from Garmin Blog
Garmin-Cervelo's dream Tour continued today in Stage 13 when world champion Thor Hushovd rocketed down a mountainside in the Pyrenees to catch the only two men between him and the finish line. Like a lion stalking prey, Thor meticulously closed the gaps and shot past to a solo victory - Team Garmin's third stage win in two weeks. Here are race recaps from CyclingNews, VeloNews, Bicycling and Cycling Weekly. The amazing triumph - sprinters rarely win in the high mountains - made "Thor Hushovd" a top trending topic on Twitter and brought out the poetic side of cycling fans as @Shop_Argyle offered a free rainbow jersey to the author of the best #THORhaiku. Here are some of our favorites (and yes, some liberties were taken with the haiku structure):
@axodys: Stage Thirteen for Thor/Muscles defying mountains/A signature win
@brianfmorrissey: Down from Valhalla/Amongst the ventilateurs/The rainbow of Lourdes
@firtreezzz: The God of Thunder/ Draws rainbow between mountains/ By his Mighty swing of hammer
@RamsFoto: Argyle-Eagle dive the mountains / speeding colors turn to stripes / hammer hits the running rabbits
@chad_kemp: THOR Strikes Hammer Down - See Mountain Yield in Defeat - as Thunder Rolls On
@SeaWolfLabs: Unselfish, driven/ God of Thunder leads the pack/ Thor does rainbow proud/
@techknowgn: climbing very hard / Garmin is vicTHORious / rainbow champion
@Jodykepple: Hear Thunder rumble/And see the mountains crumble/A rainbow triumph
@frivlas: We loved watching Thor / riding for Garmin today / back in yellow soon!
@SteveDinn: Mighty Thor, mountains And rivals are destroyed when You drop your hammer
@chasemoore: THOR, god of thunder/ his legs split mountains in two/ his bike, his weapon.
@fidajapanissa: A holy spring/Changes the hammer/Into a rainbow
@Peleccotur: Thor climbs/ Mountain sinks/ Viking victory cry!
@Jobe_Rodgers: The Strength of Team/Is felt in the Thunder/His presence known
@TheGreatLakes: The rainbow climbs higher\while pyrenees tremble\as the thunder rains down
@aschoks: The God of Thunder / Nobody can hold his wheel / Thor dominates all
@i_soule: Sun shining in France - Norwegian power and grace - Drop it like it's hot
@aegolius14: Aubisque mountain tall, thunder pilgrimage to Lourdes, rainbow swift past king
@joe_bayliss: a storm of wheels comes, on the col a thunderclap, the god's rainbow shown
@alvynmcq: down thors hammer rotor ring translates into vicious power to win
@ExhaustedDaddy: mortals left behind, mountains cannot slow this one, Hail, God of Thunder!
And the winners are (drumroll, please...)
@holmanjohn: Thor he rides so fast, Others try to ride on past, But they cannot last!
@Netsnipe: Fast and Thorious / Pyrenees down to its knees / Thor's victorious!
Check out the team's Edge data as posted to Garmin Connect - such as Thor's Stage 10 stats below - and be sure to follow @Garmin and @Ride_Argyle on Twitter and visit SlipstreamSports.com for in-depth race reports.
from Garmin Blog
Quick quiz: Can you name the highest-placed American in the Tour de France after Stage 12? Do you know who on Team Garmin-Cervelo is less than a minute behind the defending champ? Who is giving the argyle armada its fourth different breakout performance in four years at the Tour? And finally, what 33-year-old is currently sitting in ninth place overall in his Tour debut? You can answer all of these questions with one name: Tom Danielson. Here's the intro to the team's race recap, showcasing Tommy D's great ride today and throughout July.
The Tour rookie stayed with the GC favorites until the final, late-stage attacks with just a few kilometers to go in the grueling, three-climb 211km stage from Cugnaux to Luz-Ardiden. Samuel Sanchez won the stage and Danielson crossed the line 11th at 1:03 back. “I felt good, stayed steady and listened to my body, I rode the best I could and I was pretty close in the end, so I am satisfied,” Danielson said in the team's race report. “I cannot complain.I was a little empty at the end, with those guys’ accelerations came in the end. For me, the key is to be steady every single day, and when I have an opportunity, take it.”
After the stage, VeloNews veteran reporter
John Wilcockson caught up with Tommy D. Here's part of his interview, and
you can read the whole thing at VeloNews.com:
Danielson has finished top 10 at the Vuelta — seventh in 2005, sixth in 2006 and ninth in 2010 — but those placings never earned him a Tour slot until now. Asked how the two grand tours compared, he said, “I don’t know. I think I’m in better shape here so I’m actually suffering less here than I was at the Vuelta. But I guess it’s harder. It’s definitely faster and there’s a lot more attention on it. There were a lot more people (on today’s stage). I was having trouble seeing where I was going with all the flashes and stuff. So that was pretty cool. A lot of fun.”
