Rich in NEPA

quote:Originally posted by Jamie Z:... he insisted that no person in their right mind would put clipless pedals on a mountain bike. I've tried to convince him that people do it, but he thinks it's nuts. What do you have to say about that? Jamie, I agree with George above. Clipless rocks on the trails! There are significant advantages to clipless pedals, especially in the rough stuff. I'm not a very technical rider, but having my feet attached to my pedals helps to keep them in place instead of bouncing off them. As with road cycling, "pedaling in circles" (applying power throughout the entire crank revolution) means more efficient and smoother climbing, less breaking of traction. I don't ride full-suspension but I do use a suspension seatpost. This allows me to remain in contact with my saddle when powering up those steep and rough trails. One more point is that clipless pedals typically provide more clearance than caged pedals. The bottom line is I doubt I would ever ride without clipless pedals, even in Winter. As far as being scary ... that only lasts a little while if you aren't used to them. Never had a problem getting out of them in a crash, and some cases it's actually even safer to stay clipped in and remain with the bike in a tumble. Cheers ... ~Rich in NEPA~ === A man with a GPS receiver knows where he is; a man with two GPS receivers is never sure. ===

quote:Originally posted by Jamie Z:... he insisted that no person in their right mind would put clipless pedals on a mountain bike. I've tried to convince him that people do it, but he thinks it's nuts. What do you have to say about that? Jamie, I agree with George above. Clipless rocks on the trails! There are significant advantages to clipless pedals, especially in the rough stuff. I'm not a very technical rider, but having my feet attached to my pedals helps to keep them in place instead of bouncing off them. As with road cycling, "pedaling in circles" (applying power throughout the entire crank revolution) means more efficient and smoother climbing, less breaking of traction. I don't ride full-suspension but I do use a suspension seatpost. This allows me to remain in contact with my saddle when powering up those steep and rough trails. One more point is that clipless pedals typically provide more clearance than caged pedals. The bottom line is I doubt I would ever ride without clipless pedals, even in Winter. As far as being scary ... that only lasts a little while if you aren't used to them. Never had a problem getting out of them in a crash, and some cases it's actually even safer to stay clipped in and remain with the bike in a tumble. Cheers ... ~Rich in NEPA~ === A man with a GPS receiver knows where he is; a man with two GPS receivers is never sure. ===

quote:Originally posted by Jamie Z:The reason I believe what my cyclometer says over my GPS is that the cyclometer measures the rotation of the wheel for every move I make. Hey, I'll bet you never realized that your front wheel travels farther than your rear wheel! Think about it. ~Rich in NEPA~ === A man with a GPS receiver knows where he is; a man with two GPS receivers is never sure. ===

quote:Originally posted by Jamie Z:The reason I believe what my cyclometer says over my GPS is that the cyclometer measures the rotation of the wheel for every move I make. Hey, I'll bet you never realized that your front wheel travels farther than your rear wheel! Think about it. ~Rich in NEPA~ === A man with a GPS receiver knows where he is; a man with two GPS receivers is never sure. ===

quote:Originally posted by oregone:Caching on the moon is fine, as long as the caches are not on private property. The Lunar-NPS has already banned Geocaching! It's discussed in one of their Morning Reports. ---Early Lunar Geocacher--- ~Rich in NEPA~ === A man with a GPS receiver knows where he is; a man with two GPS receivers is never sure. ===

quote:Originally posted by oregone:Caching on the moon is fine, as long as the caches are not on private property. The Lunar-NPS has already banned Geocaching! It's discussed in one of their Morning Reports. ---Early Lunar Geocacher--- ~Rich in NEPA~ === A man with a GPS receiver knows where he is; a man with two GPS receivers is never sure. ===

quote:Originally posted by Max Wedge:Do you still do caches by bike, or did you kind of burn out on the whole approach? When possible, yes! For example: Aylesworth Dam Jacobsburg by Bike or Hike Mountain Spring Lake Siding I've done about 8 Geocache hunts so far via mountain bike. My setup consists of a Garmin GA27C remote amplified antenna which I attach to the top of my helmet with Velcro. The GPSr usually goes in a fanny pack. I've also used it to create track logs of some of my favorite mountain biking trails. Cheers ... ~Rich in NEPA~ === A man with a GPS receiver knows where he is; a man with two GPS receivers is never sure. ===

