Electronic Gadgets for Mountain Bikers

I wrote a portion of this blog post:

This super sleek GPS watch from Polar, dubbed the RC3, is the company’s latest in fitness data collection technology. Featuring the ability to communicate with some of Polar’s external devices such as heart rate monitors and foot pods, Polar meshes the statistics that the device gathers with built-in training plans. Download your data to the computer and upload it to Polar’s website, and get even more detailed training analysis!

GPS files from this device download in the widely accepted .gpx format, making uploading your data to websites such as Singletracks and Strava a cinch. Battery life is a whopping 12 hours, and the watch can be easily recharged.

The real story with this watch is its size–it’s crazy thin! Seriously, the guys at the booth were all wearing them, and these things are literally about the size of a normal digital wrist watch (shame on me for not getting a photo). Due to the small size, these watches are primarily for data collection–navigation with them is virtually impossible. The only navigation feature is a “get me home” arrow that points to your starting point, but if you are out in the wilderness on an epic 30-mile loop, straight back over who knows what kind of terrain is usually the worst possible idea.

$300 MSRP for just the watch, $350 with the heart rate monitor.