Who knows where the time goes?

(pdf version here)

"Who knows where the time goes?" asked Judy Collins from my dad's record player when I was a kid (the first time). With my new bike toy - the Garmin 705 GPS/bike computer - I have a bit of an answer to that question, at least for a ride. I still can't figure out a decent way to navigate with the damn thing, but I love all the data I get when I'm done.

In the plot of time vs. distance, the vertical segments show where time passed but distance did not - i.e., where I was stopped. On the pre-ride, we previewed the Farmer control (and used the outhouses), but without any support there, we had to stop for water at the bottom of McNeil Canyon at Beebe Park. Next, a nice sit-down lunch in Pateros. With no manned control near Twisp on the pre-ride we stopped at the store in Carlton on the way up the Methow and regrouped. Stops at the Omak and Grand Coulee controls were augmented with a brief stop at the store in Nespelem and one at the (heated!) bathrooms at the Dry Falls overlook. Total time off the bike - 2 hours, 40 minutes.

The line shows slow pace as steeper slope (more time, less distance) and fast pace as shallower slope (more distance, less time). The correlation to the overlaid elevation chart is unsurprising - to me or to anyone that's seen me climb.