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Tuesday, May 17, 2011

Satellite Surveillance

     I'm using a Garmin 305 as my heart rate monitor/cycling computer this year. It's my first try at GPS tracking. So far I love it! You can display up to 4 data fields at once, which is great for running and riding. You don't have to punch a bunch of buttons to see the data you want. It's a little big, but I don't mind at all on the bike mount and it's hardly noticeable when it's on my wrist. The biggest reason I chose it was its versatility with triathlons. You can use the quick release mount and quickly swap it from bike to wrist which is perfect for triathlons. You can also set it change settings when you press the Lap button. So I can program it to change from Swim setting to Bike when I hit Lap the first time, then it will go from Bike to Run settings when I hit Lap a second time. Too cool!

     It also comes with Google Earth export capabilities. I can export any ride file to Google Earth and get a satellite image of the course I used. Here's a few examples.


Race course for the Gainesville, FL SERC race.


Chickasaw Trace Classic race course. Very hard to follow the tightness of this course from the satellite.


SERC race course from the Tsali Trails in Bryson City, NC. 14 mile loop

     I have amused myself for hours with the Google Earth features. Its a cool piece of training equipment, definately worth looking at if you are in the market for a mulitfunctional GPS. And the price isn't too bad on Amazon either.

1 comment:

  1. when in google earth make sure you zoom in and change the viewing angle a little. kind of neat to see all the ridges that hide your trail and why that steep section was so damn hard to go up (or fun to go down).

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