My research on Speedometers and GPS

[mrpauliepants]

Alright fellas, I've been thinking about looking into getting myself a GPS. I'm starting to go faster these days, and as I'm sure you all understand, I've always wondered exactly how fast I'm actually going, (compared to how fast it SEEMS I'm going. lol)

So, I have searched, then I googled, then I searched some more, and this is what I have come to learn in the last like 2 hours of research. Enjoy.

There are a few main contenders here on the Fish, these are (in no particular order)

Main contenders:

• Garmin Forerunner 101 and 201- The Garmin Forerunner 101 and 201 are relatively the same thing, and if you're simply looking to track your speed, the rest is minor details. More or less, the 201 has some neat features such as alarms that tell you when you've hit a certain distance/speed, etc. The 201 runs about $50 more at retail, around $150. They are both wrist mounted, but still a tad large, about the size of my cell phone. Drawbacks: from what I've read mostly here on the fish, is that it is often inaccurate slightly, due to some sort of altitude glitch. Basically, it doesn't handle the fact that you're gaining speed due to altitude drops very well. Still accurate within a few MPH.
• Garmin Etrex H-Rather nice if you get lost easy, or if you want to try and mark your fave spots to sesh, or new places to check back on later.It has a mini-map type system, though really just basic waypoints and directional heading. This unit is not wrist mounted, and it is even bigger than the Forerunners, however it is accurate, even with elevation changes, which is an advantage over the Forerunners. Just keep in mind you have to stash it in a pocket, or somehow mount it to your board. This unit runs about $110 retail.
• Garmin Legend-This is very similar to the Etrex H, however it's basically the jacked up, smarter, stronger older brother. Much nicer mapping, right down to railroads and highways. Unlike the Forerunners, it handles elevation changes just fine, so it's more accurate when bombing hills. Like the Etrex H however, it is a tad larger than the Forerunners, and it is not wrist mounted, so a backpack, pocket, shoe, or deck mounting is necessary. This unit tends to run about $160 retail.
• Garmin Geko-There's the 201 and the 301, the 301 is more advanced and has more gadgetry than we need to go in depth with (basically, it covers pressure changes, weather, directional compass thingy, etc) The 201 is what is commonly used. Though, there was something (that I can't find now) that someone had said about the Geko not being accurate. It might of been another elevation change related issue, I can't seem to find it now.
• Navman x300/s300/r300-I had a hard time actually finding much about this product. The manufacturers website was... Dizzying. What I can tell you about this one, is that it is a wrist mounted unit (although, it's triangle shaped...?) and it was designed with snowboarding, skiing, cycling, etc in mind- which is great, that's basically us. It also deals with altitude measuring, and mentions that it had downhill skiers in mind, so it should be accurate even when bombing hills. It also functions as a regular watch (wow, astounding) And it tends to run around $120 retail, from what I can tell.

Alternative GPS devices I've come across:

• Timex Ironman speed+distance-Alrighty, this looks promising to me. It's actually two pieces, the wrist mounted, regular watch sized display unit, and the transmitter. This is nice for a few reasons, mainly in that you have a small, sleek, easy to view wrist display, and then you have your data gathering, mounted transmitter. Which means you see the benefits of a wrist mounted device, without having to suffer the consequences of a bulky unit attached to you. Ok, so the Timex website was somewhat hard to navigate (mostly because I'm swapping more windows and products than I can manage) So I'm kind of cutting and pasting on this one, but in general, as long as you get the speed+distance one, you're not far off regardless. Now, I couldn't find anything that talks about elevation change, which means that this unit is probably susceptible to the "bomb hills syndrome"; wherein it will probably be inaccurate by a few MPH. The good news is, that between Timex.com and Amazon.com, they seem to range anywhere from $55 to $160. Though I could be mislead, as not all of the speed+distance Ironman watches display speed. So tread carefully.
• Suunto GPS watches-Man, from what I can see on Amazon and Suunto.com, this thing is KING. So far as I can see, it's JUST a wrist mounted GPS everything. Altimeter, barometer, compass, speed, alarms, the works. No maps, but that's because it's a wrist mounted unit. This thing appears to be pretty on top of the GPS speedometer game. The one drawback: It's expensive; it retails at $340 on Amazon.com. The good news? There are other models that are as low as $160, unfortunately, I'm not sure those measure current speed. Man, you just can't win with them.
• Garmin Foretrex-There is the 101 and the 201, and from what I can tell from the brief description, and pictures, it seems like the real difference is that the 201 has a cleaner interface, and the 101 runs on AAA batteries as opposed to rechargeable batteries in the 201. The 101 runs about $140, and the 201 around $180.

