Originally Posted by Jarery
IM a skydiving instructor in my other life, on the weekends. I have several altimeters i have and ocasionaly take one with me to measure the climbing i do.
http://www.usairnet.com/cgi-bin/skyd...meters&lid=100
Those are typical ones used in skydiving. Almost every city has a skydiving drop zone somewhere not too far away. Call em up, and see what they sell just a basic altimeter for. Might be able to get one for $50-$100 bucks. It wont be fancy or come with cycling functions, but it'll tell you your altitude.
I never thought of that. As long as it is small enough to carry around, I don't really need it much since I mostly ride the same places every time. Once I check the altitudes for each hill - maybe 2-3 times for consistency sake - that's about it. I don't need hardly any of the things your link showed. I just need to have it tell me the altitude for where I am at the moment. I can write it down for each hill and plug the numbers into a computer later since there is minimal change in where I ride.
However, from what I could make out from the link you gave, it seems that some of them, at least, give pretty big increments - like 250 feet - and I guess you make your best eyeball estimate of where in that range it is. These are the analog ones with a dial. Are the ones with a digital readout really accurate. After all, I would guess that in an airplane for skydiving, whether you are at 1000 feet or 1050, it makes minimal difference. But if you are riding up a hill that is only a half mile long, the altitude is very limited in how much it will change. So something that is +/- 20 feet might be a substantial factor.