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[RC] The Car Analogy (was: HRM's and Increasing Intensity) - k s swigartMike Sofen said: We use a speedometer in a car to tell us how fast we're going and an odometer to tell us how far we're going. But unless we have a tachometer (or have trained our ears to recognize the different sounds the engine makes), we can't tell how fast the engine is spinning. So in a car with an engine that redlines at 5,000 rpm, if you forget to shift into 4th gear on the freeway and you have your radio cranked up and no tachometer, you're driving along until your engine explodes from running at 9,000 rpm in 3rd gear. Granted, that's a car, AND the analogy is valid. First, Kat, you're a professional horse person (at least I think you are, I could be wrong) with a long history with horses. You're not going to forget to "shift into 4th" and you're not going to have the radio cranked. You also know what 5000 rpm in a horse sounds/feels like. Newer and more casual riders in this sport won't have that knowledge base. Speaking as somebody who has towed her trailer to endurance rides all over the western US for the over ten years in a '72 Ford, 4-speed manual transmission pick-up in which the only gauge that works is the engine temperature gauge (it doesn't have and never has had a tachomoeter, the odometer, the speedometer, the ampmeter, the oil pressure, and the fuel gauges haven't worked for as long as I have owned the thing; the engine temperature gauge didn't work when I bought it, but I fixed that one when I replaced the engine). And no, I didn't drive with the radio cranked because....well...it doesn't have (and never has had) a radio, but even if it did, I wouldn't drive with it cranked since, to quote a guy I dated in college, "If you want your car to last a long time, don't drive with the radio on." Because your car is gonna start to sound funny before it starts to act funny. I cannot say, in the thousands of miles that I used that truck to tow my trailer to endurance rides that it never had any mechanical problems (and it was always a close run thing whether it would overheat going over the Baker Grade :):):) such that I always planned to drive over night when going up that way); however, I can say that I never once needed a tow. I did, once, have to replace a fuel pump on Sunday in Utah, I did miss the last two days of the Death Valley ride because it wasn't prudent to take it over the pass into Death Valley (this was back in the days when the Death Valley ride actually did go into Death Valley), and we did take the horse out of the trailer going up the grade between the Panamint Valley and Trona (where I replaced the points). Despite the fact that the gas gauge never worked, I have never run out of gas. And despite the fact that the speedometer never worked, I never got a speeding ticket...and I can tell you, within about 5mph how fast I am going. The reason, I contend, that I was able to take that POS truck all over the western US and have it get me there and back was because I paid very close attention to the way it sounded while it was driving down the road. And even though I no longer use that truck to pull my trailer (I got a deal on a diesel that I just couldn't pass up), I can still tell when pretty much any car "sounds funny." In fact, just last summer, I was visiting my dad, and as we were driving to the grocery store in his Explorer I told him, "you know, your car is making a funny noise back in the exhaust somewhere; you might want to have it looked at." He didn't....and he and my sister got stranded up at the end of a dirt road a few days later....because of a problem with the catalytic converter. This is not the first time such a thing has happened, and my father (and a lot of other people as well) has learned to pay attention to me when I tell him his car is making a funny sound. :) It is FAAAAR wiser to tell people who are first learning to drive to listen to their car than it is to tell them to look at the tachometer (not only because lots of cars don't have them :)). Certainly, when my dad taught me to drive, in a stick shift, he taught me to shift by the sound of the engine, not by what it said on the tach....because only one of our three cars even had a tach. However, the reason that drivers need to be taught to listen to their cars, and to not drive with the radio cranked, is because there is far more to listen to than just engine revs. NONE of the gauges (except that idiot "Check Engine" light that everybody ignores because it is an unreliable indicator of anything; half the time it just means you didn't turn the gas cap enough times before driving off:)) will tell you that you have a problem with your catalytic converter as well as "your car is making a funny noise." The gauges are handy, and it is helpful if they are working; but they aren't essential. I personally consider it far more important to tell people not to ride "with the radio cranked" on their horse because it is essential that you LISTEN to your horse; and my experience is, if you listen to your horse, and your horse tells you something is not quite right (i.e. it starts "making a funny noise" to carry the analogy further), you need to pay attention.....EVEN IF you then check all the gauges (assorted parameters, of which HR is only one, BTW) and they are all within normal ranges, you still need to listen to your horse's little voice that says "something isn't quite right." I am actually of the opinion that HRM's for beginners/inexperienced riders are more of a detriment than a valuable tool (that isn't to say that they can't be employed as valuable tools, just that novices aren't usually the ones to do so), because many of them make the mistake of then thinking "A HRM gives me that info unambiguously." In my experience, more people use them to reassure themselves that they aren't asking too much (when they very well might be) than to discover when they ARE asking too much.....more on that later. kat Orange County, Calif. =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Ridecamp is a service of Endurance Net, http://www.endurance.net. Information, Policy, Disclaimer: http://www.endurance.net/Ridecamp Subscribe/Unsubscribe http://www.endurance.net/ridecamp/logon.asp Ride Long and Ride Safe!! =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
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