I’ve ridden to Walloon a fewtimes in the last year, and had been planning a return visit for the last couple of months. The only problem is that we’ve had heavy rain which made some of the tracks difficult to ride.
Thankfully, we’ve had a lot of sun over the last few days, so the tracks had a chance to dry out. The only fly in the ointment was that my camera got water damaged when I fell in the creek last week, so I only had my mobile phone to take photos. Darb got some video, so I’ll add that when it becomes available.
Aaron and I started from my place in Lawnton, meeting Darb at Leitches Crossing (still flooded). We then made our way to Bunyaville to meet Neil B. From there we made our way to Ironbark Gully, and on to the Lanita Road Rail Trail.
We then followed the pony trails through the back of Samford to the Goat Track. This road has slowly deteriorated since it was closed over a year ago from heavy rain. It’s very rutted, with several nasty looking holes close to a sheer drop near the edge of the road. It’s a fun road to ride up, and is still the easiest way to get up the D’Aguilar Range to Mount Nebo, but since it’s no longer being maintained by the council, and since bits of it keep falling off, it’s getting more dangerous.
Once we reached Mount Nebo, we then headed down Dundas Road. This enjoyable trail starts behind the Mt Nebo Rubbish Dump and heads a couple of kilometres westward and downhill to a water tank and camping ground. I stopped to take a few photos, only to discover my camera wasn’t working, so I had to quickly get my mobile phone out to get these photos. You can’t see it in the picture, but the guys were going pretty fast down this hill, and whizzed by me with only a couple of inches to spare.
After the camping ground, the road gets considerably steeper, turning into “Whoa Boy” break. Originally I thought it was called this because when you get to the top and look down, you say to yourself “Whoa Boy”. But actually, it’s named after all the water bars on the track. A water bar is a hump of dirt that crosses a steep track. The hump stops rain water from eroding the track. It also makes the track a lot of fun to ride down – more daring riders use the humps as a jump, and launch into the air. It also makes the track a lot more diabolical to ride up – it’s hard work riding up a steep hill anyway, but then having to ride up the back of an extra steep hump makes it even more difficult.
Another name for a water bar is a “Whoa Boy” which is what the old drovers used to call them because they’d slow their horses down as the cart went over the hump, often saying to the horse “Whoa Boy”.
Mountain Bikers don’t say that. They usually just give a “Whoop” and fly over the hump.
But…. this hill is so steep, and so long, and I used my brakes so much that they over heated. And suddenly they were gone. I pulled the brake lever, and nothing happened. Worse than that, the lever just squeezed right into the handlebars. It’s a horrible feeling. I’m very fortunate that this happened near the bottom of the descent, and that I still had my front brakes. After stopping the bike for a few minutes the brakes came back, and we were able to continue the journey.
Once we got down the other side of the D’Aguilar Range we headed west along Banks Creek Road. The road crosses Banks Creek several times, and there was enough water flowing at the crossings for us to get our feet wet. But the major surprise was Savages Crossing. This is where we had to cross the Brisbane River. But the river was swollen after recent rain, and had covered the causeway by about 30cm (knee height). A couple of the guys rode across the 50 metre causeway. I’m sure it was safe, but I didn’t want to risk damaging the bike, so I waded across, carrying the bike.
From there we stopped at the Fernvale Bakery for lunch, and followed the Brisbane Valley Railtrail and soem quiet gravel roads southwards to Walloon.
One of Walloons major assets is its wonderful pub, where we stopped for a few beers, before hopping on the train and heading home.
All up we rode about 85km. I burned about 4,500kcal in just under 6 hours of riding (excluding breaks). I’ll give this one 8.5 out of 10 on the tough-o-meter. The weather was perfect – perhaps a little warm, and the major descent required a lot of concentration. I’d also recommend this as a winter ride when the weather is drier, and the creeks / rivers are lower.
Total distance: 86.3 km Total climbing: 1674 m Average temperature: NAN Total time: 08:08:23
Two years ago I asked a few friends if they knew of any way to ride a bike from Cedar Creek (a few kilometres north of Samford) up to Mount Glorious. At the time, no one had any clear ideas about how to do it. But today we found a challenging way to go the other way, riding down to Cedar Creek from Mount Glorious.
