UKC

Did do a UKC search but to my surprise got zero hits.

Will be doing a London 2 Paris bike ride in September. This has spurred me into finally looking to get a mapping bike computer. Edge 810 seems to be it. If anyone has one are there any interesting details that I need to take into consideration? Like say poor battery life.

Also might seem like an odd question but the 810 does know its attached to a bike doesn't it? So you don't get routed on to motorways etc

In reply to Indy: I've got one - questionable whether it's worth the extra over the 800 - all it does extra is bluetooth to your phone so it instantly uploads your ride to Garmin Connect (and supposedly people can track you whilst you're riding).

You can set the routing preferences to avoid toll roads, motorways, main roads etc etc.

One tip - don't buy the one with included map card - it's dead easy to get free ones and stick them on a blank card. DCRainmaker's website has a guide to doing it so straightforward even I managed it.

In reply to Indy:

Don't have an 810, but do have an 800 which are very similar (other than the tracking and sharing stuff). routing wise there's loads of preferences so you can choose quieter roads, or off-road routing.

Battery life is good for 14 hours if the screen brightness is low enough (you can set it so it goes completely blank inbetween instructions if you need to extend the life more) however if the battery does go flat you will loose your current ride's data.


I went for a version with O/s 1:50k maps of UK, which is great as I now have a hand holdable gps device for the mountains too. However, if cost is an issue and you'll mainly be on-road, then consider getting the unit only, and then downloading the open street map maps - these aren't as good as os maps, but fine on-road (and okish offroad - they often have foorpaths marked as bridleways)

If you are getting one for this ride, then get it early as it takes a while to set it up as you want (there are litterally hundreds of different measures to choose from) and get used to how to load tracks so you get turn-by-turn nav etc.

It does work perfectly with Bikehike.co.uk which I think is a real plus for route planning, and uploads straight to strava too

In reply to balmybaldwin:

Not true in my experience. Did the Bowland Badass the other week and my 800 switched off just as I got back to the HQ, lasted 10.5 hours (screen was on all the time) but it didn't lose any data.

In reply to Escher:

Interesting, maybe they've fixed the problem with a firmware update, as I definitely lost the first day's riding when I did LEJOG last year.

In reply to balmybaldwin: I've had it run out a few times and never had a problem. I'm not on the latest firmware, I'm on 2.4. I'm reluctant to move to the latest as it works just fine at the moment!

In reply to Indy:
Been really pleased with my 800 - clocked up almost 5000 miles of mountain biking since I got it - but it does have a number of annoying features, such as the fact that it's too easy to hit the stop button and not notice.

It's great for following a pre-planned route, but not so good for navigating on the fly, so I wouldn't trust it not to take me down a motorway !

Battery life has always been excellent - longest stint has been 12 hours.

The wireless connectivity in the 810 would be a major plus factor too - it's annoying I can't upload via an Ipad

In reply to Indy: This may sound like an obvious point but take maps as a back-up. On a tour last year my mate deleted our route while he was fiddling with his GPS. Good job I had a pannier full of maps.

I love maps.

In reply to Chris the Tall:

In settings you can tell it to prompt you to start timer if it detects movement, then if you knock it it will beep at you etc

In reply to balmybaldwin:
Mine does that at the start of a ride, but not during a ride - or at least I haven't noticed it

In reply to andy:
Thanks everyone for the info. I did in the end decide to go for the 810. Thing that swung it was the phone integration. It might be seen as a bit of a gimmic but the live track feature seems like a good safety feature especially when out riding alone. Being able to upload directly to GC is puff but having access to all your courses via the phone seems excellent plus Garmin will probably add extra features via firmware updates as time go one.
Thanks again