The whole team is making this Tour a lot of fun for all of us. Check out their Edge data as posted to Garmin Connect - such as Tommy D's Stage 8 stats below - and be sure to follow @Garmin and @Ride_Argyle on Twitter and visit SlipstreamSports.com for in-depth race reports.
from Garmin Blog
If you've visited OpenCaching.com lately - or if you subscribe to "Opie's Logbook" - you know there have been many exciting developments in our geocaching community this spring and summer. If you haven't been to OpenCaching.com recently, we'll let Opie tell you what's new (and we have another new promotion coming up that we haven't even told Opie about, so you'll have to check back for details...):
Cache Series Pages – We know geocachers invest time & energy creating collections of themed caches. Our new Cache Series Pages allows you to create a landing page for related caches. Fellow geocachers can use this series page to discover your series and quickly download your entire series to a GPS device or GPX file. Create a series page from your profile page or check out a couple of great examples for the Kansas State Park Challenge and the North Country Trail Geotrail.
OpenCachers want your caches – We receive countless emails from happy OpenCachers. What's their most frequent request? They wish more people near them would list their geocaches on OpenCaching.com! Geocaches appear on OpenCaching.com because geocachers like you take the time to hide a cache and post the information to OpenCaching.com. Know a fun place to visit near your home? Hide a cache for others to find. Already have caches listed on another site? We provide a page to easily
import those listings and let others discover your caches.
Finally, with so many new cachers joining OpenCaching.com in the last month - and so many people new to the activity as a whole - we’d like to remind you what we are all about.
- Free: Download as much as you want. You’ll never have to pay.
- One click: Center the map where you are going caching and download up to 5000 geocaches with one click.
- Open: Third-party developers are encouraged to access OpenCaching.com’s data to make their own apps.
- Community review: You get to see new caches as they are submitted and make sure they are following the rules.
- Listening: The site is for you, so we listen to you when adding new features.
These changes are just the highlights of what’s new -- your feedback and support will shape OpenCaching.com into the future. We look forward to your guidance, your enthusiasm, and your caches to help build a better geocaching community.
from Garmin Blog
On a day when everyone assumed Garmin-Cervelo's Thor Hushovd would lose the yellow jersey that goes with the overall lead of the Tour de France, he and the argyle armada powered up Saturday's climbs and stuck with the main group. Despite the attacks and gaps that come with the mountain stages, Thor finished with the other leaders and maintained his 1-second lead in the general classification. And he did it with a smile on his face.
Immediately following the stage, Twitter lit up with praise for the argyle superhero and his seven days in yellow: >"The mighty Thor defending his maillot jaune with pride, guts & determination" >"all hail the god of thunder - incredible ride today by #Thor and the @Ride_Argyle team #TDF" >"Wow, Thor Hushovd still in yellow despite a day in the hills!! #TDF #GodOfThunder" >"Thor Hushovd, you are some kind of superman." >"There is only one #thor...hushovd."
Some are now predicting that Thor might keep the yellow jersey until Stage 12, but if and when he passes it on, he'll be trading it in for an impressive consolation prize: the rainbow stripes of the reigning world champion. You can relive the action through the team's Edge data as posted to Garmin Connect - such as Christian Vande Velde's Stage 6 stats below - and be sure to follow @Garmin and @Ride_Argyle on Twitter and visit SlipstreamSports.com for in-depth race reports.
from Garmin Blog
For all you motorcycle enthusiasts out there, why not take a ride on a new route and explore the open road with the zumo 665, a motorcycle-friendly navigator with stereo Bluetooth® and XM® satellite radio, weather and traffic. Whether you’re on a weekday ride just across town or a week long trip to an annual rally with friends, the Zumo 665 is ready to show you the way. After a recent weekend "bike run" to Pennsylvania, Zumo owner Avrom Brown from Toronto, Canada shared this:
Back roads of Pennsylvania: We were gone for 3 days and covered 1400 kilometres (870 miles), on my Kawasaki KLR650, of which half were on forest and fire roads. The Zumo 665 performed flawlessly just as our motorcycles did. We travelled on many back roads that we could not find on a paper map but the 665 picked them up with ease. This made our adventure even more exciting.