Tony, Graham and I started the day from Samford, heading west to the D’Aguilar Range via some local Pony Trails. We made our way up the hill to the Dundas Road water tank and campsite before taking a long descent down Goodes Road.
Goodes Road descends almost 500 metres in 4.5km. That’s a long way down in a fairly short distance. It’s a lot of fun to ride down, provided you keep your wits about you. It’s very hard work to ride up.
After the long descent we eventually we reached England Creek. This beautiful clear creek meanders westward through the National Park eventually draining into the Brisbane River near Fernvale. Today it was full of beautiful fresh water. Tony and Graham rode through it effortlessly. I however, stalled midway through, fell off and got totally saturated.
Since England Creek marks the bottom of the descent, and the start of the long climb out, we decided to take a quick break.
Graham broke his chain while riding up Joyners Ridge Road, and didn’t have a spare link or chain breaker with him. Luckily I did, so he was able to get back on his way fairly quickly. The only problem was that leeches found us while we stopped in the damp undergrowth, so we all had to pick off a few of the horrible little creatures before setting off again.
The climb up Joyners Ridge Road from England Creek is about 10km in length. But during that time we had to make a total ascent a total of 835 meters. So by the time we got to the top we were quite hot. So the cool rain-forest at the top of the climb was a delight to ride through.
After a quick break at Mount Glorious, we headed east along Harland Road, past an old saw mill near the summit of Mount O’Reilly to look for a way down the mountain. Harland Road is beautiful to ride along. It slowly gets narrower and more overgrown until it eventually disappears completely.
At this point we just steered the bikes down the hill along what appeared to be a ridge-line until we could no longer ride, and had to walk the bikes, scrambling down some very steep hill sides.
My predefined route was useless at this point. It went off over the side of the hill through terrain that we would never have been able to negotiate.
Eventually Graham found a rough 4wd track. Rocky, and overgrown, it was still too rough to ride, but it slowly improved until we were able to finish riding down the hill.
Eventually we made it down to Morrison Road at Cedar Creek. Looking back over my shoulder, I thought “did we actually ride down that?”
Well – we probably walked about 600m of it, but we did ride the rest.
Thanks so much, Tony and Graham, for helping me to answer my “what-if” question today 🙂
All up, 55km, 4,300kcal and 1,600m of vertical ascent. This one rates a definite 10 out of 10 on the tough-o-meter. Just doing the Goat Track, Dundas Rd, Goodes Rd and Joyners Ridge Rd is difficult. But adding Harland Rd into the mix, and scrambling through some thick undergrowth to get down a steep hill side made it insane (but fun).
Only try the Harland Road part of this ride if you’re willing and able to scramble down some very steep, overgrown, rocky hill sides carrying your bike. Don’t try it solo – it’s too dangerous to do alone.
Total distance: 56.36 km Total climbing: 1662 m Average temperature: NAN Total time: 06:47:26
Thanks for your letter which I received 19 years ago. I think I replied at the time, but I’ve re-read your letter so many times, I can’t remember what I said, so I thought I’d send you this second reply.
I just wanted to let you know how much I appreciate your love for life, and the way you made concrete decisions to get out and explore the world. I loved your comment that you “flew out to Alice springs on a Friday and had a look around”. That’s so true to character of you – some place seems interesting, so why not go and “have a look around”? Alice Springs, The Rock, the Ghan, the Great Ocean Road, the Great Barrier Reef…. you were prolific. I remember you telling me once you wanted to go to Antarctica, and what surprised me most was that you didn’t actually get a chance to visit there – but you had a good excuse.
It’s taken me a couple of years, and I thought I’d lost it, but today I found a photo of you on your 41st birthday when you had dinner with us, which is why I decided to write to you today.
You once said to me that you thought that compared to what life was like a couple of centuries ago, these days we are often lucky enough to live several “life times”. I’ve often thought of that, and consider myself one of the lucky ones. I feel like I’m part way through my second or third “life time” and have been incredibly lucky to see and experience the things that I have.
