I’m looking for anyone who may have used a Timex Speed+Distance GPS watch at Ironman Wisconsin and what their expereince what the product was. I’m finishing up a review of it (including an exhaustive torture test)and have heard rumors that some athletes did not get reliable GPS signals in an urban environment. I have tested the unit in an urban environment and experienced excellent results with no signal loss. Let me know guys.
I didn’t use mine during the race, but I did when I pre-rode the course a couple months beforhand.
It did take a little extra time for it to locate the satellites, especially when standing next to the hotel. Once it got going, it worked fine out on the bike and the run. I have found that if you don’t get synced up right away and the unit goes into it’s cold start, it can take forever to get going. It also seems to like to be relatively still when starting up. Starting your run before it get going really messed it up for me. That being said, it seems to get going pretty well when sitting on my dash, so it might be a bouncing around issue with running.
I lost the signal here at the chicago lakefront, mostly under trees. I changed the batteries since and it seems to be ok. (mostly ran in the open though) I just used it in Spain without any problem and got a signal immediately.
Axel
Hey Tom, whatever happen to the Saber review?
I bought my Saber from Tom, so I’ll pre-empt his review for you - the thing absolutely rocks. I’ve had mine for a couple of weeks now - I cannot gush enough about it - the same problem Tom had w/getting the review up in the first place I think. 
I’ve used mine virtually everywhere - from NYC to the flatlands of Ann Arbor. I have had no problems, save for whan I let the batteries go too long, and even then it is much more forgiving than I would’ve expected. As someone else noted, i think letting the thing get good and sync’d is key. I love this thing, FWIW. It’s like a powertap for running. It has proven VERY useful for me right now as my peak training is seriously depressing what would be my “normal” training heartrate - by following pace on the Timex, I can keep my normal consistent pace, w/o getting hung up on my HR.