Cycling UK Forum

I'd rather cycle 600k in a well-ventilated helmet than wear a sweaty plastic collar all the way.

johnb wrote:Yeah the rubberband is the waterproofing seal. its a fault with them, send it back to garmin and they will send you a new one.
The unit I mean.

Audax67 wrote:Thanks, John, but mine's been out of guarantee for years. There may be another internal seal - a few weeks ago I rode through a hammering downpour for 20 minutes with no problems.

johnb wrote:And so was mine.

Whoa! They replaced the whole unit after it was out of guarantee? Where's my receipt..?

johnb wrote:

Audax67 wrote:Well, the HB mount might not rattle, which would mean that you would save the wee bits of insulating tape you have to stick in the bottom of it every so often. That's got to be worth a couple of hundred quid.

BTW, anyone know if the rubber surround contributes anything to waterproofing? The adhesive is failing on mine.

Yeah the rubberband is the waterproofing seal. its a fault with them, send it back to garmin and they will send you a new one.

The unit I mean.

Thanks, John, but mine's been out of guarantee for years. There may be another internal seal - a few weeks ago I rode through a hammering downpour for 20 minutes with no problems.

Best advice I have had is to make a plan and stick to it. Take the average speed you think you can hold up over 110 km, work out your saddle time and then divide the rest up by the number of controls to get the time you can spend at each. You can then jimmy it about a bit to allow you one longish meal pause and a couple of coffee breaks.

If you have problems on the road you recover it from the breaks: you don't ride faster unless you're so far behind that you've no other option.

Take plenty of bars etc to avoid the knock, and have fun.

Then look for a 200, then a 300, then a 400...

Well, the HB mount might not rattle, which would mean that you would save the wee bits of insulating tape you have to stick in the bottom of it every so often. That's got to be worth a couple of hundred quid.

BTW, anyone know if the rubber surround contributes anything to waterproofing? The adhesive is failing on mine.

NUKe wrote:Garmin etrex 20 and 30 due out in the next couple of weeks but no one seems to be discounting the current models tooo much
yet

Apart from cosmetic changes they don't look all that different from existing models. In particular, they could have done with a bigger screen, a faster CPU, and more points per track. The screen is the same size and I don't see any indications of improved speed.

jags wrote:ok so i went and bought the garmin hcx legend and a blank sd card so how now do i get a map of Ireland onto it
keep this simple lads total idiot all things tech.

Depends on the detail you want. You can get highly detailed maps for relatively small areas (they show contours etc, and just about every pylon, dolmen and barrow, plus the name of every stream and field), or low-detail road maps for whole countries. The highly-detailed ones are mainly for hikers, and only show towns as a grid of lines with few street names; the road maps contain all the street names - useful, but there are no clues as to gradients.

Where to get them? Try here: http://www.garmin.ie/ The "Buy maps" option seems to be a decent guide.

You'll need to check the compatibility of each product with your device. Mine needed a firmware update before I could use City Navigator maps on it - it couldn't handle SDHC cards as it stood.

Someone mention Newtownards? I have fond memories of cycling up Bradshaw's Brae on my big sister's single-speed clunker on a hot day in 1959. One of the few occasions that my dad admitted to being impressed.

I plotted all the PBP qualifiers this year on Open Runner and loaded them onto an Etrex Venture Cx on which I had put the City Navigator Europe maps. Bloody marvellous! I used home-charged NiMH cells, about 2 pair per brevet. The more recent hi-sensitivity Etrexes (Etrices?) would prolly do better, but this was fine. The maps were something like 72 euros, the device itself bought back when it came out was much more, but they're going reasonably cheaply now.

If you use a free plotting site such as Open Runner you don't need to buy maps for the computer.

Couple of things I found out:

- if you're following a pre-loaded track it's easiest to set the display to "track up", but if you have to deviate from the route (where the hell can I stamp my card???) then "north up" makes it easier to get back on track

- Mapsource offers the possibility of filtering a track down to a given number of points. Do it too much and you get lost in towns. I preferred to subdivide mine into 500-point chunks.

I've been riding a Ti frame & carbon fork for the last 7 years, around 50,000 km over some pretty disgusting roads and in and (sometimes) out of holes. I'm pretty impressed with the way the fork has performed, although by now it does look a little bit used.

My frame has a 1" steering tube, and since 1" forks are getting a bit rare I did a search earlier this year and found these folk:

http://www.kinetic-one.co.uk/

They do a range of 1" carbon forks and spacers. I picked one up, to be fitted as the need arises.

nez dans le guidon wrote:Sigh? Not even a little smile?

Maybe a muted whimper.

I remember hair... used to have some. Wonder where it went?

mattheus wrote:Rear LED battery lights have been excellent for years. If you run two you will never be caught out, and you'll only be swapping (or recharging) the batteries every several weeks at worst. And you get a wider choice of lights.

It doesn't seem worth doing all that messy wiring, and being dependent on having the dyno-wheel in and working.

Yes. I like my automatic dynamo lights, though - they even come on in short stretches of forest, when it's a dim day. And tunnels, of course, illuminated or not.

It's amazing how blind some motorists can be: every little helps.

nez dans le guidon wrote:

Audax67 wrote:- I heard recently that the German authorities are going to insist that bikes have central control for lighting, be it battery or dynamo. Next year, I think.
.

They're not in charge here. That's why my Grandad was in the Home Guard.

[sigh]

Points:

- Blinkies are fine if you're on your own but if you aren't they're a pain for the guy riding just behind.

- I heard recently that the German authorities are going to insist that bikes have central control for lighting, be it battery or dynamo. Next year, I think.

- I have both on the bike, front and back. When you stop at night in the country you're somewhat vulnerable without.

- I also have a tiny 2-led rearlight mounted on my handlebars, pointing back and down. When on it illuminates bottle cages and transmission, which can be useful when you get a bit bleary in the wee small hours.

- Peripheral vision is important for balance. I used to ride with just battery lights and had problems every time I looked off to the sides, because the pattern was too small and faint. With a SON hub and an IQ/Cyo lamp I'm as steady as during the day.

It's a natural product, just like all that ginseng and other crap they push these days.