Well most of the things. One of the events that still saddens me was when you died almost 15 years ago.
That really pisses me off, and I often think of all the stuff we missed out on sharing together. I raised a glass “to absent friends” a few weeks ago and thought of you. In fact there’s not a week that goes by that I don’t remember something about you.
Like how you were the last person to beat me in a game of chess.
How you could quote passages of Shakespeare verbatim and tell me why you loved his plays.
How I’d ask you a philosophical question and you’d answer in that County Kerry brogue with a twinkle in your eye, “God knows, Neil”.
How you’d never eat your bloody vegetables. No wonder you got stomach cancer. I hope you don’t mind but we tell our kids about that when they try to get away without eating veggies.
How I had a curry with you, and you selected a bottle of Galway Pipe Port as the wine to go with it – and we both finished the port that night – geeze my head hurt the next day.
How you had some magic power that could tell who had which card in a game of bridge – how the hell did you do that?
How you wore hiking boots with shorts – even when you were just making a casual visit – almost as though you were ready for a hike in case the opportunity arose.
How I paid you $5 to help me solve one of the questions in the “Tournament of the mind” competition, because I was too dull to work it out after several hours, but you solved it in a couple of minutes.
Most of all I remember the shock that made me feel like I’d been kicked in the stomach when I found out you’d died – almost a month after it happened, and I never got a chance to say goodbye, or to let you know how much I loved you.
You left a huge hole when you died, John. But if I’m really honest with myself, I have to admit that while it was a tragedy for us, it wasn’t a tragedy for you because you lived well. You did everything (or most things) that you dreamed of doing. You looked at the world, and life, and delighted in it. You didn’t suppress your whims and you made an incredible impact on the world. So much so that even now I can hardly read this bloody page because my eyes are full of tears.
I’m so thankful Liz and I were able to visit your home village in Caherdaniel, meet your wonderful family, and see the house you grew up in. I enjoyed spending time with with a bunch of people who spoke like you, had the same quaint turns of phrase, and even looked like you. When I was with them it felt like I was with you.
Most of all I’m thankful for what you taught me – just by example: To live life to the fullest, and delight in every day.
Your friend
Neil
Here’s the letter john wrote to me in 1993. To view it, just click on “Page 1” below, then click on “newer” to move to each successive page. His description of gold mining is priceless.
After tworecent unsuccessful recent attempts, I finally managed to ride from my place to Scrub Road / South Boundary Road via Camp Mountain.
On my third trip along this route in a month, it was starting to feel a bit repetitious, but I really wanted to prove to myself that I could do it.
It’s challenging because there are a few tough climbs involved (Camp Mountain, Scrub Road, South Boundary Road northward), plus a couple of short nasty climbs in Bunyaville and Ironbark. All up it involveds about 1,600m of climbing, so I wanted to nail all of them in one go just for the sake of it.
DERM has recently graded the trail to the summit of Camp Mountain, but it didn’t seem to help me. I still took just over 13 minutes to climb it, and was exhausted and gasping for breath when I reached the top. This Goanna (or Lace Monitor) looked at me suspiciously, sniffing the air as I tried to catch my breath, so I grabbed a quick picture of him while I had the chance.
Then I had a quick ride up the bitumen along the hill tops to the trail head for Scrub Road.
The last time I rode this track it was so muddy my wheels clogged up and stopped turning. Thankfully this time the sun had dried up the mud, which meant a nice smooth ride for a couple of kilometres to the causeway at the bottom.
But, as every rider and hiker in D’Aguilar National Park knows, what goes down, must go up! So I put the bike into “granny” gear and spun furiously for half an hour to get out of the valley and back up onto the ridgeline at South Boundary Road.
I really appreciate the shelters and water tanks that DERM has built in the national park. Once I reached the shelter at the corner of Scrub Road and South Boundary Road, I took a bit of a break and cooled off under the water tap. It felt wonderful!
