I have had the Garmin 305 and the now the new 605. But really set up for a bike, not great unless your hold it. The Garmin GPS watches have come a long way, and with a handlebar mount, you can tale it hiking or biking.
Check out Motionbased.com You can upload your tracks to view tons of information and pictures (even 'live motion"), and download tracks into your unit for trying out new trails.
I would suggest trying it out on trails you are familier with first. I had it on during a race, and it went haywire from a preride back-track the week before. My fault, not the units
grew up 2 minutes form the park, went there sledding when it did snow around here, as kids we rode in the back of the park not great trails just fun for a kid,
amazing that Ryers leaves the ground in his will to used as a park and the city sells/leases the ground right out from under the people who use it ( baseball, soccer, golf driving range) .
they killed another open space in the city , when they could of knocked down blocks of abandon homes that the city has tons of.
Yea I totally agree Jess. There are so many areas in the city that need to be revitalized. This revitalization would not only give them what they need, and create the new jobs, it would bring new life to areas that are already urban and in need of new life.
There are still vast sections of Philadelphia that suffer complete urban and industrial decay. There are entire factories, right downtown, that are dilapidated, not to mention numerous neighborhoods suffering 3rd-world blight. Fox Chase is more than a location, so there is no reason they can't set up a sister or satellite hospital in many other areas that are already within the concrete jungle. It would be a horrendous mistake to steal such a priceless commodity from the community.
Fox Chase hospital grapples with park lovers over land, By VALERIE RUSS Philadelphia Daily News
Jean Gavin walks her dog in a wooded area of Burholme Park graced with 300-year-old trees with roots like elephants' feet. Wrinkled, gray, sturdy and strong, the roots grip the ground of Northeast Philadelphia. Last week in the park, off Cottman Avenue, leaves of ruby-red and lemon-yellow, apple-green and tawny-brown rustled in the wind. Where the earth slopes to the headwaters of the Tookany, Tacony and Frankford creeks, green stones glittered with diamond-like bits of mica. "As kids, we used to think it was gold," said Fred Maurer, a member of the Fairmount Park Advisory Council who, as a child, played along the mica-speckled Wissahickon and Pennypack creek beds.
Gavin, 73, and Maurer, 74, are among a group waging a bitter battle to save Burholme Park from the adjacent Fox Chase Cancer Center, which plans to use nearly 20 acres for a new hospital and other structures that would be built over the next two decades. "They will take away the heart of the park," said Maurer, adding that he and Gavin consider themselves "protectors" of the park. The two retirees were sued by the cancer center last year when they appealed a zoning variance granted to the hospital to build a cancer-research pavilion on its own land. The hospital dropped its suit after City Council changed the hospital's zoning to make it easier to build the pavilion, now under construction. In the current battle, Fox Chase, a nationally recognized cancer-research and -treatment center based at Shelmire and Central avenues, already has won approval from Mayor Nutter, Council and a divided Fairmount Park Commission to lease 19.4 acres of the 63-acre park. The lease is for 80 years, with options to renew.
In exchange, Fox Chase would pay $12.25 million to the city, according to Amy Ginensky, an attorney for the cancer center. Still, some neighborhood residents won't give up. They challenged the deal in Orphans Court, where Judge John W. Herron recently heard seven days of testimony and is expected to issue a ruling any day. Samuel Stretton, the attorney representing neighbors fighting the expansion, said he based his arguments on the Public Trust Doctrine, a legal principle that prohibits "selling parkland that is being actively used." Stretton said the doctrine should trump the city's argument of an "inalienable property right" to sell the park. And he warned: "A lease of 80 years is essentially a sale." Land was willed to city.
