Talkback: Garmin Forerunner 910XT: Preview

Big Up for B_Kins. Deleted the lot in history and HR working again on both, though the Forerunner put up a fight. Curiosuly, with the old Garmin strap which are apparently notorious for their unreliability

Mwah!

Nice one!

slowerthanilook wrote (see)

Dave Cochrane wrote (see)

, the bike metrics are spot on, and the ability to upload courses to follow is really useful too.

Is this the case? Makes it much more cool for me if you can upload a route. How does it tell you where to go, because I understand that it doesn't have any base map function? Cheers.

My understanding is that there is a little arrow on the screen and a very basic sketch of where you're going. It is this feature that appealed to me to help me explore new routes (with the assistance of "back to start" when I get hopelessly lost - please tell me this garmin still has this function?!).  

I'm also the worst directional open water swimmer ever, so I thought this might help me to see what I'm doing a bit clearer (at the moment, I just look up and realise I'm not going in the direction I started in...).

I also do a lot of swimming in an endless pool in winter - would this be able to measure the distance I'd swum even though I'm technically in one place or is the ows distance purely on gps route distance? If it can't do this I may settle for an older garmin.

Dustboy wrote (see)

No, won't link to Edge or Forerunner, HRM not present. Yes battery changed, yes voltmeter tested, yes reverse shorted it as recommended, yes, tried with Polar strap, yes tried rescan on both 910 & Edge, now fresh out of ideas. However, I will try and empty both and see if it makes a difference. Hasn't worked since new battery. 

Have you asked Garmin whether this is warranty-able?

Thanks Dancing. Very helpful.

Yep that 'Back to Start' function is still there. I have yet to put my trust in it but i plan to one of these days! As for the endless pool you won't get any kind of distance reading off that. All it could potentially tell you is your stroke rate, stroke count and the type of stroke you are doing. In indoor swimming it works of an accelerometer so a sharp change in direction means you have finished a length. Outdoor is GPS. I guess you could use the stroke count as meters to estimate a distance in the endless pool. 1 stroke is roughly equal to 1 meter...

Hmmm, I can count strokes though: that's what I'm working off already. I found this which seems to confirm what you are saying https://forums.garmin.com/showthread.php?29132-Swimming-in-Endless-Pool-with-the-910XT. Only that's wrong in that the settings on the endless pool are measured in pressure, not in mph, so there would be no way to compute using s=d/t, you would need to know stroke rate to compute unless the pool company can tell me. Aaah, I don't know what to do now! 

B_Kins wrote (see)

I guess you could use the stroke count as meters to estimate a distance in the endless pool. 1 stroke is roughly equal to 1 meter...

Not if you're trying to be efficient, hence the whole point of the SWOLF setting? I know I get a LOT less than 50 strokes in a 50m pool... usually 28-30?

Okay yeah, i was counting both arms and the watch obviously only counts one. So one stroke is approx 2 meters by the watches count.

B_Kins wrote (see)

Yep that 'Back to Start' function is still there. I have yet to put my trust in it but i plan to one of these days!

Back to start worked very well last December in Germany on my 305! I expect it will save your bacon just as efficiently!

B_Kins wrote (see)

Okay yeah, i was counting both arms and the watch obviously only counts one. So one stroke is approx 2 meters by the watches count.

Nope... 28-30 strokes total = both arms... Guess that means the stroke length varies massively from one individual to another?

just a bit of useless info - i swim at average 24/26 strokes per 25m, the bloke who swims next to me normally does  upto 34 - my efficiency can be less than 40 but more often around 44 his is around 48/49, obviously difference in arm length has a bearing on strokes / minute but not on efficiency.

TheEngineer wrote (see)

Nope... 28-30 strokes total = both arms... Guess that means the stroke length varies massively from one individual to another?

It would do yeah. There's lots of some good info on swim smooth's website about stroke rate vs stroke length.