Wednesday, July 4, 2007

Garmin Forerunner 301 Rawks!

I've been getting by with a simple bike computer and a el-cheapo wristwatch mounted heart-rate monitor that I paid $40 for. The heart rate monitor isn't very accurate. Typically I have to take readings 3 or 4 times to find the real rate. Sometimes the readings vary upto 20 bpm. It also does not continually monitor. You press a button, it displays your rate. That's it. Having to stop during a ride to check my heart rate was a pain. And since there was no memory I'd have to keep the results in my head (also not very accurate).

I set out to buy a better heart rate monitor that would provide a continuous readout. I wanted something that could sum up the amount of time in 5 heart rate zones. And if possible have it downloadable into my PC. I found one, and it cost $139.99. It only kept three zones and couldn't interface with a PC. I could live with that. I didn't get it, because I wanted to look at another store.

A bit more looking around, I came across the Garmin Forerunner 301 HRM. This is a GPS bike computer, plus heart rate monitor. Best of all, I found it for under $200. For less than $60 more I could get a GPS computer and heart rate monitor that handled the five zones I wanted and download to my PC. I never like having a sensor on my fork. It just gets in the way when changing a tire. So, I could eliminate that. A quick review of the features of the Forerunner 301 made the $60 a slam dunk! Here's how it looks mounted to the bike...




One thing I couldn't stand about my previous computer was the lack of backlight. I often ride at night. So checking the speed progress involved stopping under a street light. The 301 provides that...



It comes with Garmin's Training Center Software for downloading history from the GPS. Here's a screen shot...



Training center provides ride summaries, and time in heart rate zones as I desired...



And it provides graphs of heart rate, speed, and other things...



And it provides a map of your route...



Well, OK, that's a pretty crappy map! You can used a third-party software such as MotionBased or SportTracks to provide better mapping. I chose SportTracks because its free. I can't remember where I downloaded it, but I'm sure a Google search will quickly provide a link.

Here's a screen shot of the main window, showing my path overlayed on a satellite image...



You can zoom in and get pretty detailed. For those familiar, that's I-10 to the south. The large street to the left is Studewood, and to the right is Taylor street. The bayou in the center is White Oak. I guess I should note that these are in Houston, TX USA.



You can zoom in even further. You can see my truck parked on the street in this view!



The inevitable question... worth the money? Yes! The Forerunner 301 worked great. Kept my heart rate throughout my test ride today, and kept an accurate speed, distance and path. All without a wired or large wireless fork mounted sensor. I'm still learning the features - it does a lot of stuff - so I'll keep updating the 301's performance.

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