quote:Originally posted by Max Wedge:Do you still do caches by bike, or did you kind of burn out on the whole approach? When possible, yes! For example: Aylesworth Dam Jacobsburg by Bike or Hike Mountain Spring Lake Siding I've done about 8 Geocache hunts so far via mountain bike. My setup consists of a Garmin GA27C remote amplified antenna which I attach to the top of my helmet with Velcro. The GPSr usually goes in a fanny pack. I've also used it to create track logs of some of my favorite mountain biking trails. Cheers ... ~Rich in NEPA~ === A man with a GPS receiver knows where he is; a man with two GPS receivers is never sure. ===

quote:Originally posted by CountryLover: Does anyone know of a free software that can handle Waypoints, Tracks and Routes ? Where can I get it ? Yes! Get yourself a copy of G7toWin Version A.00.106 by downloading it from their Website. It's a great little (and free) program. Cheers ... ~Rich in NEPA~ === A man with a GPS receiver knows where he is; a man with two GPS receivers is never sure. ===

quote:Originally posted by CountryLover: Does anyone know of a free software that can handle Waypoints, Tracks and Routes ? Where can I get it ? Yes! Get yourself a copy of G7toWin Version A.00.106 by downloading it from their Website. It's a great little (and free) program. Cheers ... ~Rich in NEPA~ === A man with a GPS receiver knows where he is; a man with two GPS receivers is never sure. ===

quote:Originally posted by para2medix: Don't make it a bluff! Travel armed! What makes you think it's a bluff?! ~Rich in NEPA~ === You don't shoot to kill -- you shoot to stay alive. ===

quote:Originally posted by para2medix: Don't make it a bluff! Travel armed! What makes you think it's a bluff?! ~Rich in NEPA~ === You don't shoot to kill -- you shoot to stay alive. ===

I think a cache rating system (perhaps 1-5 stars along with the number of respondents) would be interesting and fun, but don't know about the practical implementation of it. People rate books and movies and fine wines, so why not caches? I'm certainly anxious to hear more ideas on this one. Cheers ... ~Rich in NEPA~ === A man with a GPS receiver knows where he is; a man with two GPS receivers is never sure. ===

I think a cache rating system (perhaps 1-5 stars along with the number of respondents) would be interesting and fun, but don't know about the practical implementation of it. People rate books and movies and fine wines, so why not caches? I'm certainly anxious to hear more ideas on this one. Cheers ... ~Rich in NEPA~ === A man with a GPS receiver knows where he is; a man with two GPS receivers is never sure. ===

Hawk-Eye, just wondering ... did you order your GPSmap76S yet? ~Rich in NEPA~ === A man with a GPS receiver knows where he is; a man with two GPS receivers is never sure. ===

Hawk-Eye, just wondering ... did you order your GPSmap76S yet? ~Rich in NEPA~ === A man with a GPS receiver knows where he is; a man with two GPS receivers is never sure. ===

quote:Originally posted by SW PA Cacher:... does anybody ever take their ATV Geocaching w/ them when it is allowed? Nope! Don't own one and never will. I can't stand those things. In most cases they are at best a nuisance, and at worst a hazard. They rip up the trails (when they even bother to stay on them) and cause irreparable damage and erosion to the terrain. Don't get me wrong, I'm sure that they have their place, particularly in extremely large and remote tracts of land or forests, just not here in densely populated areas. Occassionally, I meet a few (usually adults) who ride responsibly, but the rest are rude, arrogant, and reckless cowboys, or they are teenagers hauling beer to an isolated party spot and trashing it. They have even run down the cops who try to keep them off the town roads and from private property. Sorry, I could go on, but that's my experience and my two cents, and I would vote to have them banned from this part of the State. Cheers ... ~Rich in NEPA~ === A man with a GPS receiver knows where he is; a man with two GPS receivers is never sure. ===

The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948) starring Humphrey Bogart, directed by John Huston. "A grand adventure and a superior character study built around the timeless themes of greed and moral corruption ... a definitive treatment of fate and futility in the obsessive pursuit of wealth." ~Rich in NEPA~ === A man with a GPS receiver knows where he is; a man with two GPS receivers is never sure. ===

quote:Originally posted by Renegade Knight: Turning WAAS on, drops two satalites immediatly to 'make room' for the WAAS satalites. If one of those satalites was being used for a position fix, you will immediatly lost some reported accuracy. RK, what you are saying is probably right, but I know in my case I seldom get a lock on 12 satellites at once. I have seen it happen only a handful of times when I was on high, exposed ridges and summits. Also, I believe that most GPS receivers are biased to use only the most effective satellite configuration in their position solutions, and seldom use more than four or five anyway. (I suppose this could depend on which brand/model you are using, of course.) Quite often I can receive the AOR-W signal but in the 3 months that I've had my map76 I have never seen it lock onto 11 or 12 satellites. So, I can't say for sure if having WAAS enabled always drops out two channels regardless if only one WAAS signal (or none) is being received. RK, do you know for sure that this is the case? What receiver are you using or referring to? There doesn't seem to be a lot of useful information on how important WAAS is in recreation-grade GPS receivers. I would think boaters could benefit from extremely high accuracy. As for Geocaching, if everyone had 3-meter precision that would surely take a lot of the challenge out of the sport, no? Just a thought for discussion. ~Rich in NEPA~ === A man with a GPS receiver knows where he is; a man with two GPS receivers is never sure. ===

