ELECTRONICS

I favor Polar, if only because no one else offers near what they do in HRM functionality. For general use, any of the S-Series monitors are worthwhile.

The S-210, will keep you on track, but if you're going to spend a couple of hundred dollars, then I'd suggest stepping up. I prefer the S-610 (in-depth product review) because it coordinates best with my computer. The S-410 is limited in memory, and requires that files be downloaded right away or else they're overwritten and reduced to a summary by the next exercise session.

The PPP 3.0 software uploads to the S-410 but does not receive Sonic Link downloads. You'll need to use PC Coach Lite for that, and have the PPP 3.0 program read the files from there. Aside from the PC Coach calendar's superior design, Polar's software is the better choice.

The S-510 is essentially the S-410 on wheels. Its bike functions, though I haven't used it myself, are (likely) more accessible than it's predecessor, the X-Trainer Plus It couldn't be worse, anyway).

The ease of use of the S-Series in general leads me to believe that the S-510 is worth looking into if you're interested in including speed, distance and cadence in your training analysis, including distance based intervals and recovery (rather than just time based). It comes with a speed sensor.

The S-710, which is just becoming available, appears to increase training feedback by an order of magnitude, including altitude, ambient temperature and power readings. It's the S-610 on wheels, and the S-510 on steroids. It ships with a speed sensor and a cadence sensor. The power unit is available separately, at substantial expense, but promises to be one helluva training tool. Delivery of this power unit has been delayed as a few bugs are being excised. Expect it in late 2002.

The S-810 adds two features to the S-610––well, one really, as its Exercise Profile is the other's Exercise Sets. For the $100.00 price difference I suppose "profile" affords greater auditory elegance. The real upgrade is that it measures, in milliseconds, the time between heartbeats rather than taking an average over, say, 15 seconds when calculating R-R (basically: level of relaxation).

Finally, all of these monitors offer estimations of your maximum heartrate (HRmax-p), VO2 Max (OwnIndex) and energy expenditure (OwnCalS) based on clinically derived statistical norms. Are they accurate? Maybe. Is 220-minus-age accurate? Maybe. At least Polar is basing their estimation on something specifically associated with you––your actual heartrate readings. If you consider yourself a serious endurance athlete (or plan to be) you'd be wise to invest in one of these monitors.

BTW -- it appears that Lance Armstrong favors Polar, too. Look at race photos where his monitor's transmitter strap is visible beneath his unzipped jersey. Who's his sponsor?

As yet I haven't used the Cat Eye bike computer / heartrate monitor. The magnet sensor is difficult to attach to bladed forks––common on many tri-bikes and time trial bikes––and, the cord connecting sensor to speedometer unit is too short to work with my aerobars (Syntace C-2, large), to boot. The magnet provided doesn't work with Spinergy wheels either. Strike three. Cat Eye is obviously moving in the right direction, but perhaps they need to retool to keep pace with the (not too) recent advances in bike component design. I'm having a friend mount this unit on his (older) KM40 so we can at least see if this dawg'll hunt. The e-Train, companion software looks promising, even if primitive in design. It's scriptable and, it comes in two flavors--PC and Mac!