Gadgetry: Pedaling high tech goods
Boring, I hear you say. But the Edge 305 is a bit different from the regular, pedestrian GPSs you find in cars and on cellphones (this has all the makings of a very mixed metaphor, for which I am not going to apologise) because it is designed for my bicycle.
That’s right, folks, as industry at large and the ICT lot turn their attention to greening the planet, my preferred mode of transport which is entirely environmentally responsible bar a few skinny rubber tyres, has gone high-tech.
Garmin’s little bike GPS is gnarly. In addition to a whack of the usual bike features related to speed and time, it includes a heart rate monitor and all the science which goes with that. But it is (of course) the GPS functionality where this 88 gram gadget kicks up a few gears. You can see where you have travelled on a map, you can record courses and race yourself, check your elevation and distance ascended/descended and much more.
But the real kicker is that this is a computerized device which is astoundingly simple to use. I haven’t even opened the supplied instruction manual, but have it set up with my personal particulars (weight, age, etc), have installed the software on my PC, and use (what I believe are) the advanced functions. Finally a gadget that is much cleverer than the intended user and which relegates RTFM (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RTFM) to only those who are interested.
Oh, yes, and iPods are pretty cool too, if you’re into that sort of thing.
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