My son informed me that the weather was not wonderful in Chicago today. The roads were a mess and the airports all but inoperative. But it was a beautiful, sunshiny day where I live in Idaho, which is quite unusual for this time of year when we usually have snow on the ground. To celebrate, I brought out my bike and took it for a spin, something I hadn’t done since the beginning of fall.
Last summer I acquired a really nifty recumbent bike. It came with a speedometer/odometer on the handlebar, but that was pretty low tech after tooling around the country in my car guided by GPS on my Pocket PC. I spend some time and effort thinking about coming up with a suitable mount for a PDA on the handlebars, but decided it was too cumbersome and kind of an expensive solution if something should happen to my PPC.
Just when I was about to give up in favor of low tech, a Suunto X9 wristop computer came into my life. What an incredible instrument. As far as I know it is the only wristop GPS in the world. Of course it does mundane things like tell time in various zones, and act as a count down and lap timer stop watch. It gives readouts on speed, altitude, latitude, longitude, and even barometer readings. Did I mention that it also functions as a compass? It will keep track of how far you’ve traveled in miles or kilometers and the elapsed time. It comes with a rechargeable battery with AC or DC adapters, and a USB computer interface cable.
Yeah, but it won’t tell you how to get there. Yes it will. You can plot a course with it, which is great for hiking, camping, biking, exploring. I happen to be an archaeologist, and what a fantastic tool for recording the location of sites and features.
My main excitement, however, is that it saved me from having to rig some mickey mouse attachment for a Pocket PC on my bike which could have easily been wounded or stolen. This is a biker’s dream. It’s even resistant up to 300 feet, so maybe it’s a skin diver’s dream too.
The only problem is that it is a bit pricey and cost almost as much as my bike. At $799 a pop, it had better be pretty darn special, and that’s exactly what it is. I figure it is probably cheaper than using a good PPC equipped with Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and a Bluetooth GPS system. Check them out at www.suunto.com along with an array of other amazing wristop devices for the sportsman from golfing to just goofing around.
With the help of an X9 wristop computer, I have converted my recumbent bike into a cyberbike without sacrificing a PPC to do it. Long live Suunto!
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