“On a recent organised cycling ride in the Test Valley down in
Hampshire (I’m in the UK), a friend showed me his new toy; a Garmin
Edge 305 GPS-enabled bike computer. Being a bit of a gadget head
I’d played around with GPS on bike rides before, but the old Garmin
GPS 12 I’d had seemed almost the weight and size of a brick, it had
a serial interface, and the best use I ever really got out of it
was to tell me what my coordinates were, which I could then check
back onto an OS map. It also had a hard time finding a signal when
surrounded by tall buildings or tree cover.“I often find it quite boring riding around the same old
familiar routes on my bike, but the alternative, which is figuring
out a new route, then stopping every few miles to consult the
sweaty OS map in my back pocket spoils the tempo of the
ride…”