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Phone GPS or dedicated bike GPS?


hydrobum

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My 2cents

 

Stick to the phone - I have a Garmin Edge at home and have not used it in the last 2 years. Main reasons, larger screen size, colour display, online tracking, integrated HR (using Bluetooth sensor) and no need to download rides to PC after ride.

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I went the watch route. Got a second hand Suunto T6, added a gps device. strapped it to my handlebars. you need to manually update to movescount/strava but its seriously accurate and records a gazillion things I have no idea what to do with. There are some GPS watches available in the classifieds and if you dont mind a few scratches your wallet wont either

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I have been using the Garmin Forerunner 305 for years now. Bought it second hand at the time and it works a charm. Basic compared to many of the newer products but has everything you need.

I see this is available in the classifieds

https://www.bikehub.co.za/classifieds/130056-garmin-forerunner-305/

The other deals are all looking at above R2500

 

It does come with some risk, as this product is no longer supplied by Garmin, thus if anything goes wrong you won't be able to replace it.

I can just say that it has worked well for me.

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Yip, the 920xt would be overkill for now but nice to have :)

Since giving up golf in the short term, seems to have spent more! Lol

 

Hey Hydro 

 

Cycling kit is marginally more expensive than golf kit 

 

However participation cost are significantly less for cycling 

 

Range fees and practice balls

Green Fees 

A Balls lost or just scuffed and no longer usable.

Tips 

Caddy Fees 

Golf Carts

Halfways house 

Possibly loose a few side bets

Drinks

 

and spousal penalties for getting home late from 19th

 

 Yeh Top end mountain bike cheaper !!! ;-) 

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I started using my phone as my main data recorder and occasional music player. I was using an old iPhone 5s and the battery life wasn't very good especially when using HRM music and tracking. Started carrying a battery bank but then you have to make sure thats charged too.

 

In the end it was to much of wires and making sure everything was charged, got a dedicated cycle pc

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Go check out the Sani2Sea website (or J2C) ..there they expalin nicely why a phone GPS device is limiting...and potentially dangerous.

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Hey Hydro 

 

Cycling kit is marginally more expensive than golf kit 

 

However participation cost are significantly less for cycling 

 

Range fees and practice balls

Green Fees 

A Balls lost or just scuffed and no longer usable.

Tips 

Caddy Fees 

Golf Carts

Halfways house 

Possibly loose a few side bets

Drinks

 

and spousal penalties for getting home late from 19th

 

 Yeh Top end mountain bike cheaper !!! ;-) 

 

until you account for the multi-day STAGE RACES...

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For short rides phone GPS is fine. Not a good idea if you train a lot or for long periods as the GPS function EATS your battery and some apps also use data unless you switch off the satellite tracking which kind of defeats the purpose as you loose accuracy on network tracking alone. Rather get a proper GPS device. Keep the phone out of view in your pocket to reduce your bikejacking/ phonesnatching odds, too many opportunists out there.

 

Personally don`t see much use for tracking my route, unless i have preloaded a specific route which i want to follow or if I am out in the sticks on an exploratory ride. I do like to track average speed, ascent ,route profile and general fitness stats and keep a training diary out of interest only and my old polar CS600 does that brilliantly and is pretty robust to boot, I also send away my exercise logs via weblink for Discovery points. Simple to use and probably change batteries once a year.

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What do you guys think about the Polar V650?

I had a look at one, and now I really "need" one!

Aesthetically it looks much better than the Garmin and at around R3500 it is also well priced. I like the big, colour display. I currently use the Polar RCX5, but I think the V650 will make rides very interesting.

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I use phone + strava + bt hrm + bt cadence sensor.

 

I'm not particularly interested in immediate stats so this is more to track averages and changes over time. This combo does a pretty good job of it IMO, and cost significantly less than a full setup. I'm not super fit yet so 3 hour rides are my max atm; still have plenty of battery left over.

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Just starting out so need to get feel for this new sport. Already went over budget on bike and gear now so need to let my money tree grow abit more. Thanks for input!

 

Have a look in the classifieds section. You can get dedicated bike GPS's starting from R1000. (Bryton is not that bad...)

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