Polar S510 & S710 users.

Here's something very obvious I never thought about! :-[ If you're doing a long ride or race & you stop for a break, leak, fix a puncture etc. After a certain interval, about 10 minutes I think, if you have moved away from the bike, the watch, mounted on the bike, will stop receiving a signal from your chest HR transmitter and will auto switch off out of measure/record mode & back to "time of day". Then you must restart as a "new" ride! Very obvious when you think about it!! : So either wear your watch on your wrist or stay within a couple of metres from your bike.

 

I wear my S510 around my wrist for a reason. If I do fall and I'm out cold, at least my watch goes with me to the hospital. If its on the bike, someone is bound to nick it at the race bike compound.

 

As I said, this loss of signal if you move away from the bike is obvious! So obvious that you wouldn't make the same mistake twice?? : This morning I go out on the MTB for a 3 hour ride, mostly single track. The guys are getting a lot of flats, (probably not using tyre liners!). After about 2 hours it's getting warm & I'm waiting for my mate to fix his flat. So, what do I do? I lay the bike on the side of the track and move about 5-10 metres under a tree!!! : : :

VO2. Yes, it's probably good thinking to keep it on your wrist. These things are a lot of money to go missing!

 

you dont have to restart it. Lean over the bike with the chest strap close to the monitor. It will beep when it picks up the signal, then display you threshholds and you can continue.

Used this many times on training rides when I had a flat.

 

Ouzo. What happens with the S710 is that if you move move more than about 2m from the bike mounted monitor you lose the HR signal, then after 5 min with no signal the monitor goes into "time of day" mode to save battery. Only way back then is a restart. But have decided this is not too much of a problem.

VO2. Tried it on my wrist on the MTB on Monday. With all the corrugations couldn't read it or work the buttons! Did 60km this morning on the road. MEANT to try it on my wrist but forgot! :

 

I think it might be abit difficult on a MTB. I've become used to it on my wrist. It also stops me from continually glancing at my heart rate when I'm taking some strain.

 

I mount it on the handlebars. Have not had the problem with moving away from the bike, but wearing it around the wrist might be a good idea Vo2. Will the cadence and speed sensor pick it up?

 

Yep, no problem!

 

Greetings, I have a S710 and I am trying to set the HR zone limits. The Polar software will not let me set a HR close to my max. I manually try to type the number in and nothing happens. For example I set my max to 196, my upper zone (5c in Friel's book) is 183+, I am unable to input this value. This is under options>person properties>HR zones.
Has anyone else had this problem.

Thanks
Joe C

 

I can't get the 510 to effectively transmit to the handlebar let alone my left wrist. Polar requires 8 1/8" distance. My bar is not even close to that distance. I've read several other similar comments like "can't use the S510 as a bike computer." Any suggestions?

 

You can't get the watch to pickup the chest sensor or the bike sensor?

 

I wish I was a Polar S510 & S710 user :'(

Why is the 710 so hard to get hold of?

 

At least in JH the S710 is becoming more available. In the last two weeks I have seen it at Alan van Heerden, Sportman's warehouse in Fourways and Morningside cycles - only wish they cost slighly less than than an arm and a leg.

 

Gary. Contact Polar in Finland at http://www.polar.fi They will have a solution for you.
Black Knight. Yeah, a hell of a lot of money but the S710 is a great HRM. Just wish the d**n thing wouldn't keep switching off at the halfway break on a ride. You then end up with TWO separate records for the whole ride. You CAN restart it, as someone posted, by bringing your chest close to the watch but it restarts as a new ride! :'(

 

I have the s410 (what was available at the time). If you are recording your ride, you can pause it by pressing the stop button once. This might give you the hour that it will usually go before it resets.

 

Gotta confess, I have never had the problem with losing the reading on my S510. I do however take it off the bike mount when I do stop. Vo2, do you have nother bike computer mounted on your bike as well? I do find that I check my heart rate too much while cycling, but I just "have" to check my cadence and time.

If you do mount another computer, how did you mount both cadence meters? I have a Sigma BC1400 and have thought about putting both on, but the cadence sensors are giving my hassles as my Polar Cadence sensor is mounted on the rear of my bike.

 

I wonder if you can combine the files in Notepad or a similar program? It shouldnt be to hard to do since the overal size of each file is very small.

Can someone post an example of how the data is stored in a typical file from the 510 or 710? I'd check this myself but dont have access to any from work

 

Steve, I've tried it with my 510 files. The files are easily readable + editable but the problem comes in with the time below, in and above the heartrate zones. I've tried calculating it by hand and then importing the data, but it does not work.

 

bummer, maybe we could annoy ploar to put out a patch for their software so it can do it ;D

 

FYI

This guy wrote a program that merges Polar HRM files. I've tried the file merging a couple of times and it works fine. You can dump the multiple files and just attach the one file to your workout after the merge.

It also does some curve smoothing/averaging on the power curve. I haven't thoroughly tested the whole thing though.

http://home.t-online.de/home/fabian.huester/polar/

S