Jun 23, 2008

Garmin and Columbia Sportswear enter cycling

Seems that the two un-sponsored American teams now have major sponsors. This is great news after last years folding of Discovery Channel due to the lack of new sponsors. Team CSC also found a new sponsor with Saxo Bank and Quick-Step has their sponsorship extended for three more years. Most of the top teams seem to be reporting good news on the sponsor front despite the constant drubbing of doping scandals for the past few years.

Columbia Sportswear will take over the main sponsorship of Team High Road. The sponsor seems like a perfect fit for cycling and slides into the lead sponsor role of one of the most successful teams of the year so far.

Garmin has been a smaller sponsor for several teams such as Milram. Now they step into the main sponsor role taking over the Slipstream team. Garmin is perfect for cycling especially with the 705 model which includes a map. Previously the Slipstream team was using Powertap computers to monitor their training. With Garmin coming in will they drop the Powetaps in favor of the Garmin 705/ SRM combo or will they have a very crowded set of handlebars with both Powertaps and Garmin GPS devices on the handlebars?


Here is my somewhat crowded cockpit with an iBike and Garmin 305.

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2 Replies

  1. Black Pearl

    Jun 23rd, 2008 at 10:12 am

    How do you like the iBike? I have been considering one but I am also liking the Garmin 705 with its power monitoring. The Garmin would replace the Catseye, and the polar, just leaving the headlight mount that I already have there; with the addition of the iBike there would hardly be room for my hands anymore.

    I have, unfortunately, collected a small pile of $500 to $600 dollar gadgets that I don’t use on the bike anymore, I do not want the iBike to be another.

  2. Velochimp

    Jun 24th, 2008 at 10:05 pm

    Hey Black Pearl,
    I like the iBike quite a bit. I’ve been using it for more than a year and have been very happy with how it works. It gives you power data, wind hill grade percentage and more. Plus you can download the data as CSV which is nice.

    The negatives about the iBike is that you have to recalibrate the horizontal offset at the start of every ride so that you get accurate climbing percentages. If it is not set then all of your data will be off for the ride. If you knock the iBike forward then your data will be skewed. The button placement is in a bad place too since if you hit the buttons too hard you may throw off the horizinaal offset calibration. If iBike fixes this issue I think it would be flawless, but I’ve been living with these minor complaints and have had good results with it.

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