Can you hear me, Major Tom?

From Wikipedia:

"Buyer's remorse is thought to stem from cognitive dissonance, specifically post-decision dissonance, that arises when a person must make a difficult decision, such as a heavily invested purchase between two similarly appealing alternatives. Factors that affect buyer's remorse may include: resources invested, the involvement of the purchaser, whether the purchase is compatible with the purchaser's goals, feelings encountered post-purchase that include regret."

I wasn't even out the front door at Bike Source before I felt like running back to the counter and begging for my money back this past Sunday.

I'd mentioned a couple weeks ago that if I'm gonna continue to keep doing longer events, I need to start keeping track of my current status in some fashion.  My days of blindly feeling my way around the woods with a number plate on my bike, burning matches willy nilly, slowly losing my desire to continue breathing and moving...

Those days might be behind me.

Not knowing if I've been out for one hour or three, if I'm ten miles from the finish or ten feet, if I should have drank one water bottle or three, if I have any matches left to burn or am I on my last one?

I went all in with the full bundle Wahoo Elemnt Bolt.  I knew I'd want the front hub wart anyways. 

I hate how it looks, but the only thing I would hate more would be getting a bunch of GPS (in)accurate numbers whilst twisting and turning in the woods.  Those folks that say just add 5-10% to your total distance numbers... because your $300 computer isn't as precise as my old $35 Cateye Mini?  Those people should not talk to me.  On a practice commute this week, I hit a wart-free 41.1MPH on my tarck bike (48X18)... ummmmm, no.

The bundle also had a heart rate monitor strap, and that was something that I'm actually interested in for what I'll call "reasons."  Back in 2016, I listened to a podcast about "older athletes," and my only takeaway was how important it is to not burn up your matches early on in a race.  You only get so many trips above your lactate threshold, and then you're dead, figuratively speaking.  My friend Aaron assuaged my stupid desires and loaned/gave me a wrist mounted device, which I had limited success with when using it to do anything other than monitor my sleep efficiency.

I couldn't see it while riding without taking my hand off the bars, sometimes I'd have trouble getting it to function (my fault), or it would lose my pulse and basically become an expensive bracelet.  I gave up on using pretty quickly.

I hate chest straps, and I haven't used one since the mid-90s when I thought I was an "athlete."  I also realize that I'm a stubborn moron who doesn't know what's good for him.  I easily get caught up in the furious pace at the start of a race in an effort to... keep up with some random guy I don't know who's on a single speed... or something stupid as that.  Burnt matches tossed left and right, leaving me gassed halfway through the event with nothing inside me except regret and sadness.

So now I'll have a tachometer and also look as good as my buddy Watts.

And I'll be the guy who knows the top of Wheeler is at blah blah blah elevation, and I'm currently at blee blee blee elevation etc etc etc.

I'm gonna use this thing for a bunch of other stuff, but for the sake of brevity, I'll just keep all that to myself.  I didn't mount the cadence wart... which surely means the bundle savings is all but null and void... but I'm on a single speed, so my cadence is what it is.

I waded right down into the deep end of the buyer's remorse pool until my head was well under water.  If I end up figuring out that this purchase was undoubtedly asinine, at least I'll have purchased that knowledge VS all the FOMO in the "what if?" lobe of my brain.  It does bother me so to put such a thing on my simple riding machine, and I have to admit that I was ready to throw it across the room when I got home and spent at least two minutes just trying to find the power button.

If anyone wants to start a death pool taking bets on how long it will be before I give up on this thing and sell it like a so many complicated geared bikes of the past, please feel free.

Oh, and when I mentioned on Monday that you can mount a Garmin to the aluminum mounting brackets for the CubiCubi lights...

Of course I thought that my Wahoo would fit on there and of course it's totally but only slightly different and doesn't work at all.

Meh.

Some would say I sold my soul, whilst I would argue that I already lost it in a game of Quarters years ago.