I started out with an external recorder, but got fed up with the syncing and having to remember to push 2 record buttons. I forgot a few times and it really sours your mood when you realise too late!
Then I got a Drift and dropped the sound recorder.
Now I'm going back to the sound recorder because I want more bike noise but it does make it an extra faff to make sure the batteries are full, memory card is empty etc...
I'm looking to try and get something a bit smaller to streamline the operation!!