With the aid of the 665, we discovered areas that have had little travel so far this season. To break new ground makes one feel like a modern day explorer. At times when we thought we were lost, the 665 came through with is compass feature and route home feature. The 665 is a very durable unit as the banging around it took would have lesser brands left for dead at the side of the road. I am still discovering
features of the 665 that allow our trips to even more exciting.
Keep up the good work and kudos to Garmin for a superior product.
Best Regards,
Avrom Brown
from Garmin Blog
Busy commuters and travelers now have another option for using easy-to-use Garmin navigation in their everyday activities. Available in the Windows Marketplace, Garmin StreetPilot for Windows Phone puts Garmin's intuitive interface right at your fingertips with flickable menu pages and theme color support designed specifically for Windows Phone. It's easy to look up addresses and services and get voice-prompted, turn-by-turn directions that speak street names to your destination. Garmin StreetPilot uses detailed City Navigator NT street maps of the U.S and Canada, featuring millions of points of interest, 2-D or 3-D map views and speed limits for most major roads. Garmin StreetPilot for Windows Phone uses the same great City Navigator NT maps available for Garmin’s nüvi product line without the need to ever download new data. There's no need to purchase or download map updates because data is updated regularly on the network.
With Garmin StreetPilot for Windows Phone, you’ll have access to Google Local Search integrated with navigation so you easily can find new restaurants, businesses and more. You even can place calls directly from the search listing. You’ll also have access to current weather conditions and forecast details around your current location, destination or other locales. With the flight status feature, you’ll be able to look up flights by airport, airline or flight number, and get up-to-date arrival, departure and gate information.
In addition to all of the other stress-relieving features, now there's no more guessing which lane you need to be in to make an upcoming turn. Lane Assist with Junction View guides you to the correct lane for an approaching turn or exit, making unfamiliar intersections and exits easy to navigate. It realistically displays road signs and junctions on your route along with arrows that indicate the proper lane for navigation.
In most metropolitan areas, you can steer clear of traffic with the integrated traffic updates, and you can simply touch the screen to view the traffic details. Receive alerts about traffic delays and road construction that lie ahead on your route along with an estimate of the delay.
from Garmin Blog
The GTN 750 and GTN 650 were announced and available for shipping March 23 when Garmin unveiled them at the Aircraft Electronics Association (AEA) Convention. Also announced at that time were the GTN 635, GTN 625, and GTN 725. As of July 1st these GTN models are now available for purchase and shipping. So what is the difference between the different GTN models? Basically, the GTN 625 and GTN 725 are GPS only, while the GTN 635 is a GPS/COM. The GTN 650 and GTN 750 are GPS/NAV/COM. For a more detailed list of the differences I’ve included a comparison chart from the GTN mini-site. The GTN 625 is priced at $9,595, the GTN 635 at $10,495, and the GTN 725 at $15,000. Now the full line of GTN models are available in a price range for your budget, so to start your panel upgrade visit a Garmin Aviation Dealer near you.
from Garmin Blog
The GTN 750 and GTN 650 were announced and available for shipping March 23 when Garmin unveiled them at the Aircraft Electronics Association (AEA) Convention. Also announced at that time were the GTN 635, GTN 625, and GTN 725. As of July 1st these GTN models are now available for purchase and shipping. So what is the difference between the different GTN models? Basically, the GTN 625 and GTN 725 are GPS only, while the GTN 635 is a GPS/COM. The GTN 650 and GTN 750 are GPS/NAV/COM. For a more detailed list of the differences I’ve included a comparison chart from the GTN mini-site. The GTN 625 is priced at $9,595, the GTN 635 at $10,495, and the GTN 725 at $15,000. Now the full line of GTN models are available in a price range for your budget, so to start your panel upgrade visit a Garmin Aviation Dealer near you.
from Garmin Blog
Team Garmin-Cervelo faced questions before the Tour about the squad's wide range of goals, which included getting a stage victory, winning the team time trial, wearing the yellow jersey and placing high in the general classification. Less than a week in, and the argyle armada has achieved three of the four goals in resounding fashion. After reigning world champion finished third in Thursday's Stage 6 sprint finish, he stepped atop the podium to accept the overall leader's yellow jersey for the fifth consecutive day. Add in the triumph in the team time trial, Tyler Farrar's historic holiday win the following day and the squad's current spot atop the team standings, and it's an understatement to say that we're off to a good start.
Tyler's perseverance sparked touching responses in the media, including VeloNews, ESPN and the New York Times. In addition to the congratulations we're receiving through Twitter, Facebook and our blog, we've enjoyed reading stories celebrating the behind-the-scenes work the team does in the sport. Back at Garmin headquarters, the early success caught the eye of The Kansas City Star, who published a great feature on our sponsorship of the team and the benefits of being involved with such a positive force in a globally popular sport.
