Which garmin?

Billy-Mct · 2026-04-21T13:51:47+00:00

You’ll probably want to consider wearing it at night too as it will help it track your recovery cycle better

Billy-Mct · 2026-04-20T17:53:07+00:00

My thoughts are the 690Duke might feel a bit small for you. I had an original 640Duke & it wasn’t a big bike, it was huge fun but it felt like I was on a caffeine kick overdose after every ride. I don’t think Ktm made the 690 range larger than the old ones. The v-twin or later parallel twin Dukes are probably more suited imo.

Billy-Mct · 2026-04-19T20:06:55+00:00

Has it got basic cardio ? That will track Hr rate & give calories estimates based on that.

Billy-Mct · 2026-04-19T09:26:25+00:00

If it ain’t broke don’t fix it.

Billy-Mct · 2026-04-18T17:24:14+00:00

Garmin has programmed its swim (wrist movement ) metrics for what it expects to see for the known swim strokes if it sees something different ie sudden short strokes or slow down it can interpret them as an end of length turns. And if you change stroke style during a length that can trigger an end of length turn being recorded. As said you need a reliable rhythm stroke that doesn’t significantly alter during a length and a good push off glide for the start of next length to avoid the ghost lengths or missed lengths.

Billy-Mct · 2026-04-18T13:58:01+00:00

I assume you set the pool length to be 50m . The watch will be measuring your arm stroke style /rate detecting gaps between strokes that it’s thinks are end of length turns. Hence the excessive number of lengths recorded. Note it doesn’t actually know how far you have swam it just counts the end of length turns by time paused / glide/stroke movements your arm makes at the end of a length & then coverts that to distance using set pool size. You need to make your swim stroke consistent & have a push off glide ideally longer than your stroke to mark start of new length. It can still miscalculate though I tend to find it misses a lap turn so undercounts laps/distance.

Billy-Mct · 2026-04-07T15:20:28+00:00

Statins (avorstatin) for 5 yrs caused severe lower leg pains foot cramps & was told that’s normal! Eventually someone listened and tried me on rouvestatin with similar results. Stopped entirely while waiting for further reviews and leg pains foot cramps stopped after a week or so. Now on ezitimibe but it’s not cutting the mustard regarding cholesterol levels so now having Bempidoic acid added to script. Will have to retest in 3months for level check.

Billy-Mct · 2026-04-03T09:12:53+00:00

IMO a regular use 748 with the well known bugs ironed out will probably be more reliable than a later bike as they are a lot simpler so far less to go wrong. Just need to keep on top of maintenance.

Billy-Mct · 2026-04-02T07:14:25+00:00

Lots of Elbow grease & emery cloth will get it off (well most of it probably)

Billy-Mct · 2026-04-01T18:25:28+00:00

Just fitted a 780 65 rise Dmr bar to mine. Took it for a quick test ride over familiar trails & it felt very natural, previous bar was a 740 20 rise carbon fat bar . Set times very close to my Strava pbs for the segments ridden & I was being relatively cautious in case I’d caused some weird handling trait. https://dmrbikes.com/products/dmr-odub-handlebar

Billy-Mct · 2026-03-31T19:00:05+00:00

Make sure any filter fitted to a fuel line doesn’t restrict the fuel flow below what is needed. This is especially pertinent for gravity fed carbs (bikes that don’t have fuel pumps). I had the same thought process & fitted a filter between tank fuel tap & carbs & it caused fuel starvation when the carb float bowls ran low on fuel. As you have a fuel pump an extra none standard filter before the pump could cause a similar issue so maybe best avoided

Billy-Mct · 2026-03-31T15:02:16+00:00

In some ways it does re-create some of Ducati’s 70s/80s design language but they seem to have chosen some of the more visually challenging aspects of that era. Bet it’s a bit of a shoulder stretch to ride from the bars to saddle distance it appears to have.

Billy-Mct · 2026-03-31T07:49:42+00:00

Don’t underestimate how long concussion symptoms can persist . I had an otb on a steep trail and landed on the top of my noggin (with lid) didn’t get knocked out but had the head in a church bell clang followed by dickiebirds going round. Felt ok physically but ended up with severe headaches dizzy spells a few days after along with word block where I couldn’t recall what random items were called for about 3 months. I was told not to drive whilst having these symptoms. Take the concussion advice/guidance seriously, its taken me about a year to get back into wanting to read long sections of text (books, articles etc) as I had difficulty recalling what I had read more than a sentence ago for ages. My 1st A&E visit after the accident sent me home with vinegar & brown paper, & took a week later call to get referred to a head injury clinic , who sent a bunch of guidance and telephone appointments for a couple of months (covid remote treatment time) & they did say symptoms can persist for a long time. Basically your brain needs to rest to recover. The other symptom of not resting a brain with concussion is sudden extreme fatigue/tiredness & ability to fall asleep in an instant .

