On 2005-07-05, reggiefu <
[email protected]> wrote:
> So, Donovan, you dislike each of them differently?
No, about the same.
A GPS will help prevent you from getting lost in the woods. It will
also give you a reasonable estimate of total distance travelled. It
is nowhere near accurate enough to measure a course for the purpose
of time-trialing, or to get a satisfactory estimate on how fast you're
going. For example, for the purpose of logging mileage, you don't
really care if the unit reads 10.2 miles instead of 10.0. But for the
purpose of measuring pace, that's about a 7-10 second/mile difference,
quite significant.
Since you have a bike, get a bike computer and use that. You will get
better measurements than you would with a GPS (in fact they use bike
odometers to certify road race courses.)
> What would you suggest as a better alternative?
Use the bike odometer.
If you want to be really, really accurate (as good as a certified
course), take a look at this website:
http://home.earthlink.net/~caverhall/newrevcounter/abstractcontents.htm
> I want the HRM and have used Polar
> for years, but have never used a GPS and would like to incorporate
> that.
Don't see how it would help you. Unless you're running wooded trails
and are concerned about getting lost, that is. The 'P' in GPS does not
stand for 'speed' or 'velocity'. The technology was never intended to
be very effective for instantaneous pace readouts, in fact it's not
even that great for average pace.
Cheers,
--
Donovan Rebbechi
http://pegasus.rutgers.edu/~elflord/