I received my Garmin Forerunner 201 Bike Mount Bracket yesterday morning, attached it to the handlebars of my Marin Bear Valley SE, and took off for a quick 6.2 mile ride with my wife in beautiful Spring weather. I wanted to try it as soon as possible because I knew after my Garmin Forerunner 201 test ride yesterday that strapping the Forerunner to my wrist was not an optimal solution for cycling.
If you watch carefully, you see a lot of professional cyclists in races like the Tour de France ride with a heart monitor strapped to their wrists. These riders are using their HRMs as data collection devices and not for performance feedback. As a result, you never see them look at the watch during their ride.
Most recreational cyclists use heart rate monitors or other types of bike computers for performance feedback. Bike computers provide ride time and distance, speed, and other information which varies from unit to unit. The Forerunner has GPS functions, which means that you can get information about things like elevation and geographic location.
This is why it’s best to mount a device like the Garmin Forerunner 201 on your handlebars when riding. This way, you can glance at it, see your speed, distance traveled, or elevation, while not take your hands off the bars. You do take your eyes off the road or trail momentarily, but this is not normally a problem once you become accustomed to having the Forerunner mounted there. Before you are used to riding with it in that position, it’s best to avoid riding on busy roads or technical trails.
Most bike computer mounting brackets are fairly simple. The Garmin Forerunner 201 Bike Mounting Bracket is a bit more complicated than most because it’s designed to allow you to mount the Forerunner without removing its wrist strap. This means that people who use the Forerunner for both running and cycling will be able to change between the exercises with a minimum of delay.
I’m definitely glad I bought a bike mounting bracket for the Forerunner 201. I think it’s going to do the job for me. The only thing that concerns me about the design is the durability of the mounting bracket adapter, which the Forerunner snaps into. It looks like it could break some day with extensive use. Other than that, it’s logically designed and worth buying for Forerunner users who like to ride.