Additional Speedometer methods:

• Radar gun-This method is often most reliable, the main drawback is that you absolutely must have someone standing by at the one spot you want to be clocked at. From a quick google search, these things can be attained anywhere from about $80 all the way up to rather expensive models.
• Modded bicycle speedometers (albeit limited)-This method has been discussed, and some have managed to test it. Pete.. managed to play around with it and post his results, as seen in THIS thread. His results were accurate, up to 19MPH. Anything faster than that, and it just registers 19MPH. He did have to do some modding work, and playing around with various things to achieve this low end speedometer.
• Chase vehicle/chase bicycle-This is not the most accurate, but typically the most available. You either have someone tailing you in a car, watching the speedometer to give a rough estimate as to your speed, or you have someone on a bicycle with an aforementioned bicycle speedometers mounted to their bike. With cars, there is debate about the distance a car would be able to stay relative to you, and the rough guesstimate of car speedometers being off anyway, so this will generally give you a number within probably 5MPH or so. Obviously, the only cost, is gas, and at the rate gas is climbing, you would be better off investing in a mounted GPS instead of using your car every time you sesh.
• Thoughts on various modded thingies-There are various thoughts on modding... All sorts of things, from computer mice, to Hotwheels radar guns, to more bicycle speedometer mods, to you name it. (really, if it has a laser, someone has mentioned trying to use it to calculate speed) None of which I've yet to actually see any results... But by all means, if you can do it, then go for it.

General Additions

• Watch types: With any of the wrist mounted units, you're gonna get pretty basic mapping, generally left down to waypoints, dotted lines, and sporadic markers. Also, many of the watch style GPS units require a direct line of sight to the sky, and there is debate as to the consistency of a watch unit GPS if you are tucking, and possibly blocking the direct line of sight.
• Non-watch types: You will have to either pocket these, attach them to the top of your shoe, or deck mount them. Their is some debate about deck mounting them, and the amount of vibrations and damage to components, nothing too solid yet to sway me either way, however it makes sense to me.
• Gravity Boards:The Gravity Speedometer; is not for sale anymore. As much as anyone knows, it's just a bicycle speedometer, modified to work on a longboard. It operates under the same method as Pete..'s modded speedometer, however Gravity managed to calibrate theirs properly and then inlay it into their custom ordered boards. I (and I'm sure others) would love to know and see for sure the process behind this, but I'm unsure as to how feasible that is. Gravity is not selling these anymore, but I've seen a few private sellers that have a few for sale here and there, so they definitely aren't unattainable.
• Lastly: I didn't mention the Garmin Forerunner 305. I'm pretty sure It tracks speed, and all sorts of other health things, however this unit runs around $300 and is about half the size of my cell phone. But it's really designed for monitoring your heart rate, etc.

So, this is what I have learned about speedometers and GPS tonight. I'm hoping this might get stickied, as it has a lot of relevant information regarding all the questions asked in the numerous speedometer and GPS threads. If anyone has any additions, questions, comments, or actually owns any of these and can attest to their awesome (or not awesome) ness, I would love to hear what you have to say. (All in this one thread, as opposed to 10 or 15 threads spread out across the forums)

Hopefully this helps someone, I know I've learned a lot about GPS tonight.

[TheRosen]

this should maybe be stickied?

[FoxRiderar77]

Def. Sticky this mods, and also about the bigger GPS's they sometimes don't lock on inside your pocket. Best bet for those is probably clipped onto your body.

[Reece Man]

Great research!

Definite sticky.

[goofy-foot]

With some patience you can find most of them really low on ebay...
I bought the navman for $24 new!

[mexifly]

Some people have mentioned they had problems with a wrist mount, the swinging of the hand/arm causes problems. Others have mounted it on thier non pushing foot.

Great research BTW thanks

[mrpauliepants]

I was going to add in an addendum, but I couldn't really get it under 10,000 characters long with all the rest of my post. Haha.


Thank you mexifly, goofy-foot and FoxRiderar77 for the addition.

[I_Eated_It]

ive been lookin into GPS's and this has really helped out, thankyou

[mrpauliepants]

ive been lookin into GPS's and this has really helped out, thankyou

Sure thing, that's how I got started on this thread, I was looking into GPS and there was a lot of scattered information. Figured I would compile it and make it into a nice little guide type thing.


That, and I had massive insomnia. =)

[bombhills114]

my friend built one and its really cool.. accurate to within .3 mph

[transitioned]

Stick-it!!!!

[mrpauliepants]

my friend built one and its really cool.. accurate to within .3 mph

What was it built with?

[spicysmoke]

Awesome thread, im having a hard time finding anything over here in NZ, there was the perfect thing a while back on our version of ebay for $70, but i just saw that and though oh cool theyre cheap, cause i wasnt really wanting one at the time, damn it.

[cjbliss]

Mounting to pick up signal is definitely the biggest problem with my gps i think more so than others cus its mad old, great thread, definitely needs to get sticky'd, I've got to take a look at some of these

[mrpauliepants]

Seriously? No mods have seen this yet? Sticky it before it gets lost...

[longboardorific]

sticky bump for awesomeness

[GravityRider15]

sitckyickycky oooh oohhh

[MalakaiKingston]

Stickied, good work!

[ilikeskating]

I have a garmin etrex. it isnt that accurate because it loses signals easily.

[jkpvilla]

has anyone tried using cyclocomputers?