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The Garmin Edge 305 and the Future of GPS Data

June 26th, 2007 by Kenric

This is just one of those isn’t technology cool posts.  I love high tech gadgets and love to crunch numbers.  So when my friend got the Garmin Edge 305 for him and his bike, we had to go out and test it.  This device records your location, speed, elevation and heart rate as you ride.  If you are a hardcore trainer you must get this! And no this is not a sponsored post of any sort.

We all know how competitive guys are when it comes to sports.  So don’t buy this cause you may kill yourselves trying to out do each other.  For example, below is a graph of my heart rate vs my friend Eddy while we were doing a climb.  Once I see that on the graph I wonder…  Could I push more at the beginning?  Do I still have 5 beats per second in me?  What’s so nice about this is that over time, doing the same course your heart rate should go down as you get into better shape.

But, on to the cool stuff.  With all the data that the GPS captures, you can upload it to Google Earth and it will overlay your route.  Here is a long downhill run in Aliso Canyon just off the coast in LA.  The blue is the data from the GPS.  You can see the actual trail under it.  The GPS isn’t 100% accurate on its locations but it’s close enough.

Now the fun part.  This is for all the video gamers.  What better way to see how you did than through a video playback of you going down the hill against your friend.  Running the data through Motionbased.com enabled me to create a dot race of us riding down the hill. I have to mention that he did beat me by 10 seconds to the finish.

In just this short post.  You have an idea of the trail, its location just from the single Google Earth image.  I show the dot race video.   Now if I add a few pictures or video of me riding.  It would tie everything together.  You’d have a very clear picture of one day of my riding. 

So why am I mentioning all of this?  I’m sure to a non-biker this seems pretty boring.  This is the future of story telling, pictures and vacation videos.  Pictures are great, video is better (sometimes) but I really think that GPS data is what will tie the two together. Show a digital picture, click on it BAM it goes to Google Earth and shows the location of where it was taken. Carry around a little gps device and you can map out your entire European vacation.  You can show your friends exactly how fast you drove on the Autobahn.  You can playback your cruise and see where that big boat took you.  The possibilities are endless.

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