Discussion: How to avoid losing thumb compass

I have been using a less beefy version of that, which is similar to the SI lease, since I slid down a slope at an NSF Adventures rogaine and had to climb back up the hill and root around in the leaves.

We put similar beefy leashes on our rental compasses.

Not sure that everyone knows or understands how to use them, as we are at some 1-2 sticks per season of ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ "I lost my stick", and are oddly unperturbed by it. "Can you find it? It's been 3 and 4." Um, I have no idea how you went between 3 and 4, probably not...

At the end of an O race, one of my regular AR teammates announced that he'd lost his rental SI card and he guessed it had happened when he stopped to pee. As good teammates, we all went back on the course with him and had a lot of laughs as we reenacted the situation. We did find the SI card - outside the line of fire, luckily.

In very cold weather races (~0F, -15C), we have occasionally had a praticipant or two lose the compass (the bezel drops out of the baseplate). At some point you realize that you are running with a base but no compass. Any thoughts on how to prevent this?

I don't think the capsule can drop out of one of these:

So there's no bezel to rotate, who cares? And if it works for that compass, maybe a drop of glue on your other compasses will do the trick.

But what's going on with cold weather? Most compasses have the capsule held in by a piece of springy wire, which doesn't seem like it could be shrinking significantly over that kind of temperature range... (?)

Hat elastic.

What might happen to compasses at temperatures below -15C is not a problem we have to worry about in our part of the world.

I've heard of that happening in more ordinary temperatures too, and I also know of cases where people have fallen and basically destroyed their compass. If it's a big race or in a difficult area I usually have a spare along.

Both my epunch and my compass are on strings that anchor to my wrist or watchband. I've actually had people kind of laugh at that before. Well maybe it looks kind of dumb, but I won a championship class once because somebody faster lost their epunch on course on the second day. Sooooo.....

I make a habit of securing my SI to my cycling glove with a piece of elastic for MTBO events although not for foot events.

Never had the thumb compass fall off before so can't really comment on that.

You can lose both SI and Compass at the same time if you leave them on the roof of the car and drive home. Never thought of tieing them to the roof rack as as precaution

Yay for a happy ending!

you can lose several compasses and Si cards in one go if you leave a bag of them in a holiday cottage and the idiot owner decides that, rather than contact you about the property that you accidentally left behind, he will simply throw the lot in the bin.
Raging !

Ouch, that sucks!

1 star review?

It can also be disconcerting to be out mapping and all of a sudden discover the stylus you use with your tablet is no longer in your right hand. Has happened three times to me.

Was it in your left hand? I have a habit of searching for my keys for ages and finding them in my hand.