Originally Posted by
Lazarus Short
Forget the compass! Stash a 12V motorcycle battery in your bike bag and hook it up to a GPS unit, which can give you your speed, direction, compass orientation, elevation, map, and a host of other information, even where to go for supplies, food, etc. I have a Tom-Tom unit I'm putting on my bike when the weather warms up.
Having things that are less prone to failure isn't really a bad thing. Not sure why you'd run one of those either, when you could run something that uses smaller batteries and is much more rugged.
That said, I would just get a normal compass and clip it to something, then take it off if you need to get your bearings real quick. I've got a pocket transit that I used to use a lot when I did field work pretty often, now it mostly serves as a mirror when I shave etc. but it's nice to have the extra functionality.