Since I had a bit of a whinge about DERM in a previous post I wanted to put on the record the fact that I do appreciate the work they do maintaining our parks. I love having such a large and diverse park so close to home, and despite occasional muddy fire trails, the park is very well maintained.
Just on a side note, did you know that Mount Coot-tha forms part of the D’Aguilar National Park system. It’s only 5.5km from the Brisbane CBD. I can’t think of any other capital city in the world that has such a large national park so close to the city centre.
All up 81km, 1,600m of ascent, and just under 5,000 kcal burned. This one is 9 out of 10 on the tough-o-meter.
Total distance: 81.86 km Total climbing: 1695 m Average temperature: NAN Total time: 06:59:44
Thank you, Lesley Hunter-Nolan (editor, Pine Rivers Press) and Nick Kuhn (photographer) for running this story in the Pine Rivers Press yesterday. I admire Nick for agreeing to come for an hour trek in the hilly forests of Clear Mountain with me so he could see some of the damage done by the DERM bulldozers.
Journalists get a lot of criticism from us at times, but I appreciate the job that the local press does – keeping us informed about what’s going on in our area.
Last week I tried to ride a large loop from home which took in Scrub Road and South Boundary Road… but didn’t quite make it. I tried again this week, and didn’t quite make it again. The problem last week was lack of water and time. This week the mud defeated us. The people from DERM have recently taken a bulldozer down some of the paths to clear fire breaks, and the roads have become impassable due to the thick mud caused by recent heavy rain.
Dean and I set out from my place at the ungodly time of 6am (he’s an early riser) and headed out to Bunyaville via some local bike paths.
From there we rode to Ironbark Gully in Samford Forest via Wongan Creek. The creek crossing was flooded, so I smugly let Dean know I thought we could ride across it without any problems. Halfway across the creek my wheel sunk into a hidden hole, I went over the handle bars, and and ended up sitting in water up to my neck wondering what was going on.
In the meantime, Dean did the commonsense thing and rode around the flooded bit without even taking a foot off the pedals.
I’ve really got to learn my lesson about flooded creeks I think!
(Picture by Dean)
From Ironbark Gully we headed up to Camp Mountain for the gruelling climb up the short track. It’s always a painful climb, but I love the sense of achievement when I reach the picnic ground at the top having beaten the hill.
The recent rain has cleared the haze from the air, so the views from Camp Mountain south to the Brisbane CBD were beautiful.
(Picture by Dean)
From there it was a quick ride up the bitumen to the gate at Scrub Road, and a fun descent for a couple of km down this steep firetrail to the creek and causeway at the bottom.
The only problem was the mud on the track up which clogged our wheels up so much they stopped turning. So the sensible thing to do (as Dean managed to convince me) was to turn around, climb back up to the bitumen, skip this section of dirt trails, and ride the road up to Mount Nebo.
I was disappointed. It’s annoying to be defeated twice in a week by the same stretch of track. But it forced me to face up to my main reason for doing all this anyway. And if I’m honest, it’s not about achieving objectives, it’s about getting to visit great places with good friends.
(Picture by Dean)
The views from the Mount Nebo Road looking down into Samford Valley were pretty special anyway, so I don’t think we really missed out that badly!
Just over 82km, with 5:30 hours rolling, and a tad under 1,800m of vertical ascent, and 4,800kcal of energy. The BLT sandwich at Jones Tea Rooms, Mt Nebo, was worth the effort to get there. Once again, this ride rates 9 out of 10 on the tough-o-meter for the hot weather, tough climb up Camp Mountain, and the mud on Scrub Road. Let’s do it again some time 🙂
Total distance: 82.71 km Total climbing: 1865 m Average temperature: NAN Total time: 07:28:03
The good folks at Mitac Australia recently lent me a MagellanExplorist 610 for review. The 610 is described by Magellan as “a touch-screen product, with customisable hard buttons, a 3-axis compass and altimeter, camera to take geotagged photos and a micro SD card for an expandable memory of 32 GB”.
The model I received was from the USA. It came pre-loaded with hundreds of U.S. Geocaches. I’m assuming that when the Australian version is released it will come pre-loaded with Aussie Geocaches which should be great for Geocaching fans.