quote:Originally posted by Renegade Knight: Turning WAAS on, drops two satalites immediatly to 'make room' for the WAAS satalites. If one of those satalites was being used for a position fix, you will immediatly lost some reported accuracy. RK, what you are saying is probably right, but I know in my case I seldom get a lock on 12 satellites at once. I have seen it happen only a handful of times when I was on high, exposed ridges and summits. Also, I believe that most GPS receivers are biased to use only the most effective satellite configuration in their position solutions, and seldom use more than four or five anyway. (I suppose this could depend on which brand/model you are using, of course.) Quite often I can receive the AOR-W signal but in the 3 months that I've had my map76 I have never seen it lock onto 11 or 12 satellites. So, I can't say for sure if having WAAS enabled always drops out two channels regardless if only one WAAS signal (or none) is being received. RK, do you know for sure that this is the case? What receiver are you using or referring to? There doesn't seem to be a lot of useful information on how important WAAS is in recreation-grade GPS receivers. I would think boaters could benefit from extremely high accuracy. As for Geocaching, if everyone had 3-meter precision that would surely take a lot of the challenge out of the sport, no? Just a thought for discussion. ~Rich in NEPA~ === A man with a GPS receiver knows where he is; a man with two GPS receivers is never sure. ===

RT, like you I've based my decision to keep WAAS disabled on my GPSmap76 upon some unscientific experiences. Without a certified benchmark I have no way of knowing for sure what the story is. With WAAS disabled, the position fixes I get very closely match those from my GPS-12XL; but with WAAS enabled, there is almost always a greater disparity. I can get a solid WAAS signal in my area about 75-80% of the time, and the nearest ground station is about 200 miles away. ~Rich in NEPA~ === A man with a GPS receiver knows where he is; a man with two GPS receivers is never sure. ===

RT, like you I've based my decision to keep WAAS disabled on my GPSmap76 upon some unscientific experiences. Without a certified benchmark I have no way of knowing for sure what the story is. With WAAS disabled, the position fixes I get very closely match those from my GPS-12XL; but with WAAS enabled, there is almost always a greater disparity. I can get a solid WAAS signal in my area about 75-80% of the time, and the nearest ground station is about 200 miles away. ~Rich in NEPA~ === A man with a GPS receiver knows where he is; a man with two GPS receivers is never sure. ===

It's been totally unresponsive for me all evening. I can get to the forums alright, but not the Geocaching Home Page or any cache listings. ~Rich in NEPA~ === A man with a GPS receiver knows where he is; a man with two GPS receivers is never sure. ===

It's been totally unresponsive for me all evening. I can get to the forums alright, but not the Geocaching Home Page or any cache listings. ~Rich in NEPA~ === A man with a GPS receiver knows where he is; a man with two GPS receivers is never sure. ===

The term "memory effect" refers to a specific situation that occured in certain (very early) satellite applications, which used a NiCad cell made with sintered plates. No commercial consumer-grade NiCad cells have ever been made with this process. So, all you are doing is "redefining" the term, which is a simple trick of semantics ... like calling a dog a cat. "Voltage depression" (which is NOT "memory") is something that can occur with any of the current rechargeable battery technologies. If you read the article I quoted (or dozens of other "independant" test results), you'll see that voltage depression is indeed a real issue and a problem. Memory effect is NOT. Let's face it ... NiMH and Li-Ion battery manufacturers like to play on consumer ignorance (and dread!) of NiCad memory when they claim that THEIR products have no "memory." Of course that's true, because they know that memory doesn't exist, and are cleverly implying that it does in competing products. Their own advertising counts on the fact that, as everyone knows!!!, NiCads have memory. See what I mean about gullibility? [Edit] Ooops! ... I forgot there was something else I wanted to mention. When someone is aware of a misconception of this kind, isn't it advisable to make an effort to correct it rather than encouraging it? Cheers ... ~Rich in NEPA~ === A man with a GPS receiver knows where he is; a man with two GPS receivers is never sure. === [This message was edited by Rich in NEPA on March 31, 2002 at 06:43 PM.]