Time to Buy a GPS Unit

Wednesday, May 25, 2005, at 01:34PM

By Eric Richardson

I'm about to set off from JPL to Kathy's new apartment in Studio City. Roughly that means taking this route, though obviously being on a bike I won't be hitting up the freeways. bikemetro gives me a route that's 16.68 miles long, and overall drops 518 feet. In between, though, it first goes up 200 to 300 feet, then drops 900 or so, and finally rises back 150 - 200 feet. That should make it a bit of a workout.

I'm more worried, though, about the fact that there are 24 steps to the directions. I wrote them down on an index card, now we'll see how I do at reading the card and road signs while negotiating traffic. This is one of those situations where a GPS unit would be mighty handy.