No posts for a while...

Just looked at the date on the last post & realized I've been quiet for a while.

In case you thought I'd permanently fallen asleep or something, there will be another one up soon. The next one will hopefully be useful, it'll be a kit list with why I own the items I own & how it's all performed over the time.

Some will be specifically bike kit, some bike relevant but useful for other sports as well.

Hopefully will be up within the next couple of weeks.

Happy riding...

Satmap Active10 - final thoughts

So, it's a bit late, but I thought I'd better finish off the review.

Positives first:

• Ease of plotting a route. For mountain bikers a big selling point is the ability to go out & explore, then plot a route back home from wherever you happen to be. This is great for MTBers as you can cover more ground on a bike & exploring will get you 'lost' more quickly than on foot.
• Many people like to use a GPS to log their progress which the Satmap seems to do accurately. If you want a GPS for this purpose you might find the other features unnecessary,  but you might become convinced by the value of the map display
• A major plus for bikers is the replaceable screen cover. There's a fair bit of peace of mind knowing that if it gets scratched a replacement is cheap & available. I only used the unit in the dry, but someone who owns a unit told me that in the wet, moisture gets behind the cover making the display harder to read, so maybe some better sealing might be needed?
• The unit has a tough feel to it which is big plus for MTBers.

Negatives:

• The main negative I found is the battery level display. It shows as maximum for ages, but when the batteries run out there's very little warning. Another owner I met mentioned the same problem. The batteries supplied gave about 2 days worth, but they were the expensive Lithium type, so to use these regularly would be quite expensive. I guess this wouldn't concern everyone. A rechargeable is available and comes as standard if you buy the MTB kit. If however the unit's being used for expedition type journeys then there might not be chance to recharge. It may well be good in comparison to other units, but more battery life is always a good improvement.
• As far as I know the screen on the unit is good in comparison to others, but I found the display very difficult to read in sunlight. I'm guessing this is the case with most GPS units, but one of Satmap's selling points was that it was easy to read in sunlight. It's a bit of a pain needing to find shade in order to see the display, and sometimes that means that a map in a map holder is faster to use.
• Sometimes the map didn't orientate correctly which meant if I was relying on the unit it caused wrong turns. This happened mainly on just one route, others were OK. The three of us on the ride thought that using the unit had lengthened the journey time a fair bit over using an OS map.
• I didn't find the menu system that intuitive. I got used to it, but I'm quite good with gadgets and often don't need instruction manuals, but I had to keep referring back to the manual for a lot longer than usual.
• Most MTBers will ride with gloves all year round, and usually full fingered ones. The buttons are a bit awkward to use with gloves. I thought they lacked feel without gloves & even thin gloves made it worse. A light-ish touch combined with a more definite click to the buttons would be ideal I think. This isn't a major gripe though.
• Another minor was the bulk of the unit. It would be nice if any future versions were smaller or thinner. Crashes are inevitable at some point when mountain biking, and it's not always possible to mount the unit in a way that would avoid damage in a fall. For some bikes maybe putting it on the top tube would work, but if the frame tubes are fatter the unit ends up being too far back & the rider's knees would hit it.

For me I could see the attraction, but I actually quite enjoy map reading & I like to keep the skills up to scratch so I'll stick with paper maps.

If you're after a GPS with OS Maps I'd say this is a good one to go for, some of the other similar models from other brands have some major disadvantages like no option to change batteries so if the rechargeable one runs out you're stuck, or just generally dissatisfied owner reviews on the net.

KMC X9 Chains

OK, so this one's not too exciting, but hopefully useful...

This is a long term review proper, just to let you know my chain of choice. It's a kind of vital component! There's basically 3 main makes available, Shimano, SRAM & KMC. As far as I know, KMC make the Shimano chains, which is curious, because in my experience, Shimano are excellent at almost everything, with the possible exception of their chains. KMC however, make some absolute bullet proof offerings under their own name. The X9 series (if you ignore the drilled out lightweight ones)are all the same apart from the colour. They do a grey, a silver/grey & a silver, for slightly different prices. You can pick them up for a huge amount less than the equivalent Shimano or SRAM chains and although it's not easy to judge, they seem to me to outlast the other makes. I've never managed to break one and they seem to wear better.


That's it really, just 4 years worth of use & they've never let me down. There's no sponsorship involved (although I'd be fine if they're interested!), just an honest account of a few years of use.

New Course - Friday afternoon air...

It seems there are a fair few riders who can tackle pretty much any trail they find themselves on, but have never got comfortable with the wheels off the ground.

So if you're one of them and fancy learning to get air safely, knowing you can stay in control & get the landing right, sign up for a course.

We've had great success teaching jumps on the regular courses, so thought it would be good to offer it to people who don't necessarily need to learn other skills.

Next one's on the 10th Sept, but as usual if you have a group together already you can contact us for a time that suits.

See the prices & dates page to book, or contact us to pay by bank transfer or cheque. Feel free to phone for a chat if you have any questions.

Satmap Active10 - update

Got one of these through the post end of April by Special Delivery from the UK distributors. They were after feedback about the unit from a mountain biker's point of view. There'll be a full review after it goes back at the end of June, but here's a few comments:

Battery power seems to be easily good for a day & a bit - so far hasn't lasted 2 whole days with high capacity alkalines. If I owned the unit I'd go for the rechargeable battery (you can always keep AA's as backup).

As with any device with a backlit LCD screen, the brighter the default setting the shorter the battery life. Also the longer the screen stays on before sleep the more battery drain ...obvious to some, not so obvious to others. So far I've left the screen on a mid setting & about 30 seconds until the screen switches off. In bright sunlight the map is quite hard to read, but the waypoint pointer is much easier. As far as I can gather this is the same with all brands.

One thing I need to have a play with is the speed setting at which the compass switches modes. Sometimes at slow speeds, like on a steeper climb, the map flips 180 degrees or the waypoint goes a bit random. This can be a bit of a pain sometimes & send you the wrong way, but not for long. Still annoying though if you end up having to double back & it's uphill... I have a feeling that altering the afore-mentioned mode change speed might sort this.

To me the unit is more useful as a get you home device if I want to explore randomly then switch the unit on to plot a route back. The route maker is easy to use & by all accounts the Satmap is the only unit with a decent one.
For a pre-planned route I prefer to use a traditional map. If you can already read maps then why get rusty? Plus there's no batteries to run out & nothing to malfunction (although the Satmap10 is a reliable unit).

That's all for now, more later.

Satmap Active10

Just received one of these through the post by Special Delivery this morning from the UK distributors. They were after feedback about the unit from a mountain biker's point of view. I've only had a quick look so far as I'm waiting for a map-card to show up. First impressions in no particular order:

Like

• Replaceable screen covers
• Easy to plot routes on the unit
• ...which allows it to be used without a PC
• Personally I like the button control as opposed to touch screen
• OS mapping
• Really solid bike mount
• Decent carry case
• Appears to have good battery life, will report more fully later on

Dislike

• so far, not much except the buttons need a firm press

Singletrack World » Dig For a Pig

Singletrack World » Dig For a Pig

Click the link for info on winning a Ragley Blue Pig in exchange for some trail maintenance with SingletrAction

 Find out more about SingletrAction and other upcoming dig days on their site.