Thinking of buying a Garmin edge 705

flying_scotsman

Hi, been looking to buy one of these but would like some feedback from other users . Plus online cycle shops seem to be more than £70 more expensive for the same equipment ( heart rate and cadence/speed sensor) why are they so much more expensive? Links down below as example
http://www.chainreactioncycles.com/Mode ... elID=31782

http://www.handtec.co.uk/product.php?xProd=905 (this is the cheapest I have seen)

Any advice appreciated , its an expensive purchase and I want to make sure I get the right one

Eau Rouge

I know the Handtec ad's title says heart rate and cadence, but the actual description and the "whats in the box" bit further down, don't mention them. They are both included in the "Optional products"
Is the Handtec price just for the 705 itself maybe?

flying_scotsman

Eau Rouge wrote:

I know the Handtec ad's title says heart rate and cadence, but the actual description and the "whats in the box" bit further down, don't mention them. They are both included in the "Optional products"
Is the Handtec price just for the 705 itself maybe?

Ahh I see what you mean that would account for the difference in price,

phil s

Excellent unit, early teething issues largely resolved by firmware updates. I'm starting to use mine with my Powertap from this week and have just invested in a map card. Before I was using it by devising routes off bikeroutetoaster and following the arrows, then downloading more accurate info on the ride back home. With my new setup it will really show everything. I got mine through a trade contact at 170 with all the bells and whistles, would advise perhaps scouring eBay for an idea of prices there.

lock

i just got mine at the weekend,and im not that great with gadgets and computers but really wanted one,it really is a good bit of lit,i got the city navigator sd card with mine and straight out the box turned the unit on dialled the town i wanted to get to and folllowed it home,it was only a test cause i new where i was going but it did choose a good route ,got home had a play with it used route toaster to make route for next days reliabilty ride and it was spot on,i think it will take a long time to get the best out of the unit,but thats half the fun,just go for it get the city navigater sd card though .

careful

Still having some problems with mine. Everything works fine except for problems with the routes I create and download from Tracklogs. They seem ok but in fact the 705 seems to lose the route after a short while (even though I am still following it). It fails to show critical turnings. Only a few trackpoints seem to be recognised. I am sure that I will sort this out and it is worth having for the other features. Just a warning that as a routing gps it seems unreliable.

Andrew_J

I brought one of these for around that price about five months ago, took me a while to get use to it at first but I think they are excellent units.
I mainly use it for creating routes on BRT and then following out in the real world, personally I find it very useful for this as I get to places / roads that I would normally miss. Then when you get back it is nice to see all the data the unit provides, you can see your progress by comparing routes, a great feature which I keep meaning to try is you can redo a route and race your last run as a virtual partner.
I would say get one.

BTW make sure you buy the maps with it, otherwise it will be pretty useless.

Think I got mine from these guys http://www.pentagongps.co.uk/garmin-edg ... i7186.html

flying_scotsman

Andrew_J wrote:

I brought one of these for around that price about five months ago, took me a while to get use to it at first but I think they are excellent units.
I mainly use it for creating routes on BRT and then following out in the real world, personally I find it very useful for this as I get to places / roads that I would normally miss. Then when you get back it is nice to see all the data the unit provides, you can see your progress by comparing routes, a great feature which I keep meaning to try is you can redo a route and race your last run as a virtual partner.
I would say get one.

BTW make sure you buy the maps with it, otherwise it will be pretty useless.

Think I got mine from these guys http://www.pentagongps.co.uk/garmin-edg ... i7186.html

I noticed that the unit has a built in base map, is that pretty much useless then? I am correct in thinking I will need the uk and ireland micro sd card on top of the original price. I need to have all the tiny back roads and detail for it to be any good to me.

fuzzynavel

I have had a 705 for a couple of weeks now and I only have one problem with it. Uploading data to Garmin Connect is touch and go....small files seem to work fine but my 3 hour + rides don't seem to get uploaded properly.

As far as the unit itself goes, I cannot fault it...cadence and HR seem to work flawlessly....the one thing I would say is...invest in the map pack....the free maps aren't that great.

Andrew_J

@flying_scotsman

I noticed that the unit has a built in base map, is that pretty much useless then?

