UKC

I was recently given a bryton rider 50, not entirely happy with it though, crashed once losing data and the power button went on the blink so I couldn't turn it off (only used it 3 times so far!). So... hoping to return it today.

I now have the task of choosing a bike GPS. I'd like:
- turn by turn directions
- Altimeter
- Accurate route plotting (bryton kept losing the road)
- OS mapping
- weather proof (guess this rules out smart phones?)

Garmin 800 seems to tick all the boxes but pretty expensive. Is it reliable? I've read reports of water getting behind the screen. Anyone know of any good alternatives? Really don't want another lemon!

Any advice much appreciated!

Yarbles

In reply to yarbles:

My garmin 800 is great, and was thoroughly weather tested last year, and no problems to report. Just make sure the usb socket covers are properly in place and it should be fine

In reply to yarbles:
I've been looking at bike GPS' recently, too. I've decided that before forking out on a Garmin to try a few apps on my mobile. Cyclemeter seems to tick all the boxes (usual stuff like speed, distance, etc) and even allows routes (.gpx files) to be uploaded to it in advance which was one of my criteria.

In reply to yarbles: I can also vouch for cyclemeter. I used it for about 2 years most days before I was lucky enough to get a Garmin myself. Well worth the cost of the app. However, I do not know if it does all you require, such as the turn by turn directions.

In reply to yarbles:
I've got a Garmin 800 and it's 90% brilliant and 10% annoying !

It's great for recording your rides and showing you data whilst riding (very customisable displays)

If you get it with the OS map then it's pretty good whilst out on a ride, but gets annoying when you try to pan away from your current location - it's seems to want to put waypoints everywhere.
So whilst it's great if you plan a route and stick to it, but not so good if you change your mind.

One other thing that really annoys me is that it is easy to hit the start/stop button and not notice that it's stopped recording - a confirm action would be good (the lock function doesn't lock the buttons)

Not had a problem with water - it survived an 11 hour ride in constant heavy rain, although the altitude recordings that day weren't accurate.

Overall, it's been well worth the money, and I believe you can get a few bargains now the 810 has been released

In reply to yarbles: Im selling my almost new garmin 800 if youre interested. Email me for price.

In reply to Chris the Tall:

If you're a road rider I wouldn't use OS maps - they're expensive and if you only need to see roads you're far better off with Garmin's City Streets maps or (far better) free open street maps - there's plenty of advice online of how to get them off the net and onto a micro SD card.

In reply to yarbles:

One thing I noticed about the 800 was it really struggled on a route I had set up that ran on the same route for the start and end for a a few miles. Even though I had just started the route, it kept wanting to take me back to the start of the route rather than follow the outward part and when I ignored it, it just kept telling me I was off route. Probably simple to avoid by changing the route slightly at the planning stage to avoid the out and back aspect but it did get on my nerves....maybe it was just having an off day.

In reply to Professor Bunsen: As I haven't got mine in front of me I can't remember all the settings, but there's some stuff I always change after loading a new route - I think I set "off course warnings" to "off", and some other things. Definitely clunkier than it should be, but part of that is the variety of info it gets from different routing sites (mapmyride, strava, bikeroutetoaster etc).

In reply to Chris the Tall:

I haven't noticed this problem, except if I hold my finger in the same place too long when moving the map around.


There's an option that tells the unit to prompt you to start timer when moving, which can be set to persistant so if you do do this it will tell you as soon as you start off again.

This is probably because of atmospheric pressure changes effecting your altimeter. Again there is a way to resolve these in the training centre app (and a few on-line loggers like Strava)

In reply to Professor Bunsen:

Had this before, best thing is to ignor the off route until you are on a bit of road that is unique, then stop and restart the course (this doesn't stop the recording of your journey, just allows the unit to pick up where you are on the course correctly)

This doesn't happen if you use the "navigate to the beginning of the course?" function offered when you first load it (but does require you to start riding a little bit away from the beginning)

In reply to andy:

I'm not and you've insulted me now !

In reply to balmybaldwin:


I've never got this function to work. I'm not sure what it's supposed to do, but it doesn't seem to recognise when I get onto the course and shows me a line back to the start.

I suppose I could read the manual, but thats a bit drastic for me !

Thanks for the other tips, will investigate. The problem with hitting the stop button is that it usually happens when I've crashed, so I've got other things on my mind.

In reply to yarbles: Android smartphone (eg Samsung S3 or HTC One X) running MyTracks = perfect, absolutely amazing app. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.google.android.maps.mytra...

In reply to yarbles: and now there's the garmin 810 as well as the 800.