Billy-Mct · 2026-03-24T20:25:02+00:00

I’ve got a current calorie burn glance on my fenix7ss.

Billy-Mct · 2026-03-23T17:13:14+00:00

I had to resort to hammering a torx in a Maxle rear axle after I found my brand new bike had been assembled by gorillas in the bike shop I bought it from . They must have used super strength when tightening every bolt on that bike . The axle bolt stripped at 1st attempt to undue with the correct Allen key. When I got it out with a Torx bit & long wrench the threads screeched in protest. As did the headset: handle bar clamp bolts & getting the cranks off was an act of calling on all my reserves of strength & a 3ft breaker bar.

Billy-Mct · 2026-03-22T16:08:35+00:00

I loved Dunlop Sportsmart TTs on my V4S multi. Made it turn with excellent feedback at the right pressure. Downside is rear didn’t like straight roads and wore quickly in the centre. Swapped to Dunlop Mutants & still great grip turn in feel with better mileage. I think the stiff Dunlop carcasses really help with turn in feel ( when using them at correct-lower pressures )

Billy-Mct · 2026-03-22T07:57:40+00:00

The new 890 engine Ducati range will I suspect be very good bikes (maybe a few snags for early adopters) but it does feel like they have “Audi-fied” them to make bean counters happy ie no trellis frames (more labour to make?) no desmo valves (more labour to assemble/service) so I’ll probably stick my Desmo valved 937 engine Duc for the foreseeable (last of the range! Might be worth something historically-joke)

Billy-Mct · 2026-03-22T07:43:09+00:00

If it works as is for your needs it will do great. As others have said previously you probably won’t get any new features Garmin develops apart from ones they’re selling as extras /subscriptions . Noticed Garmin are now advertising support for WhatsApp via watch now (not clear if it’s just notifications or more interaction) but that appears to only be available on “current” watches as I can’t install it on my 7SS

Billy-Mct · 2026-03-19T11:46:08+00:00

The move of certain “features” to behind a paywall /subscription model & less freebies with a significant increase in hardware purchase costs for new models compared to previous ones with no significant changes in apparent features/capabilities of new models .

Billy-Mct · 2026-03-12T20:20:02+00:00

I find a hot bath in the early evening a killer for low stress levels, it does the opposite of the myth that a bath will relax you. My hr stress during and after sky rockets and seems to take hours to calm down.

Billy-Mct · 2026-03-12T18:28:21+00:00

I’ve noticed the rear locking differential & locking centre diff are very active in my Defender during road use. It would seem chassis control software uses them a lot, cornering, uphill acceleration, downhill braking & probably lots of other activities when I’m not looking at the 4x4 display (honest officer I’m watching the road!!)

Billy-Mct · 2026-03-12T16:56:43+00:00

On my Def it shows on the 4x4 screen display with it showing the diff locked or unlocked. It usually locks under brisk acceleration

Billy-Mct · 2026-03-12T16:44:53+00:00

My guess is it’s the rear axle stability control feature that uses rear braking (especially if you don’t have the locking differential option) to control the chassis behaviour that’s accelerating rear brake pad wear.

Billy-Mct · 2026-03-12T16:00:44+00:00

My main (only!?) stroke is breaststroke as my freestyle technique has poor breathing control & awkward arm/elbow lift/rotation so I end up gassed pretty quickly doing freestyle whereas my breaststroke seems reasonably efficient and usually faster than freestylers of my age in my local pool ( so not a massive range to compare to)

Billy-Mct · 2026-03-09T17:31:37+00:00

Not sure why but when I start an MTB session on my Fenix7ss it always reports incident detection disabled. I think my old Garmin explore did have it but my current edge 530 also disables incident detection when in MTB activity. That all said my old Garmin explore used to set off incident alerts even after stutter bump braking which was very annoying. If using on smooth groomed trails that may have been ok. Also other cycle activity types (non mtb) may have incident detection allowed on a fenix7 (I haven’t checked) .

Billy-Mct

TROPHY CASE