Yes sadly you will need the UK SD ... think they are around £60 a lot of people say get the DVD but thats a lot more £££ so i went for mini SD and havent regreted it yet.

@fuzzynavel

I have had a 705 for a couple of weeks now and I only have one problem with it. Uploading data to Garmin Connect is touch and go....small files seem to work fine but my 3 hour + rides don't seem to get uploaded properly.

What do you have the data collection set on ? i have mine on smartrecording and it seems to solve this issue, also try motionbased web sit find it excellent for analysis.

tonyscp

You can get free maps for virtually anywhere by following this link.

http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/index.php ... n/Download

I've been more than happy navigating with them. All you have to do is buy an SD card, create a folder called garmin and copy the relevant gmapsupp.img fie into the folder. When the unit starts it automatically looks in that folder and supplements the pre-loaded base map with what it finds there.
Cheers, Tonys

fuzzynavel

Andrew_J wrote:

@fuzzynavel

I have had a 705 for a couple of weeks now and I only have one problem with it. Uploading data to Garmin Connect is touch and go....small files seem to work fine but my 3 hour + rides don't seem to get uploaded properly.

What do you have the data collection set on ? i have mine on smartrecording and it seems to solve this issue, also try motionbased web sit find it excellent for analysis.

I have the data collection on 1 second recording......I will change it for this weekend and see if that helps.

_Brun_

Andrew_J wrote:

Think I got mine from these guys http://www.pentagongps.co.uk/garmin-edg ... i7186.html

Thanks for that link. Not many places seem to have them in stock at the moment, so I'd ordered one from Wiggle who expect to have em later this month. That however has now been cancelled, and the one from Pentagon is on it's way already. Saved us quite a few quid too, cheers.

flying_scotsman

Thanks for all the advice guys, I think I'll get the garmin 705 with cadence and heart moniter from pentagon gps for £236 . I have downloaded the UK map and will try that first with a sd card and see how it goes.

daccordi

I'm thinking of buying one of these too and have a few questions:
What are the advantages of getting the maps on DVD?
As far as I can see this allows you to plan your routes on your computer, do you then copy this info and the maps to the unit?
The DVD is £80 from thier website which doesn't seem too much more than the SD cards online.
I take it using route toaster gets by this as you create your routes on google maps then upload them to your unit which you would have with the sd maps?
Has anyone tried this on a mac, they seem to be supported but its not totally clear?

I really want this so I can pre plan my routes and make sure I am on course so I don't have to stop all the time to check I'm not getting lost or totally lost already, will it be able to do this for me?

Thanks

DaSy

daccordi - that price for the DVD MapSource sounds like it would be the update DVD which you cannot use standalone, it is for updating an already installed copy of MapSource. I think the full version is around £120 or so.

I found the best solution was the road performance package with speed/cadence sensor and SD based Europe maps. You can then use BRT to plan your routes and upload to the 705. To be honest MapSource is not as easy to use as BRT for PC based route planning anyway.

Andrew_J

daccordi wrote:

I'm thinking of buying one of these too and have a few questions:
What are the advantages of getting the maps on DVD?
As far as I can see this allows you to plan your routes on your computer, do you then copy this info and the maps to the unit?
The DVD is £80 from thier website which doesn't seem too much more than the SD cards online.
I take it using route toaster gets by this as you create your routes on google maps then upload them to your unit which you would have with the sd maps?
Has anyone tried this on a mac, they seem to be supported but its not totally clear?

I really want this so I can pre plan my routes and make sure I am on course so I don't have to stop all the time to check I'm not getting lost or totally lost already, will it be able to do this for me?

Thanks

I have a mac and it all works spot on, I use bike route toaster to create my routes, I then save them to my mac as a file and then copy them over to the edge unit, go out and ride the route (the best bit), then when I get back I upload to motion based web site and at the minute I also copy to Ascent which is a mac program and GC, as I cant make my mind up which is the best program for analysis -> Motion Based, Ascent or Garmin Connect.
At some point i will make my mind up and only use one.

daccordi

Cheers for the replies, reckon it will work well for me so ordered one with the maps on SD