I have a Polar RS200 HRM. I use it day to day as a watch and I mount it to my Volae's handle bars when riding so I can see it easily. Keeping it on my wrist would make it hard to see - especially in cool weather when I am wearing several layers.I noticed a problem on my first long ride. I had been sitting away from my bike repositioning my cleats for 10 mins or so. When I returned to my bike I could not get the watch to read the transmitter belt. I would bring the two close together and the watch would start the search process, but it could not "find" the transmitter belt. I tried quite a few times.
When I got home I stopped and restarted the watch. Bingo! It found my transmitter belt right away. Odd. On my second long ride I could not get it to find my transmitter belt after my "munchie" stop at a gas station. Both times I did not want to stop and restart the watch because I wanted to record my total elapsed ride time and my aggregate heart rate info. My bike computer only tracks on bike time and will not tell me how long I was stopped. For a brevet it would be nice to have total elapsed time.
I emailed Polar and was told that if the watch could not find the transmitter belt after 5 mins it would no longer be able to do so during that "session". Bummer. When I stop to eat or sleep I am going to be away from the bike for more than 5 mins. Taking the watch off the handle bars each time I stop will get old fast. So I either have to wear the watch on my wrist or restart the watch after each stop and forget about keeping the total elapsed time and heart rate info.
I am not sure which way I'll go, but I thought I would post this problem in case anyone is looking at buying a RS200. It is a nice watch for day to day wear and it works well as a HRM - except for this one problem that only a randonneur would notice.
1 comment:
I have had the same problem with the 720i - the high end wrist watch / cyclocomputer model ... but I think I can stay away for up to 30 minutes without losing the ability to log-in. At that point, the 'session' ends and you need to restart a new one.
With the 725i - you still maintain your trip mileage, unless you reset that, which I typically do at each control. I've been told the #1 rule of randonneuring - do not focus on how many miles to the end of the ride - just one miles to the next control. So that is what I've been doing!
What is nice, though, if you can download the exercise into the Polar software, you can merge exercise sessions and all the data is back in one file.
Good luck in Baja!
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