I’m a mountain biker who sometimes does a bit of Geocaching. So a primary concern for me is how usable a GPS is on the bike. I mentioned this to Mitac Australia, and they kindly sent me a handlebar mount for the GPS so I could take it on rides.
What do I like about this GPS?
1. Tough. The 610 is build from sturdy moulded plastic. It feels solid, and I’m quite confident it could take a pounding on the trail. The display feels like it’s built to last. For anyone who currently uses a smart phone for on-the-trail navigation, you’ll be much more confident exposing the Explorist 610 to the rigours of outdoor life than your much more delicate phone.
2. Waterproof. Flooded creeks and rain aren’t a problem for the 610. As someone who has lost a couple of expensive mobile phones to water damage while riding, this is a big plus.
3. Maps. The contour maps give you a great idea of the steepness of the terrain. It seems to have a complete set of the suburban roads in my area. It also has a few (but not all) of the local trails in my area, so it’s handy for navigating around local streets. You can set the view to be either 2D or 3D which gives you a different perspective of the lay of the land, and comes in handy when you’re up in the hills and want to get an idea of how steep the land is around you.
The Explorist also gives you the ability to install your own maps instead of the pre-loaded maps. This is great for Open Street Map enthusiasts who prefer more frequently updated user-generated maps such as Maps 4 Me.
4. Camera. The 3.2 mega-pixel auto-focus camera is easy to use. One of the buttons on the case of the unit is pre-programmed to activate the camera, so it’s really easy to point the 610 at something interesting, and quickly take a photo. You can also take videos. What I really like is being able to take photos even when it’s raining. Who in their right mind would get out their mobile phone, or digital camera in the middle of a rain storm? By making the 610 waterproof AND putting a camera in it, you effectively have an all-weather waterproof camera. How cool is that?
Here’s a comparison of photos taken with the Explorist 610 (on the left) compared with the same shots taken on my Samsung Galaxy S2 smart phone (on the right). I think the 610 does pretty well considering it has less than half the resolution of the SG2:
Explorist 610 (3.2 mega-pixel)
Samsung Galaxy SG2 (8 mega-pixel)
5. Touch Screen. One of the fears a cyclist has of a touch screen is how easy it will be to use with gloves. This screen seemed to respond to my requests accurately, even though I was wearing full-length Fox Dirtpaw gloves. It was easy to use with gloved hands, and the menu navigation seemed quite intuitive.
6. Software. The 610 doesn’t come with any installation media, but you can download and install Vantagepoint which lets you exchange routes, tracks, media, data between your computer and the GPS. The software is easy to use and has all the functions I wanted.
What don’t I like about this GPS?
1. Batteries.
You need to put batteries into the 610. It’s NOT one of those units you just plug in via USB at the end of the day and wait to recharge. You have to open it up and put batteries in it. The manufacturers recommend two AA Lithium batteries which they say will last about 16 hours. I got considerably less than this with the two Lithium batteries I used, but I’m willing to blame this on the batteries, not the unit. You can also use rechargeable batteries, but not cheap ones. You must use heavy duty rechargeables – the sort you’d put into a hungry digital camera. When using good rechargeables I was able to use the 610 for most of a day without the batteries dying.
A pair of AA lithium batteries will set you back about $AUD 10. I spend about 12 to 15 hours per week on the bike, so I would need to purchase batteries almost weekly, which doesn’t make sense for me.
One major improvement the manufacturers could make make to the Explorist 610 would be to let you recharge it by plugging it via USB. Competitor products do this already. I think it’s essential.
2. How do I get the software?
The Vantagepoint software is great. The problem is that when you get the unit out of the box, there’s nothing to point you in the right direction and tell you that you need to go to http://www.magellangps.com/VantagePoint to download the software. And there’s no CD. As a new buyer how do you even know there is a thing called Vantagepoint? The box tells you to go to http://magellangps.com/support from where you can download manuals for Vantagepoint, but there’s nothing to tell you how to download the actual software. Thankfully Google pointed me in the right direction.