We've also heard from many of you who have been inspired to log a few extra miles while you're watching the Tour. If you need any more motivation, just check out Thor's Edge 500 data as posted to Garmin Connect after Stage 5. Keep riding, keep cheering and remember to follow @Garmin and @Ride_Argyle and visit SlipstreamSports.com for in-depth race reports.
from GPS Blog
DeLorme inReach is the first Iridium-based personal communicator to deliver truly global two-way satellite text messaging; delivery confirmations; SOS capabilities; remote tracking, and an Android smartphone interface.The core communications component of the inReach is the Iridium 9602 short-burst data (SBD) transceiver, which provides a unique, two-way communications connection through the world's farthest-reaching satellite network.Iridium's pole-to-pole global connectivity means inReach users can send and receive messages anywhere on the planet.
The DeLorme inReach promises to revolutionize the way people stay affordably connected over the 90% of the Earth's surface not covered by cellular and land-based phone service. Its capabilities address the needs of anyone from outdoors enthusiasts to professional users in remote outposts.The GPS-enabled inReach can be used by itself or paired with either an Android smartphone or a DeLorme Earthmate PN-60w.
The DeLorme inReach has a customizable tracking interval that can be set before you leave if you’re using the device as a standalone or set with the PN-60w or Android application while you are in the field. Set the interval to report every two minutes if you want to share more detail or reduce it to update once an hour if you’re sharing less detail.The inReach is compact, lightweight, waterproof, floatable and impact-resistant, and it can maintain satellite signal lock even in difficult GPS environments.
When using the inReach as a standalone device, users can send pre-loaded text messages to designated recipients, and activate remote tracking, allowing others to follow their travels online via a continually-updated "bread crumb" trail. Unlike other standalone satellite messengers, the inReach provides delivery confirmation via flashing LED lights. In case of emergency, an SOS key can be triggered. The SOS key is protected by a "safety" to prevent false alarms.
When paired with an Android or the DeLorme Earthmate PN-60w, users enjoy full-featured, two-way text messaging (up to 160 characters per message) to and from email addresses and cell phones. Messages can also be posted to Facebook and Twitter.In case of emergency, Android or PN-60w users can describe their predicament so responders can better prepare, and an ongoing dialog can be maintained for mutual status updates.
Any SOS message, whether relayed from a standalone or a paired inReach, will automatically activate remote tracking. That allows rescuers to efficiently zero in on the senders, whether they're stationary or on the move. All of the inReach SOS features are aimed at producing better outcomes and eliminating the critical search and rescue problem of false alarms unnecessarily deploying lifesaving assets.
Android users can drive the inReach GPS signal to their phone, improving positional accuracy to within 10 feet and eliminating the significant battery drain that results when a phone's native GPS is engaged.A free application with DeLorme Topo North America maps will also be available for the Android. Maps can be downloaded to the Android so users won't need to rely on unpredictable cell phone coverage to access the navigation detail. DeLorme Topo North America comes included with the Earthmate PN-60w.
The inReach is compact, lightweight, waterproof, floatable, and impact-resistant, and it can maintain satellite signal lock even in difficult GPS environments. It will be available in October. There are separate models for Android and DeLorme users. Suggested retail price is $249.95. Annual subscription plans begin at $9.95 per month.Android users can drive the inReach device's onboard GPS signal to their phone, improving both positional accuracy and phone battery life. A free application with DeLorme Topo North America maps will be available for the Android.
Don’t worry about building your contact list ahead of time anymore, you can send messages to new addresses right in the field. Communicate important information, change your plans, or just check in to let everyone know that you are okay. Send your message to Twitter and Facebook or a shared map to let them watch your progress and send you a message.
Along with the satellite messaging capabilities, both the PN-60w and the inReach Android app will continue to deliver the same top-quality DeLorme Topographic mapping data with roads and trails, detailed contour and land cover information, points of interest and the DeLorme Atlas & Gazetteer descriptions. We are also working to make the DeLorme Map Library available through the Android application allowing users to view aerial imagery, USGS quad sheets, Canadian topographic maps, and NOAA nautical charts, all available when beyond cell phone coverage.
The DeLorme inReach will require a subscription to access the tracking, messaging, and SOS features. Current plans are to offer three levels: Safety, Recreation, and Pro, with prices starting at $9.95 per month for the safety plan and increasing to offer more in-plan message and tracking units. Plan options will include the ability to move between plan level, if, for example, you find yourself very active in the summer months but only needing safety features during the winter months.
