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Update! Taipei Cycle 2015: Lezyne launches 3-unit GPS range

Super GPS, Power GPS and Mini GPS will retail for between £110 and £160

Our Mat is out in Taipei at the moment and he Skyped us from a cocktail party (this really happened) to let us know about the new range of GPS computers that Lezyne are announcing today. He's dedicated, is Mat. Both to the imparting of great tech news and the imbibing of vodka and tonic.

Anyway, that's the scoop. Lezyne, the component company best known for its lights, pumps, multitools and such, is moving into the GPS market for the first time with a range of three units which will be in the range of £110 to £160 RRP in the UK - so towards the more affordable end of the GPS spectrum. Lezyne is only in its eighth product year, believe it or not. The last new area the brand moved into was LED lights three years ago. Seems like they've been a part of that particular landscape for much longer, doesn't it?

The three GPS units are called the Mini (£109.99), the Power (£139.99) and the Super(£159.99), a naming convention they've borrowed from their lights. 

The most fundamental difference between the three units seems to be the connectivity. The Mini GPS is more like a recording device: it'll track and record your rides and you'll be able to upload them, presumably using a USB cable.

The Power GPS adds Bluetooth connectivity. That means that you'll be able to pair it with your smartphone, because Lezyne have a new app, GPS Ally, going live on iOS and Android. The app will be used to sync your ride data with a new Lezyne portal, GPS Root. You can also upload to the likes of Strava, TrainingPeaks and Garmin Connect too. You can upload data from other devices too; if you have a Garmin you can still upload to Root. Lezyne say that cross combatibility is a very important aspect of the design - the fact that you're not locked in to their product or website.

Social sharing to Facebook and Twitter is also built in. You can get detailed mapping on the app too (the GPS screen looks like it'll handle a breadcrumb trail à la Garmin Edge 200 but probably not much more) as well as a full overview of your ride. The app can also push SMS, email and call notifications to the GPS.

The top-tier Super GPS adds ANT+ connectivity to the Bluetooth in the Power GPS. So that means all your current ANT+ power meters and cadence sensors and Di2 gear indicators should link up with it just fine. And, of course, it also works with the GPS Ally app.


All the Lezyne GPS Units use an eighth-turn locking system (X-Lock), so you present the GPS at 45° and click it straight, much like a QuadLock. They're shipped with a bar/stem mount and an out-front mount will be available separately. You have to push down on the unit slightly to twist it in and out of the mount so there's virtually no chance of knocking it out accidentally.

The look is very Lezyne. The units appear to have a CNC alloy body with a black plastic/glass face. There's three side buttons (2/1) on the Mini and four (2/2) on the Super and Power. They're not very big units: the Mini doesn't look much bigger than a non-GPS bike computer and the Super and Power are about Garmin Edge 200 / Bryton Rider 20 sized.

We’ve had the chance to have a look at the GPS Root website and at first glance it seems to cover a whole lot of variables in a user-friendly format. This chart shows it all overlaid on top of one another but you can turn off the measurements that you’re not interested in. You can also choose to show measurements for your whole ride or any portion of it.

Here’s the same information presented in a different way, with the lines on separate graphs.

You can view your ride on Google maps and go for the Street View option at any point.

We just had a quick play and everything seemed super clear and easy to use.

So, we’ve managed to have a look at the units and a quick look at the GPS Root website but we’ve not yet had the chance to check out the app. That’s work in progress.

Lezyne say that the Mini will be in store in the UK from mid-April with the Power and the Super likely to be on sale in June or July.

For more info go to the Lezyne website where you’ll find a GPS brochure. You can also sign up to the GPS Root website

Mat is in Taiwan for Taipei Cycle, an international cycle show that runs 18-21 March 2015, www.taipeicycle.com.tw.

Dave is a founding father of road.cc, having previously worked on Cycling Plus and What Mountain Bike magazines back in the day. He also writes about e-bikes for our sister publication ebiketips. He's won three mountain bike bog snorkelling World Championships, and races at the back of the third cats.

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17 comments

Avatar
Skynet | 9 years ago
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Don't see the point without navigation, perhaps that's just me.

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Graham Howell | 9 years ago
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That's nice... be on Wiggle at 34% off 3 weeks after UK release.

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pullmyfinger | 9 years ago
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Don't name it Super GPS unless it's got turn-by-turn navigation.

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Must be Mad | 9 years ago
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Quote:

'With Strava segment leaderboards becoming more and more competitive, 1Hz data sampling is not sufficient to split the top 10 places fairly.'