Also, there are a couple of minor issues with the Browser Plug-in – Magellan Communicator. This is the bit of software that lest the 610 communicate with websites while it’s plugged into your computer via USB. The plug-in didn’t seem to install correctly into my Firefox browser. It also wouldn’t install into my Internet Explorer 64 bit browser. I did manage to get it to install into my Internet Explorer 32 bit browser, but it continually asked me to upgrade the plug-in, even after upgrading it several times. I’m sure it’s a temporary issue, but if this happens to you too, rest assured you’re not going crazy 🙂
3. Resetting / Not Resetting Track logs.
This has to be the most frustrating issue with the 610.
Most people who go out exploring with a GPS would like that GPS to record their adventures – this makes it easier to brag to your friends about the wonderful places you’ve been. After your journey, you come home, plug in the GPS, download your adventures and you’re ready for the next adventure.
The problem is you’re not.
The next time you go out with your GPS and turn it on, it appends to your previous track by default. So if one day you’re hiking in the Gold Coast hinterland, and the next day you’re mountain biking in D’Aguilar National Park, the 610 doesn’t automatically split then into separate tracks – even though you might have downloaded your first hike onto the computer before starting your second adventure. So at the end of your subsequent adventures, you discover that you don’t have a track log of your outing, you’ve got a breadcrumb trail going all over the countryside spanning multiple adventures.
The trick is you have to manually tell the 610 to save one track, then clear the track log and start a new one.
If you don’t remember to do this before each new outing, you won’t get the track log you expected.
But wait… there’s more! Suppose, during your hike or ride, you decide you’d like to find a Geocache. So you navigate to the Geocache section, pick a particular cache, and tell the 610 to take you to it. The problem is the unit will then cancel your current track. If you wanted to search for several Geocaches, your log for the day would be split into several different fragments.
So on the one hand the 610 doesn’t split the track log when you’d expect it to, but it DOES split the track log when you don’t expect it to.
A simple solution would be to automatically split the log after an upload via Vantagepopint, or after several hours of inactivity. And to allow searching for Geocaches without breaking the track log.
4. Seeing nearby Geocaches.
Having a pre-loaded database of Geocaches is a great advantage and a big plus for the Explorist 610.
The problem is that while using the unit, you have no idea that there might be a Geocache nearby. On most GPS units I’ve used, you put the Geocache details in as a way-point, then whenever you’re in the vicinity of the way-point it appears on the GPS map screen. This encourages serendipity. You’re out hiking and you see a cache on the map and think to yourself “Hey, there’s a Geocache nearby. Let’s do it!”.
On the Explorist 610, if you want to find a Geocache, you have to navigate to the Geocache section of the menu, and select the Geocache you’d like to find. Unless you do that, you could be looking at your map screen, and since you haven’t asked for it, you’d be totally unaware that a geocache was only 10 or 15 metres away.
What use is a huge on-board database of Geocaches if the unit doesn’t let you know they’re close by when you’re navigating somewhere else?
5. Bike Mount.
It’s great being able to mount the GPS on my bike handlebars.
But (most?) handlebars are tapered. In other words they’re narrower at one part than they are at another part. The handlebar mount is attached via zip-ties. The problem is when you tighten the zip-ties to fix the mount to the bars, they squeeze on the tapered bars and push the mount sideways. So the handlebar mount inevitably loosens up after a few minutes of bumpy riding, and the GPS unit slides downwards to face the ground, making it unusable.
The work-around is to put the handlebar mount on the stem rather than the bars and twist the GPS connector 90 degrees. But this is not always possible. Some stems are flat which means the handlebar mount doesn’t fit as snugly.
The problem is compounded by the fact that the GPS is fairly heavy, and it’s not mounted at its center of gravity. So the weight of the GPS pulls down on the mount, which causes the unit to slip around and face the ground.
