Friday, March 13, 2009

Indoors this week

My last three rides have been on the trainer and rollers down in the basement but that is not a bad thing. In small doses, I actually like riding the trainer and feel the benefits of the specific work I am able to do on it. I am looking forward to Saturday's long snow bike ride though.

L5 Intervals

My PT computer's LCD display is dying. The middle row display has started to intermittently go out and most of the time there is nothing in the middle row at all. Although still usable, seeing two out of three rows is not ideal so I called Saris to ask about a replacement/repair fully expecting to pay something. I was told "we don't repair them and it will $199 for a new one". Ouch! The functionality on PT computer is average at best so that number did not make me happy and I remembered Dave Harris' recent post about the 705 and WKO+'s recent update that makes tracking power a snap.

This little yellow glob of plastic is NOT worth $199!

Possible New Hotness

So instead of putting $199 towards a very average replacement, I may put a little extra towards a Garmin 705 that does ten times what the overpriced PT computer can do.

1 comment:

Dave Harris said...

Well, if you have to get a new CPU then it is a no brainer. For a bit more you can have GPS on that rig!

The 705 is not perfect but it is getting better. At this time don't bother with the pre-made map cards, they appear to consume a lot of resources, the end result being lots of data drops. Actions in the unit are prioritized and apparently writing to the .tcx file is lower on the food chain. Using Topo2008 maps produces very few drops for me and amounts to maybe a minute over a 3 hour ride.

With both you have an option. For rides where you absolutely want tight data you can always use the PT CPU as a "black box" recorder, even if the display is dead - data recording isn't affected.

Some more thoughts for you to wrangle...yes we could put men on the moon decades ago but a simple GPS/wireless device is still in need of refinement!