When was the last time you got on your bike? Or is the closest that you come to cycling watching the Tour de France and having a punt on who will win the yellow jersey? Bookies like Paddy Power already have odds available for the outright winner of next year’s Tour, and British rider Chris Froome is the favourite, priced at 2/1.
Cycling is a great sport as you can start it whatever your state of fitness may be. You probably learned to ride a bike when you were a kid, and you never really forget how to do it. If you’re out of practice, just start off again on easy and flat roads and build up your stamina over a number of weeks.
Not only can you cycle to get fit, but once you get used to biking more than a few miles, you can also start leaving the car at home more often and use your bike as your main means of transportation – all the while improving your fitness levels.
But if you want to keep track of how well you’re doing, then a bit of techie equipment is always handy, and it’ll encourage you to put more effort in if you can see how you are improving over time. For exactly this kind of purpose, Pyle Audio has brought out a performance-measuring piece of kit called the PSBCG90 Smart Bicycling Computer.
As well as allowing users to track their cycling performance, the Smart Bicycling Computer can map your location and help you plan new routes. It also has Google Maps integrated so that you can see how your biking route fits into the world map and zoom in and out accordingly.
When you connect the PSBCG90 with your computer, you’ll be able to save and track any training data, and keep a record of your performance so that you can see your fitness develop over a period of time. ANT+ compatibility will allow you to add accessory meters that can send data wirelessly to the PSBCG90, so that you can measure your heart rate, speed, RPM, distance and power, so that every aspect of your cycling workouts can be tracked.
The PSBCG90 is about $130 to buy, but for someone who enjoys the motivation of monitoring their performance it’s a useful additional investment in improving your overall fitness, as long as you actually give it some data to work with!