There was a time, for decades, if not centuries, when a watch provided us with the time. We would wear it in a pocket, attached to a chain, we would stare up at a clock tower and we would see the time. We might even hear church bells to indicate every quarter, half and full hour. In the last decade we have gone from wearing watches to tell time, to watches that quantify us.
Since Strava has decided to sue Garmin, and since Suunto has decided to sue Garmin as well, for different reasons, I feel now is a good opportunity to remind ourselves of how to upload to Garmin and Strava manually.
Exporting to Strava Garmin If you record an activity with a Garmin device, you can navigate to connect.garmin.com, log in and go to the activity. You can export file, TCX or GPX.
In the 2000s I was using a Nokia N95 8gb with Sports tracker to track my walks every day. Eventually, when I started scuba diving I switched to Suunto to track dives, and eventually wore one for hikes, and then I upgraded to the Suunto Ambit 2, 3, Spartan Wrist HR Baro and then the Peak 5.
At the same time as I was jumping from one watch to another Sports Tracker was growing, and then Suunto bought it, and it became Movescount and this app was truly fantastic.
It is irrational and absurd for Strava to sue one of its’ most important providers of data, Garmin. Every run, hike, climb and other sport that I have done for years comes from either Suunto, Garmin, Apple Watch or another brand. Garmin is huge in the cycling community.
I see people with Garmin devices, wahoo devices and more. People like me have a cycling computer, and a sports tracking wrist watch.
Years ago, when Strava was newer, and more appealing I eventually decided to pay for Strava because I wanted to support the project. I wanted to help make them sustainable. The same is true with Zwift. When both of them got VC funding I ended my subscriptions rather than renewing for another year. This was years ago.
For me, it’s simple. If we are paying for a site like Strava, be patient, and use our money to improve things incrementaly.
For years I have used Sportstracker, and then Strava and Komoot and others. Whether I use one platform or another isn’t much of a concern. I can send my data everywhere. The question is whether I make that data public, private, or a hybrid compromise.
With Suunto and Sportracker I usually keep almost everything private because I can’t highlight zones that I want to keep private. With Komoot it requires cropping the start and end point to hide where you live.
A few days ago I went on a group ride. I noticed that a high percentage of bikes had bike radars so I checked to see the price of these devices once again. For a year or two I have considered getting a bike radar but didn’t because I found that the price was too high. I believe that recently either the price went down or the offer of cheaper alternatives improved.
I see people. I see them say that they have given up on wearing fitness trackers and smartwatches because they hate the tyranny of the device. I have felt an intense dislike for Apple behaves in particular. At the same time I have been playing wit Sportstracker for eighteen years or so. My fitness tracking habit is old enough to drink and old enough to drive.
This isn’t a post about drinking, or driving.
For years I wore no watch, and then I took up scuba diving, and then I wanted to wear a watch when climbing, and then it escalated from there. Now I have Garmin, Suunto Apple, Casio, Xiaomi and other watches. It’s easy to justify wearing the Apple watch because it’s a smart watch so it has a niche. It’s harder to justify the Garmin, Suunto, Xiaomi and Casio watches because they overlap each other.
I saw that a Garmin Epix (Gen 2) watch was lying unused for a few days in a row so I asked if I could borrow it to experiment with and the answer was yes so that’s the Garmin watch I am wearing now.
The watch that I usually wear is a Garmin Instinct Solar. By now it’s quite an old watch, surpased by the Garmin Instinct 2 Solar. The Garmin Instinct Solar is a solar powered watch that can charge itself, and in the right conditions remain charged for 99+ days in the right sunny conditions, and with the right usage conditions.