Professional Cycling - Tour GPS systems?

I just saw the "Lance Interview" and he mentioned the GPS systems the bikes were equipped with.
Are there consumer versions? And if so, what's the advantage over a regular hand held (bar mounted)?

The GPS unit attached to all TDF bike only transmits data to race officials. It wouldn't be of use to your average rider.

I believe that the actual GPS units were on the motorcycles following the riders and not on the bikes. If there were two groups that both had a motorcycle with them you got the info if not then you did not really know. I believe although I have no idea from what Bobke told us that the yellow things were really just chips much the same that marathoners run with on their shoes or triathletes wear on their wrist I believe it is. As for GPS for you bike. You could mount of some of the smaller models now but a map works well or I usually go with remember the turns you took and retrace them and have a phone for when it is dark and you are lost. But you find some good routes this way too.

Timex makes a system called the bodylink, Its a trialthlete favorite. Its a chest strap, wrist watch, and gps unit. It records Heart rate data, and uses the GPS as a cyclecomputer, calculating speed, distance, altitude, elevation etc...The GPS also works on the run, telling you your mile splits, and distance, etc.....

It's less than $300.00 US I believe, and its pretty cool, the GPS unit is pretty small too. I was impressed.

I am not impressed with the Timex. I will be calling them soon to see if either they can 1) resolve the many glitches I've come across or 2) take back the over $2000. worth of monitors and the bodylink system I got. The GPS does NOT detect, and it certainly does NOT work overseas as they claimed it did. Plus, suddenly, after time, the data recorder goes on the blink, literally, and they claim they have no resolution for this. And when I mean on the blink, I mean literally AND figuratively- you get a no data transmission a steady blinking red light (indicating the data recorder is not picking up a signal). Plus, the data recorder will start and stop sporadically while you're exercising, so when you upload and look at the graphs, instead of getting one big graph of your workout, you end up with several smaller graphs where the monitor arbitrarily turns on and off, so it looks like you did several different workouts instead of one.

*sigh* I had high hopes for the Timex system. I put in an order in October 2003 and had to wait until April 2004 before they finally shipped the backordered supplies. I bought 15 watches and data recorders and one bodylink, and so far, I haven't had a lot of success with anything they've sent. There are other problems too, but just too numerous to list. Right now, I would advise people NOT to get it until they work through the glitches and can put out their next generation of the bodylink, whenever that happens, of course, since we don't know when they'll even acknowledge there is a problem.

Koffee