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Hammerhead System Offers a Better Way To Navigate While Cycling
Mark Gibbs writes "If you've ever tried to navigate using a smartphone while cycling you'll know full well that you took your life in your hands. By the time you've focused on the map and your brain has decoded what you're looking at you've traveled far enough to be sliding on gravel or go careening into the side of a car. What's needed is a way that you can get directions from your smartphone without having to lose your focus and possibly your life and Hammerhead Navigation have one of the most interesting answers I've seen."
If you've ever tried to navigate using a smartphone while cycling you'll know full well that you took your life in your hands. By the time you've focussed on the map and your brain has decoded what you're looking at you've travelled far enough to be sliding on gravel or go careening into the side of a car.
Actually, after making a proper bike mount for my N900, I had no trouble using satnav while cycling.
Unlike TFA author Mark Gibbs, I'm aware that my experience is not universal, as people in some other cities have to deal with worse traffic than I do.
I'm guessing you either don't cycle much or don't ever travel and cycle some place new?
Some of us happily ride 50, 60, 70 ... 100 miles when we go out on the bike. Typically it's on rural roads with lots of turns. Sometimes you might make a new route to suit the distance you want to cycle. So you combine lots of bike friendly roads you are used to riding on, but you use them in a different way. Remembering which turn you're planning to take typically involves printing out a map or cue sheet.
Other times, someone else will have plotted a ride using bike friendly roads you are unfamiliar with. Thirty turns wouldn't be unusual. That's a lot to remember, even if you have a pretty good idea of where you are.
Surely this is much better than a cyclist constantly checking their odometer so they don't miss the next turn.
where do you stop on a road with a small shoulder?
You stop at the next intersection. I have been biking about 100 miles/week for 30 years. During that time, I have never, not once, needed to check a map while pedaling. If you are in such a hurry that you can't pull over for 30 seconds, then maybe you should have taken the car.
Correct observation, this product has already been discussed on bicycle forums and has been dismissed as not very useful. http://www.bikeforums.net/showthread.php/917472-new-procuct-take-a-look?highlight=hammerhead
When out on a multiday ride in an unfamiliar area I want more than a blinking light. Frequently the GPS picks, plain stupid, route detours. A look at the map or the map screen shows these obvious errors quickly. Even when routing my way back home form an unfamiliar location at night I need more than the hammerhead provides. About the only use for the hammerhead is when riding a, tested and proven, preloaded track. A GPS enabled bicycle speedometer will do the same and more.
Because this thing still requires the smartphone to be present, just mount the smartphone and be done with it. At best it is an interesting gift for the cyclist who has everything. . . just don't let your feelings get hurt when that cyclist 're-gifts' it.
What you said! If you are bicycling and need turn by turn GPS to help you, you are doing it wrong.
I really don't get people today feeling like they can't move without having a GPS mapping system showing them their route and telling them where to turn and when. Look at a map ahead of the ride, plan the route, and ride. Like you said, bring a map if it's a new route and stop and look if you need to.
And yes, I ride. I'm only doing about 60-100 miles a week. No map, no GPS. I ride every day to and from work, and I don't carry anything but work gear. Road runs on weekends, I carry water, a bit of food stuffs, cell phone for emergencies, repair kit, and small first aide kit. If I get lost, I backtrack the way I came if all else fails.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
Then perhaps you should FIGURE OUT WHERE THE FUCK YOU'RE GOING BEFORE YOU FUCKING LEAVE. I mean jesus tittyfucking christ, automobile drivers are supposed to pull the fuck over when using a goddamn smartphone, what makes bikes so fucking special?
You're not a cyclist are you?
Its illegal not to stop on the road at those red orthogonal signs that have the word stop written on them. Idiots like you deserve to get creamed, but its unfair that someone will have to live with the fact that they ran over your stupid ass because you refuse to follow the rules of the road due to your arrogance and self entitlement bullshit.
You deserve to get ran over for making such an ignorant response to his.
You're pulling off the road not to 'avoid using an electronic navigation aid' ... you're pulling off the road so you don't get turned into road smear because your dumb ass was staring at the GPS rather than the world around you, you ran into traffic and a garbage truck turned you into a very thin smear of blood and guts on the road.
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