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#11
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I purchased a Timex "Bodylink" at the beginning of the summer and have been
using it regularly. It includes a watch, chest HR transmitter, and a small gps device that Timex refers to as a "speed/distance sensor". The gps device is approximately 3" x 3" x 1.5" and I would guess that it weighs about 4 ounces. The gps device can be worn with an elastic strap around the upper arm or can be clipped on to a belt or fanny pack. Since, shortly after I purchased the unit, I suffered an ankle/tendonitis injury, I haven't run with the device. I do use it extensively on my bike. I clip the gps device to the saddlebag and strap the watch on to the handlebar where I can easily view it. I've rollerskied with it attached to my water bottle waist belt. I've even measured some of my favorite open water lake swims, by putting the gps device in a small waterproof pouch and attaching it to the HR monitor strap on my back. (The gps device is water-resistant but not waterproof.) Here's some pro's and con's of the system Positives You only have to wear one watch which can display time/heart rate/speed & distance info. Its very easy to toggle through the display options. The watch can display three different readings at once: (i.e., elapsed time/HR/distance or lap time/HR/pace or elapsed time/HR/speed, etc. - there' s a ton of different options) The watch is easy to read and to use. The various toggle buttons actually make sense! (This hasn't always been true for Timex watches in the past.) The heart rate monitor works really well right from the moment you put on the chest transmitter. (I've had problems with Polar HR monitors in the past not giving accurate readings until about 10 or 20 minutes into an activity.) The distance readings are dead-on accurate! The gps device works on two small AA batteries. The watch will tell you when the batteries are getting low. Negatives It only records one workout at a time. At the end of a workout, you have to write down or enter the information somewhere (it does have a download feature which I didn't purchase), because when you restart the stopwatch it will erase all previous data. You can, of course, record multiple laps of one workout. Only the average & current heart rates are recorded. It doesn't record Max HR. It will tell you how much time you spent in a certain HR zone, average HR per lap, etc. You need a relatively open sky above you. It starts to lose its signal in heavy tree cover. The watch does have a "speed and distance smoothing" option which, I assume, averages out the rate & distance of travel if satellite signals are missed. All in all, I've been really pleased with it. Can't wait to use it on the snow! Rick Mitchell "J999w" wrote in message ... I believe this has been covered before, but just a quick note saying that I've been using my GPS as a hiking odometer and I like it. I can go off trail, up and down steep hills taking whatever sized step suits the terrain and not worry about it throwing my distance off. Can also be used biking, skiing, blading, paddling, etc. I put it in a fanny pack and forget about it, works great. Can also be used for Geocache hunting! (why I have it in the first place). That's all. jw milwaukee |
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#12
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All you US GPS'ers out there should check out endlesspursuit.com and
topofusion.com. Pretty incredible stuff - calculates everything you could possibly be interested even average power output, total calories burned, and you can get some mind-blowing maps. Endlesspursuit is focused more on athletic accomplishments, while topofusion is a little more map-oriented with some incredible 3-d features that I used for mapping some trails that we built this summer. I wore my GPS in a few races this year and posted them on the web site. Check out the Owl Creek Chase from Snowmass to Aspen: Go to www.endlesspursuit.com Select "Community", then "Search for a trek". enter Owl Creek Chase in the text field, "natrons" in the author field. Once you get there, click on analysis and you can see all the info they calculate. 1450 calories in 1:10. No wonder I'm hungry all the time. -Nathan "Terje Mathisen" wrote in message ... Marsh Jones wrote: I'm still curious about the update period for the barometric units. I wonder if they can be accurate enough to handle the short, quick transitions at somewhere like the Birkie at ski speeds. Hiking, they certainly should. In any case, they are all cool toys. I'm still not sure I'll take it to the BWCA next week, though. The barometer is used together with the GPS signals to compute a new 3D position every second, but as you note, it is possible that a very short/quick dump might be skipped entirely. At the same time as the barometer is used for short-term altitude differences, the GPS altitude is used to calibrate the barometer, with a time constant of about 3 hours. Terje -- - "almost all programming can be viewed as an exercise in caching" |
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