Strava rounds up to the nearest complete second anyway, so faster sampling is not going to get you any further advantage.

Quote:

or b better specc'd to compete with Garmin.

If they work properly that would be a start though?

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DaveE128 | 9 years ago
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So no nav capabilities? Would be good to clarify this in the article.

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Jamminatrix | 9 years ago
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I think they need to be better spec'd for what they are, because the Cateye Stealth 50 can do everything these can for about 25% cheaper...and these really can't compete with spec ability of Garmin.

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PaulBox replied to Jamminatrix | 9 years ago
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Jamminatrix wrote:

I think they need to be better spec'd for what they are, because the Cateye Stealth 50 can do everything these can for about 25% cheaper...and these really can't compete with spec ability of Garmin.

They will have them 30% off on Wiggle in a couple of weeks...

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KiwiMike | 9 years ago
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I really, really wanted this to display even a basic Turn Left / Right / Straight On navigation indication, either from the phone or from a GPX uploaded into the unit itself.

If the USP is saving battery by minimising the display on long rides, it almost certainly *needs* to show navigation. Unless you know where you are going.

Running GPS in the background has minimal impact on phone battery life.

Otherwise, all it's doing is showing emails and SMS. Which is so far down the totem pole as to be worthless.

And your phone still needs to have data connected to do emails/and maybe non-SMS IM like iMessage/Whatsapp, which are conspicuous in their not being mentioned.

In my experience it's 3G Data being connected that *really* kills a battery, on par with full-time display use.

So if you disable 3G (which you'd almost certainly do for any long ride) the USP is now incoming calls/SMS. woop.

Come on Lezyne, you're missing a major trick here.

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andyp | 9 years ago
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'With Strava segment leaderboards becoming more and more competitive, 1Hz data sampling is not sufficient to split the top 10 places fairly.'

Racing. Racing is good for splitting the top ten places fairly. Nothing about Strava is 'fair' unless the top ten were achieved on the same day in the same conditions by people who had ridden the same route prior to the segment.

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andyeb | 9 years ago
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Also great to see some more competition in this market segment - I've never felt that Garmin EDGE units offered respectable value for money.

What I'd really like to see is a new generation of GPS units which use the latest GPS chipsets to record data points ten times a second, rather than once a second.

With Strava segment leaderboards becoming more and more competitive, 1Hz data sampling is not sufficient to split the top 10 places fairly.

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KiwiMike replied to andyeb | 9 years ago
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andyeb wrote:

With Strava segment leaderboards becoming more and more competitive, 1Hz data sampling is not sufficient to split the top 10 places fairly.

Andy, you are aware that the person who just took your KOM was on a TT bike, in a paceline, with a tailwind, only 5 miles into the ride, having just downed a double espresso, having carbo-loaded for a week and slept for 12hrs the night before?

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andyp | 9 years ago
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Gert lush.

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Nzlucas | 9 years ago
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Not quite sure who their target market is here.... need to be either a bit cheaper to compete with Cateye, or b better specc'd to compete with Garmin.

The only killer feature is can see is phone connectivity at £160 which is cheaper than than the Edge 500.

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fukawitribe | 9 years ago
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...and 160 quid before you get to ANT+ connectivity. Alas BLE is probably the way things are going though, so perhaps not a massive surprise.

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andyeb replied to fukawitribe | 9 years ago
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As someone who moved from BTLE peripherals (heart rate, speed/cadence sensor) over to ANT+ because of inherent reliability issues with Bluetooth, I seriously hope ANT+ isn't going away any time soon.

If you don't believe me - just read the Amazon reviews of virtually every Bluetooth heart rate monitor.

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fukawitribe replied to andyeb | 9 years ago
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andyeb wrote:

As someone who moved from BTLE peripherals (heart rate, speed/cadence sensor) over to ANT+ because of inherent reliability issues with Bluetooth, I seriously hope ANT+ isn't going away any time soon.

I'd hope not too, and it certainly won't for a while, but there does seem to be a slow drift to releasing BLE devices before/instead of ANT+ ones. I much prefer ANT+ from a technical and practical point of view, but BLE is pretty much ubiquitous on smart phones no matter how limiting for sensor technologies. I'm actually moving to a trailing-edge Sony Xperia for my next phone for the ANT+ features and waterproof nature of the fellow but really wish there was more choice available.

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KoenM | 9 years ago
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While i love Lezyne, if i buy a gps it has to have a way to navigate even if it's just with a breadcrumb trail, and this doesn't seem to have it or it doesn't say it anywhere in the brochure.

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