The case is in Orphans' Court because most of Burholme Park was willed to the city by Robert W. Ryerss in the 19th century to be "used forever" as a public park. The park was turned over to the city in 1905. His father, Joseph Waln Ryerss, a railroad tycoon, had built Ryerss Mansion in 1859 as a summer home. Part of Burholme Park, as well as the Ryerss Museum and Library, are on the National Register of Historic Places. Ginensky, the attorney for the cancer center, said it's not a question of making a Solomon-type choice between the park and the hospital. "I think the way the city has done this, . . . the park still survives and the cancer institute survives," Ginensky said.
But at least one Fairmount Park commissioner disagrees.
"It's a breach of trust of the generous donors who gave that ground to the city for the use and enjoyment of open and green space," said retired Common Pleas Judge Alex Bonavitacola, who voted against leasing the land. "All the parks in the city are in jeopardy," he added. "If they can sell off a part of Burholme Park, they can sell off any part of the city. It's easy to make a concrete jungle, but it's pretty hard to find new parkland."
For their part, Fox Chase officials say they desperately need a new hospital. "Our facilities are really bursting at the seams," said spokesman Franklin Hoke. He said that the center treats about 7,500 new patients each year, and that 10 years from now that figure will jump to 12,000. "It's a climbing curve, and that kind of growth needs new facilities," Hoke said. "We need to grow to pursue cancer-research programs." Al Taubenberger, the former Republican mayoral candidate who is president of both the Northeast Chamber of Commerce and the Burholme Civic Association, testified in favor of the hospital expansion. He said he had testified as head of the chamber only, and not on behalf of the civic association, because he didn't want to see "neighbors divided against neighbors." Some of those neighbors don't want to lose the park, but others see the cancer center as a benefit both as a hospital and a source of jobs, he said. The center anticipates that its expansion would create 4,000 jobs over the next 20 years. Hoke, the Fox Chase spokesman, said the center is looking for a site in Delaware, where a newspaper reported in September that the center wants to use part of a state park for a multimillion-dollar building. But Hoke said Fox Chase is committed to maintaining a presence at its current location.
Meanwhile, Gavin, a cancer survivor, said she understands Fox Chase's need to expand but questions its planned use of the park. "Why would they want to take something that's good for one's health, not just physically but mentally as well?" she asked. "People go there to find calm. That's what green land does for you."
I'm also highly considering the Garmin Colorado 400t. It is on sale at REI this week and I have read some pretty good reviews. It has turn-by-turn directions as well as great Topo map software and storage space. Its suppose to be rugged, waterproof (to an extent) and will have a lot of cool functions to play around with. I plan doing some in-store shopping tomorrow and seeing if I check one out in person, as well as some other units.
I wouldn't consider using a Nuvi in the woods for several reasons. First, it's too freakin big. And I doubt that its receiver is optimized for the woods. I get significantly better tracks with my PN-20 than I do with the cheaper Forerunner - the Forerunner's tracks will show long straight lines in the woods (where it lost the signal and needed to interpolate between points), where the PN-20 shows every turn because it was still locked onto the satellite. Also, I don't think it will record a track, which you want to do for making trail maps and tracking where you've been.
I don't know that the GPS companies are being all that greedy. A unit that's big enough to read safely in a car isn't going to fit well onto a bike. A really cool possibility might be a handheld unit that fits inside a shell with a larger display for use in a car. I'm sure it doesn't exist, but THAT would be really neat.
I think getting two $200-250 dedicated systems for each application is a better solution
Yea I've been hearing that a lot too Dmitri.
And thanks for the tips John, there is a lot that goies into looking into these things.
I'm trying to decide whether getting something like the Garmin Nuvi 500 would be best, but I'm getting mediocre reviews about its effectiveness in the woods. I also really like the Garmin 60CSx for its outdoor capabilities, but I get mediocre reviews about its driving capabilites. It seems these big companies have decided to hold off on making the best crossover GPS receiver (greedy bastards - you know its sitting a drawer somewhere waiting to be released).
So I may be also contemplating getting two receivers, even though I was really hoping to save some money by getting it all-in-one.
