PhysicsDiet.com

I was planning on running tomorrow. The weather is supposed to be pretty good in the morning - warm with a chance of light showers. But my left hip is still a little tender. I think I'll give it one more day of rest and run Saturday.

I was able to go out for a bike ride this evening. That was an unexpected surprise. We were supposed to have thunderstorms all afternoon. But the storms stayed to the west of us for the most part. That gave me chance to get out in 80 degree weather. There was a major headwind for the first half of my ride. But that didn't take away from pleasure of my first 45 minute ride in shorts and short sleeves.

Last week we went bike shopping. I wanted a bike that I could ride on the road and on some of the local bike trails. I decided I needed a hybrid bike.

After doing some research the Trek hybrids looked promising. At the low end of the price range, the Trek hybrids are a great value.

I didn't want a Trek 7200 or 7300 though. I wanted something more like the old 7200 FX or 7300 FX. But I couldn't find any information on the FX series on Trek's site. I suspected the 7X00 FX series got replaced by the 7.X FX series for 2006. But I couldn't confirm that.

When we got to the bike shop I was able to confirm that the 2006 7.2 FX did indeed replace the 2005 7200 FX. The bike shop had a 7.2 FX in stock so I took it for a test ride. I really liked it but at $410 it was a bit more than I wanted to spend.

I noticed that the bike shop had some 2005 models on clearance. I asked if they had a 2005 7200 FX. They did, and it was only $324. Since it is basically the same bike, with the exception of a few minor upgrades on the 2006, I decided to save $80 and go with the 2005 model. I used the $80 I saved to buy the cadence and speed sensors for my heart rate monitor.

After riding my bike for a week I am very happy with it. I don't have anything to compare it to, but there is nothing about it that I dislike.

We got my wife a 2006 Trek 7000. She hasn't ridden hers as much as I've ridden mine, but so far she loves it. I'd show you a picture of it, but Trek's site is seriously broken and I can't find the women's version of the 7000 on their site.

We got a Schwinn trailer for our 3 year old. And we got new bikes for two of our older girls. We are now ready for the year of the bike

I recently bought a Polar S625X Heart Rate Monitor. I love it.

My stationary bike has a heart rate monitor built in. But I wanted to be able to monitor my heart rate while doing other exercises. I also wanted something that would help me stay in the right heart rate zones while doing interval training. And I wanted to be able to download the heart rate data to my computer and track my workouts over time.

I knew I'd be getting a bike, ideally I wanted a heart rate monitor that would help my track my cycling workouts too. I also wanted something to help me track running and swimming workouts.

The S625X fit the bill perfectly. It comes with a foot pod that you attach to your shoe. The foot pod monitors your steps so the heart rate monitor can track how fast you are walking or running and how far you have traveled. That makes the S625X a heart rate monitor and a running computer combined.

The foot pod is water resistant so you can use it in the rain. It is surprising light weight so you don't notice it on your shoe.

The accuracy of the foot pod technology isn't perfect. It is best to attach it to your shoe the same way every time you use it. And you should also calibrate it. Even then it isn't perfect. But it is good enough for my purposes.

The S625X is also water resistant to 30 meters. So you can use the watch and the heart rate transmitter in the pool. Heart Rate monitors don't always work for all people in the pool. I haven't tested mine in the pool yet so I'm not sure if it will work for me or not. But even if the heart rate monitor doesn't work while I'm swimming I can still use the stopwatch features on the watch to track my swim workouts.

The S625X can also be used as a cycling computer. You can purchase the speed sensor to track the speed and distance of your cycling workouts. You can add the cadence sensor to monitor your pedaling rate. Those sensors cost about $40 each. There is also a power meter available that let's you monitor the power you are producing on the bike. But that is much more expensive at about $350.

The S625X can communicate with your computer using infrared or sound. It comes with Polar Precision Performance (PPP) software that lets track your workouts.

So far I'm very happy with the S625X. I just got the speed sensor and the cadence sensor for my bike. They both work well. The foot pod works well enough. I could have gotten a GPS based heart rate monitor. But the GPS monitors are much bigger than the S625X. And I have plenty of experience with GPS and I know how unreliable it can be in certain situations.