UKC

I currently just use strava on my phone, and find it runs out of battery after long rides-

New to strava as well, so would updating my account to premium allow me to plot a route and then follow it whilst I ride?

Would I be better off with a bicycle computer like the garmin edge? Or if I got a good watch like the garmin fenix, would that do for navigation?

In reply to Avinash Aujayeb:

Hard to say what is best for you but I'm really pleased with the Edge touring as I don't need the heart rate monitors etc that the expensive ones give. I'm happy with the navigation and the fact that the touch screen is useable a) in gloves b) in the rain. I'll get a day out of a charge on that.

Garmin connect can be automatically linked to Strava if you like the logging aspect of Strava.

In reply to Avinash Aujayeb:

I was in a similar situation. I've just bought the Garmin edge 520 off wiggle for £190. It's compact and lightweight. There's no external memory slot to add maps which may limit you if you want multiple routes.
Easy to install and set-up although I couldn't work out (even from the manual) how to get the cadence on the screen, one tweet to Garmin and a fast reply explaining how to do it.
It's not touch screen like the touring or 1000 but you do get notification of phone calls and texts, plus live tracking which is good if you are going for long rides, then the misses can work out how far from home you are to put the kettle on!!!

In reply to Avinash Aujayeb:
Yes - with premium, you can plot routes on Strava and then follow the route on your phone. Similarly you can copy any gpx file and then follow it. I use my iPhone this way and find it works well. As well as mapping, their is also a screen showing speed, time etc.

The big advantage of a (decent) Garmin are: it is more robust with better battery life, and it will give you turn-by-turn directions - warning as turns are coming up. In Strava you are just following a line on a map. Strava is fine with me as I have an external battery pack on my phone.

In reply to GrahamD:

What Graham said

In reply to Avinash Aujayeb:

The thing I like about a separate Garmin or bike computer is it means I can save my phone battery for just being a phone, if I run into difficulty. Also if I crash then my phone is a bit less likely to get smashed up and become unusable just when I might need it most.

Garmin Edge 500 is being sold off pretty cheap now the 520 has come out. Both the Edge 200 and Edge 500 have a great (15 hour +) battery life and will plot a 'breadcrumb' trail - ie you can see the shape of your route but can't see any underlying map. Most of the time I have found this ok but it is a bit confusing for complex road junctions. If you use a site like ridewithgps.com to plot your route, you can get turn-by-turn waymarkers on the Edge 500 which help a lot. The Strava routes feature doesn't do this, yet.

I just upgraded to the Edge 520 and as well as the breadcrumb trail, it has an underlying map. The map that comes with it is not very detailed, but if you follow the instructions here: http://www.dcrainmaker.com/2013/05/download-garmin-705800810.html you can replace it with a much more detailed one based on OpenStreetMap. It's true that there isn't a slot for an external memory card but if you overwrite the original basemap then you get about 105MB to play with. You can use the map download utility to select the map tiles that you need, I find most of North London, Essex, Hertfordshire, Cambridge comes to about 55MB leaving you plenty of space for ride data. If you were going to go touring and cover a much larger area then you would need to upload new map tiles to your device every day or two, if I were doing that I would probably consider one of the Garmins with a memory card slot, but for what I use it for (day rides around my home and the odd weekend away) it's perfect.

In reply to chris fox:


Just to make clear that route files don't take up much space at all, it's easily possible to have 20+ route files on your 520. The map tiles, however, take up quite a lot of space. So if you have a route file but no underlying map you just end up with the breadcrumb trail like on the Edge 500, which isn't the end of the world IMHO.

Strava Live Segments is the banner feature for the Edge 520, and while it's good (if you are into riding fast and trying to improve your times) the base map feature for me is worth the price of entry by itself. Unfortunately you can't use both courses and live segments at the same time, which wasn't clear to me when I bought it and is a bit of a bummer.

In reply to Avinash Aujayeb:

Just to add to what's already been said. Several models (510, 820 and others) offer bluetooth connectivity, I find this very convenient as rides automatically get uploaded via your phone to Garmin/Strava/etc. No need for Garmin connect, which isn't supported on my OS of choice.

In reply to Avinash Aujayeb:
I picked up a garmin edge 705 for £75 on e-bay . works great. bought a topo map extra and use it for walking in the hills too now.

In reply to Quiddity:

Ah ok, i haven't uploaded any myself yet. Just that i'd read it somewhere. Thanks for the heads up.

Chris

In reply to chris fox:

no problem. For reference a .tcx file for an 80 mile route including turn by turn nav comes to 1.2MB. If you are willing to do without turn-by-turn directions then it's about half that.

In reply to Avinash Aujayeb:

I got an edge 810 a couple of months ago and its brilliant, I can make up routes on strava and upload them to the garmin and you get turn by turn navigation or you can find other peoples routes and upload them to find something a bit different rather than ride the same old routes over and over.

In reply to Avinash Aujayeb:

I used Strava on my phone for a couple of years, works fine for recording a route and battery would last about 8 hours.

Over the summer my wife got a Garmin Edge Touring. It's like a sat nav for a bike, great for plotting a route and then guiding you round it. the round trip routing function is good for riding in new areas, say how far you want to ride and it will offer you 3 route choices, set off on the one you want to ride. Generally like it, only frustrations are when it tries to send you cross country on a road bike, and it occasionally decides to change your route halfway through a ride. Overall it is loads better than pulling a map out every couple of junctions to figure out where you're going.

I've now got an Edge 520. It's great for training, live Strava segments are fun, battery life is good, overall very pleased with it. Links to your phone via Bluetooth and automatically uploads to Strava when you finish the ride. Its weakness is route planning. You can load routes into it and they'll show on a map, but it doesn't give you any directions e.g. turn now. you have to watch the map the whole time, not as user friendly as the Edge touring.

I believe if you want the navigation and the training features you need to go for the Edge 1000, but that's a big step up in price and physical size. If all you want is the navigation, and are happy with manually uploading to Strava at the end of a ride, I'd go for the Edge Touring.

In reply to Sam W:

All the above is excellent food for thought. Thank you

In reply to Avinash Aujayeb:

http://www.bikehike.co.uk/mapview.php allows you to create routes in a variety of formats. Free and works well. No need for Strava Premium.

In reply to Sam W:

See above, you can get turn-by-turn directions on your Edge 520, but the tool you use to create the route needs to have the functionality to insert them into the .tcx file which Strava doesn't do. if you you ridewithgps.com you can get prompts for every turn, a list of cue cards, distance to next junction etc. It's a bit fiddly and can get confused if your route crosses itself (eg a figure of 8) but on the whole it does work.

What you can't do is plot routes on the fly, you are limited to the what you have uploaded to the device.

In reply to Quiddity:

Thanks.

A compatibility between strava and garmin would be better, as I am not sure how to create the .tcx files

Seems like the edge 810 might be very good. This shows my ignorance, but can it be used, for hiking as well?