It's that time of the year. Bike cleaning seems like a daily chore. Rides last 4 hours tend to lead to marathon bike cleaning sessions. As a cyclist, it is a fact of life....especially if you want your equipment to last a long time and work well. With temps near 40F it was easy to get out there and bathe the mtb. I am sure I will be back to cleaning again next week.With the Colorado Trail Race on the horizon for 2010, the gear acquisition has started. One of those items that is needed not only for some navigation help during the race....but also for general mtb adventures here in the West is a GPS. Finally, after X-mas, I pulled the trigger and picked up the Garmin eTrex Vista HCx. Based on reviews from other riders and price point, this was the route to go...no pun intended. From messing around with it here at the house/around town it seems super easy to use. Only thing I wish it had was a stem mount similar to Garmin's cycling specific GPS devices.
This is the "rail" mount clamp that is available for this GPS. It works fine if you want to mount the GPS on your handle bar....or other similar shape. For me personally I wanted to mount the GPS to the stem to start with. So, I modified the 25.4 diameter Garmin bar clamp.
I went to town with a dremel tool, removing the hinging lower part....and then drilling 2 holes that will accept 2 zip ties.
When it was all said and done, this is what I ended up with. Once I am ready to hit the trail, I need to add the 'leash' from the GPS to the stem for those possible unplanned GPS ejections.
The learning process will begin this month. While it shouldn't be too difficult, I need to find all the magic settings for the GPS and my riding style. Also need to make sure this stem mount is going to be the ticket.
Navigation simplified...and clean.