There’s a missed opportunity here. If the GPS was mounted closer to its center of gravity, the on-board camera would sit higher above the bars. This means it would be easy to use the unit to take videos while riding the bike. Since it has reasonably good resolution for video, and it’s waterproof, it would be ideal for this purpose. I admit it’s a left-field idea, but you can’t do it with the current handlebar mount because the camera doesn’t sit high enough above the bars, so the handlebars get in the way of any video / pictures taken while the unit is mounted.
6. Planning Routes.
Anyone interested in exploring our wonderful world with a GPS will eventually want to enter a route into the GPS so they know where they’re going.
The Vantagepoint software lets you do this, but it only lets you set a maximum of 100 points. This might be ok for a short walk in the forest, but for a 50km to 100km adventure in the mountains, it’s nowhere near enough.
Thankfully there is a workaround. Basically you create your route in Google Earth, convert it to a GPX file (using something like http://GPSies.com) then load it into the GPS as a track. It then appears in the GPS as somewhere you’ve been before, and you can load the track to assist you with navigation.
7. Map colors.
Personally, I find the map colors difficult to read while riding the bike. It’s much easier to read maps that have a light background and dark tracks rather than the current configuration on the 610 which shows light tracks on a dark background.
The screen is nice and bright, the colors are vibrant, but in bright sunlight when you’re shooting down a trail at 40km/hr, it’s hard to get a quick glace of the screen and quickly know what’s going on.
One work-around for the map color issue might be to try some alternative OSM maps, such as Maps 4 Me.
8. Weight.
At first I wondered why the unit didn’t come with a lanyard so you could carry it around your neck. The I realized it would be pretty uncomfortable on a long hike having a 200 gram GPS dangling from your neck for several hours. I think when Magellan say “Hand Held” they really mean it. When you don’t want to hold the unit it might be more comfortable carrying it in a large pocket rather than letting it swing from a lanyard.
Bottom Line
This is a rugged GPS that comes pre-loaded with hundreds of Geocaches. It can take photos and videos while you’re outside exploring – even in the most inclement weather. It’s easy to use. I think it would be great for an afternoon of family Geocaching, or for an occasional trip out into the hills while you took a few photos – in any weather.
But, I don’t think a cross-country mountain biker was the best match to test drive the Explorist 610 🙂 It’s definitely not the sort of GPS you’d put on your bike if you planned on disappearing into the mountains for a few days. And it’s not a GPS you’d use as an everyday device to faithfully and effortlessly track your rides.
If you purchase one, make sure you buy some good rechargeable batteries!
UPDATE 7-Feb-2012
Here are some responses from the Product Manager about the “Things I don’t like”
Batteries: There are various ways to improve battery life as well, turning off the backlight, using active suspend. You hit the power button and select suspend mode. It still records your track but turns off all the functions you don’t need to save power.
Software: Valid point about not being clear that VP exists in the documentation and we have addressed this with the team who control this area. There will be a new version of VP available in about 2 weeks which will fix the plug in bugs. So we encourage Neil to update VP in a few weeks to see if that makes a difference.
Track Logs: I see his point about not having the ability to save tracks on every power cycle, but I really like how we handle tracks. All one has to do is hit “Start” on the main menu when you start your activity and it will log everything you do from that point forward, including all the waypoints, photos, etc you collect along the way. Also, regarding the geocache scenario he described, folks LOVE that we don’t separate the portions of the track when you’re not actively looking for caches and when you’re on the hunt.
Preloaded Geocaches: The preloaded caches (999) are intended to just be something pretty to look at when folks are fondling the device at retail. Most geocachers know they have to set up a pocket query for their geographic area to get an acceptable density of geocaches.
Bike mount: The mount is indexed every 45 degrees, so I suggest he move the mount to his stem (piece connecting the handlebars to the fork), then adjust mount orientation by removing the screw that holds the mounting plate to the mount, then rotating it 90 degrees to have a portrait screen orientation.
Routes: Most people are using .GPX files these days for route planning, so he’s identified what I would recommend.
Map Colors: We have adjusted colors a few times, but there’s still room for improvement
Weight: I recommend Lithium batteries to folks who complain about the weight as lithium v/s alkaline is quite impressive (as lithium batteries are non-aqueous).
