I believe gadgets help me ride my bike faster, better higher etc.

It makes perfect sense.  Take your mind off any sensations of muscle fatigue, breathlessness, dizziness and concentrate your mind on some cleaver little device telling you something interesting.  More to the point, concentrating on something which is hopefully telling you how well you’re going - despite the pain. 

So I have decided that I will never perform at my best unless I have a fancy heart rate monitor, more exactly the Polar S725x which looks like it’s made from carbon fibre (making anything look like carbon fibre immediately increases a the value by at least 50% if not 100%).  It’s about $300, that’s $200 for the device and $100 for the carbon.

If you think that’s a bit too much, just wait until you hear what it does.  It’s more than just a heart rate monitor!  It’s a watch (I think), but it also links up to your bike to measure how fast you’re wheels are spinning.  AND! it has an altitude function which monitors the air pressure and tells you how high you’ve gone up and down, unless the weather is changing of course then it just tells you about impending rain, but even that is handy!  Then, if you’ve got money to burn and legs to burn as well, you can get an energy measuring kit, which tells you how many watts you’re pumping out! 

On a side note:  I found out when I was young, that measuring your output in watts if you’re a skinny kid is very disappointing.  I found out, the energy I put out racing up some steps (in record time!) is about the same a big fat kid puts out while they’re standing in line at MacDonald’s.  Teacher’s words, “don’t worry Miles, 60W is a big figure for you…” !!

I won’t bother with the energy stuff, but I’m not completely satisfied with what the S725x is offering.  Why don’t these things include a GPS?  A GPS would be fantastic, with the height stuff, (do they do height anyway?) and the wheel speed, and the heart rate.  You could look at the data at the end of the day and know all sort of interesting (but ultimately useless info).  But the GSP could be useful at the time as well.  I’ve been lost before! Or finding those hidden tracks?  I don’t know, I’m sure it could be very useful for all sorts of things that I haven’t thought of…

Sadly, it doesn’t look like Polar is going to bring out a GPS model any time soon, (plus it would be even more expensive!)
So I am wondering if I can turn my PDA phone into a cycling companion?  Here’s what I’m thinking:

1. I can get a GPS thing for it (a Bluetooth one) I know this. 
2. I can upload street maps to it as well, a nice little side benefit of the GPS.
3. But can I get the other measurements into it as well?  Bike speed?  Altitude?  Heart rate?
4. Is making you’re own Bluetooth device hard?

So, is it possible?  Does there happened to be a bluetooth bike computer out there?  Or a heart rate monitor?
How good is GPS these days at measuring altitude and speed second by second.  (The speed is important, as you want to know you’re top speed is a real one, and not just a glitch in the GPS reception.)

I guess the Polar thingy, and a GPS for the phone would have all the ingredients, but I really don’t want to have two things hanging around.

I’ll look into it!

This entry was posted on Thursday, September 7th, 2006 at 11:29 am and is filed under My thoughts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.