Whether you’re a prince on a hand-built Trek Madone 6 or a Pauper on a Huffy — stat tracking is the best way to improve your riding fitness. These two upcoming Garmin products will record what you need, regardless of your budget.
For the cash-strapped biker, the $US150 Edge 200 GPS-enabled cycling computer tracks the essential stats — time, distance, speed, location and calories burned — without needing to install a separate sensor. It also stores 130 hours of previous stats and can upload them to Garmin Connect — the company’s free data analysis and mapping website.
The Garmin Vector, on the other hand, replaces the stock crank set and measures the entire force profile of a pedal stroke as well as total power and cadence — it even differentiates between right and left leg power. Connect it to either the Garmin Edge 500 or 800 to calculate Normalized Power, Intensity Factor and Training Stress Score data (and a bunch of other stats most people outside the Tour de France have never heard of). The price for this information does not come cheap, however. You’ll be paying a trading your kingdom for this $US1500 horse when the Vector comes out next March — plus the cost of an Edge ($US250-$US450) if you don’t already own one.