? I'm not even breathing hard. I think the only time I've ever hit 184 was when I sprinted up a long steep hill, could barely breathe and was about to puke. I was NOT at 184 today. Either I need to run to the nearest cardiologist or my Garmin has PMS.

I was pretty sure it's the latter when my auto-pause/auto-resume starts getting wonky. It's a great feature when I'm stopped at a red light... not so great when I hit a bump in the road (auto pause, auto resume), change gears (auto pause, auto resume), haul ass down a curvy, tree-lined road (auto pause, auto resume, auto pause auto resume auto pause auto resume auto pause auto resume...). And of course my Garmin beeps and vibrates every time this happens. I was a beeping, buzzing fool on my bike today.

So here's the really weird thing... all the glitchiness stops after the first hour. My last 2 hours are entirely normal. Other than still no cadence data, there are no odd HR spikes, no pause/resume when it's not supposed to. WTF?

Any ideas here?

 

Comments

[Molly]

Is this a brand new HR strap or have you been using it for a while? Mine was doing that early this year - giving sky high HRs (like 250 bpm!). I've used it about 2 years. I...cleaned it LOL Washed all the visible and not visible salt off, including in the little plug-in parts between the sensor and the strap. Works fine since then!

[Brett]

What Garmin are you using?

[Ana-Maria]

I think you should try a reset.

[David]

Hi, been following your blog with interest for a while. I live in the UK and am doing my first triathlon this September!

Re your Garmin:

Cadence - I've read alot about the water proofing not being great on the Garmin cadence sensor, so be careful when riding with puddles / washing down the bike after a ride.

HR strap - I know it's obvious but make sure both electrodes and well wetted in water before putting on - until your sweat takes over that is what conducts the signal from your body!

PS cycled across the states in 2007, ended up in LA. Always wanted to make the trip up to sf but ran out of time! Happy training!

[jennifer]

Ok, thanks all! I think I've figured out some but not all the issues. - Molly: washing the HR strap works wonders :-) Thanks!
Brett: I have a 310XT.
David: good to know about the waterproofing on the cadence sensor.

I replaced the battery in the cadence sensor and now it's working. So the only outstanding issue is the bizarre auto pause/auto resume for the 1st hour of my ride. One note I found on a forum suggested that this could be related to the cadence sensor... now that I've fixed the sensor this problem may (or may not) go away. Will find out this weekend.