AR Ramblings

Pros: small size, elastic band for wearing on your arm, good accuracy in open spaces
Cons: Cumulative distance can be way off on twisty trails and/or under tree cover, uncomfortable to wear on your wrist.
Overall Rating: 5 of 10

If you’re looking for a small, basic GPS at a low price, then the Garmin Foretrex 101 may deserve a slightly better rating than I gave it. Although I didn’t buy it for athletic training purposes I was hoping that it might serve a dual purpose. If you primarily run in a straight line in open areas or along roads then it works pretty good for recording distance ran or biked. However, here in the hills of western North Carolina the cumulative distance counter was significantly off the mark on almost all outings.

My testing was done on mountain trails with roughly 1500ft of elevation gain/loss and under tree cover, though all of the leaves had fallen and the only thing blocking a signal would have been the bare tree limbs. I don’t know how often this unit records position for determining distance traveled, but I can only guess that it is missing the many turns encountered on an average singletrack trail. I ran and biked the same trail and recorded a distance of 6.75 miles with the Foretrex, while my bike computer (recently calibrated) showed nearly 8 miles. Additionally, based on my usual training pace, the 8 mile result seems more accurate. That makes the Foretrex result almost 20% low! While biking along relatively straight forest service roads, the difference was closer to 10%. One thought is that maybe it is not computing the added distance created due to elevation gain and loss? I’m not sure, but the discrepancy is too much for me to consider using it as a training device.

When used strictly for determining coords while standing still, I can’t find any faults with this unit. The only negative thing I can say is that I’ve never seen any benefit to the WAAS mode. It is supposed to allow much greater accuracy, but it has never worked during my testing. I guess I’ve just never gotten the signal for the WAAS in the areas I’ve used it.

Although it is designed to be worn on your wrist, I found it to be uncomfortable at best. When bushwhacking through the forest it became very painful when I had to put my hand down to brace myself. The unit extends beyond the wrist and digs into the back of your hand when your wrist is bent back. The additional elastic strap for wearing on the upper arm was much better. The bike mount is very secure and seems bombproof.

The 101 model uses two AAA batteries, which allows easy field replacement. Rechargeable AAA’s seem to give me about 4-5 hrs of continuous use.

My primary use for this gadget has been navigation training and confirming CP placements for training/mock races. It works just fine for these purposes, but not much more.