Road Cycling - GPS for bikes

anyone use a GPS unit for tracking their rides?

i am mainly interested in altitude and %grade...my cycle computer tells me most of the rest

does the garmin forerunner 201 work well?...i know it does not have mapping capabilities...but it is small and relatively inexpensive and has a bike mount

at the top end is one like the garmin gpsmap 60cs...lots of bells and whistles...and it even has a bike mount although it is much larger than the other. one bummer is that its software is PC-only....and i have a mac

I use the 201, but the margin of error seems high when measuring altitude. Also the rechargable battery isn't sufficient for a double century touring ride. PC's are so cheap -why not have one even if you use it only for downloading your gps?

If I recall correctly the altitude/elevation reported by GPS units is +/- 50 feet. The only way to improve on the accuracy of the elevation is to have a base station that sends out a correction signal .... pretty unrealistic for cycling. I have a Garmin 12 XL and haven't used it for cycling but haven't seen the real benefit other than playing around. You might want to look into getting TOPO! software for the state you ride in. You can layout routes and develop profiles of your rides that will show you the elevation gains, losses, and distances. The slope is easy to calc from there (rise/run). The TOPO! software also works with a GPS which is pretty cool as you can upload and download the GPS waypoints. If you enjoy that kind of stuff then it is worth it but it is not really necessary. Thats my $0.02 worth....
PS A GPS is fun to take on on roadtrips and especially airline trips

i just got a forerunner 201 about three weeks ago and it works really well. i haven't used the elevation change feature, but all the speed, distance, and lap speeds and distances work great. the only problem is that when riding under very heavy trees or similar circumstances( i mean extremely heavy cover overhead) it can lose the signal.

Use it to make GPS drawings!
http://www.gpsdrawing.com/gallery/land/bboat.htm

anyone use a GPS unit for tracking their rides?

i am mainly interested in altitude and %grade...my cycle computer tells me most of the rest

does the garmin forerunner 201 work well?...i know it does not have mapping capabilities...but it is small and relatively inexpensive and has a bike mount

at the top end is one like the garmin gpsmap 60cs...lots of bells and whistles...and it even has a bike mount although it is much larger than the other. one bummer is that its software is PC-only....and i have a mac

A GPS makes an average or below average altitude indicator. I've never been one who's obsessed with finding out my exact speed, average time and all those bells and whistles. My Garmin Legend does something better. It enables me to ride anywhere I want to without getting lost without having to depend on maps. That to me is more critical than finding out my total travel time.

In fact, the mapping capabilities are overrated in my opinion. During a ride, you will not use the maps because the screne is so small and you really have to focus hard to locate where you are at on the map. The only time I will use the map is if I didn't enter any "Way Points" at the begining of the ride or I'm really lost!

The majority of the time, I'll know exactly where I'm going by getting the coordinates from an older version of Microsoft's Strees and Trips. I can enter an exact address (in Streets and Trips) and put those coordinates into my GPS for a pin point location. Entering these coordinates into the Gamin, I can head to my destination without using the Map feature and just having an arrow point me to the exact location. In fact, you'll hardly ever use the map feature because entering coordinates is just much faster easier to use in actual application. When I'm riding riding the trains, I'll get off at a station and use that as a "Way Point" so I'll always be able to get back home.

It's just an incredible device that makes touring so much easier.

Hi there,
as some people have said a GPS is a lot less accurate in altitude measurement than it is in giving your ground coordinates; however its ability to give relative altitude measurements isn't bad, meaning that if you climb for 500 feet say it will show that climb quite accurately as a height increase even though it might not be reporting the actual start/finish altitudes that well. I hope that makes sense.
Anyway, for use on a bike I find the Garmin emap to be pretty good - you can set it to show one of several screens, so that you can have a moving map with speed/distance etc. Or you can have it showing purely data fields including height.
Another option might be the Garmin Foretrex and Forerunner units; these look very versatile as they are small and light and can be worn on the wrist, yet offer most of the features of the larger non-mapping GPS units. This could be useful as I find the emap rattles around quite a bit on the bike even using Garmin's bar mount.
The links to the Garmin website are;

http://www.garmin.com/products/foretrex101/
http://www.garmin.com/products/forerunner101/

And I don't have anything to do with Garmin I've just used there stuff a lot!

I don't think any GPS is going to give you gradient measurement; it might be possible to get this information from one of the watches that have altitude/barometer features though.
Having said that I'm wondering if someone makes software that will take the downloaded GPS data and convert it to a chart showing the gradient?
Good luck with the search.

I use the 201, but the margin of error seems high when measuring altitude. Also the rechargable battery isn't sufficient for a double century touring ride. PC's are so cheap -why not have one even if you use it only for downloading your gps?
201 works great for me. Altitudemeter is much, much more accurate than any baromethere based one.

Hi there,
as some people have said a GPS is a lot less accurate in altitude measurement than it is in giving your ground coordinates; however its ability to give relative altitude measurements isn't bad, meaning that if you climb for 500 feet say it will show that climb quite accurately as a height increase even though it might not be reporting the actual start/finish altitudes that well. I hope that makes sense.
Anyway, for use on a bike I find the Garmin emap to be pretty good - you can set it to show one of several screens, so that you can have a moving map with speed/distance etc. Or you can have it showing purely data fields including height.
Another option might be the Garmin Foretrex and Forerunner units; these look very versatile as they are small and light and can be worn on the wrist, yet offer most of the features of the larger non-mapping GPS units. This could be useful as I find the emap rattles around quite a bit on the bike even using Garmin's bar mount.
The links to the Garmin website are;

http://www.garmin.com/products/foretrex101/
http://www.garmin.com/products/forerunner101/

And I don't have anything to do with Garmin I've just used there stuff a lot!

I don't think any GPS is going to give you gradient measurement; it might be possible to get this information from one of the watches that have altitude/barometer features though.
Having said that I'm wondering if someone makes software that will take the downloaded GPS data and convert it to a chart showing the gradient?
Good luck with the search.

I use Delorme Topo IV and download the track data from my Magellan Meridian and can print/display the track elevation profile easily.

Works great and I usually create a PDF file to send to my riding buddies so that they can see the track on a topo map and the elevation profile and other statistics. Nice little toy. :)

201 works great for me. Altitudemeter is much, much more accurate than any baromethere based one.

thanks for the input

i am curious about non-barometric pressure altitude meters ... every one i have seen uses barometric pressure...can you provide a link to one???

thanks !! :)

201 works great for me. Altitudemeter is much, much more accurate than any baromethere based one.

This is highly dependent on your location. In the mountains you can go miles and not get an altitude update on GPS, then suddenly pop from 1800 to 3500 feet. I'll take a barometric pressure altimeter any day in my neck of the woods.

You might want to look into getting TOPO! software for the state you ride in. You can layout routes and develop profiles of your rides that will show you the elevation gains, losses, and distances. The slope is easy to calc from there (rise/run). The TOPO! software also works with a GPS which is pretty cool as you can upload and download the GPS waypoints.

Could you post some sample bike friendly road maps from your TOPO! software? This looks like cool software, but the screen shots on the site seem more hiking related than cycling.

-murray

FYI it's compatible with Mac as well!