Originally Posted by
Tourist in MSN
Heart rate? I have been using a heart rate monitor for years. Do not have any heart problems, but I do not want to get any either, so when climbing hills I often glance at it to see if it is higher than I want it to be. Am now 69, so I am getting to an age where I want to be careful. I consider the heart rate monitor to be like the tach on a car, I have an auto transmission so do not use the tach for anything but I like to know how fast the engine is turning over. Mine is a separate heart rate monitor (chest strap type and wrist watch), not a function on my GPS.
I'm just 37 but hoping to do the same for my next tour. I can be bad for being too "sprinty" and then burning out fast so quite interested in using HR to help keep a relative pace. I've been training on an indoor spin bike that can display HR and power (probably not real accurate but at least useful for comparing for progress) and I find I can keep my HR at about 130 pretty much indefinitely. This corresponds to my Zone 2 according to Zwift anyway. Once I get up to 150-160 I need to limit those to shorter efforts or I'll burn out.
To reply to the OP:
I just got the Edge Explore 2 and it seems like it should do everything you need, obviously at a higher cost than you initially targeted though.
Weather hasn't been good enough for cycling (by my standards
) since I bought it so haven't been able to test beyond a spin around the block. But I've been pleased with how much you can customize your data screens. New to the Edge computers so I'm sure this is all old news but thought it was great to have a denser screen with more metrics (including HR, cadence and grade) and a simpler one for more casual riding where it shows only speed, distance and time of day.