bryton rider 50 computer

steve36

hi
has anyone used one?.seems a good bit of kit.

http://corp.brytonsport.com/news/?p=95

luv2ride

All I know is that they've had good initial reviews but would also be interested to hear if anyone has actually used one. Is it really a good, cheap alternative to Garmin, etc coz I can't afford one of those!

paul64

I guess I'm going to be the first person to say, yes, I took the plunge and I really like it.

Like others, I did not want to pay G money so £170 compared with buying another Cateye V2 or similar at £100 to £120 meant I took the plunge.

It's probably better if you ask specific questions as I have no experience of other brands but here are my quick thoughts:
- I did not bother with the cadence/speed sensor, I wanted to keep it simple. One unit on one stem mount, no other sensors
- easy to move to the other bikes although I will buy extra mounts
- nearly sent it back due to teething troubles with software installation and trying to understand the unit compared with (and which is ahead of) the manual
- Site FAQ is playing catch up and they need to put a clearer link up there for email support
- just as I got used to it the mount unexpectedly broke sending the unit bouncing down the road so I returned it due to the inevitable scratching
- Wiggle brilliant as usual and replaced it with a new unit (they still didn't call in and do my housework though or clean my car, bl00dy Wiggle!)
- hope the mount breakage (latest type by the way) is a one-off
- trouble with Compass which required calibration mid-ride but would not work, this happened every ride, always claibrated perfectly at home but on the road no matter what I did or when moving away from interference it could not be overcome. Knowing little about GPS I figured this compromised the whole unit so when Bryton suggested disabling it as a work-around I was scpetical since I assumed disabling it would disable the GPS. Doh! it doesn't and it's been fine since. Bryton are compass testing again and will send out a firmware fix in the coming days but to be honest you can live without compass as you still get GPS tracking and mapping

so against that backdrop:
- I love the screen visibility, black script on white background in the daytime then orange script on black background at night changing by auto daylight function
- you can configure the grid displays for the quantity and type of information you want to show
- it auto-starts and stops when you stop at junctions etc.
- rechargeable internal battery seems fine since I don't do Sportive and RAAM distances, otherwise go for the Rider 30
- when you get home and connect via USB is uploads your ride stats and then gives you one of those nice on-line pages which I then screenshot and save as jpeg for future viewing
- I have not yet used my ride history to re-ride the same route or the my buddy training partner functionality and will do so as I get more used to it

Oh, I should add:
- the packaging is really good and glossy but that's just marketing
- you receive a wall charger and a detachable USB cable which you can use stand-alone into the PC for trickle charge (I already have plenty)
- it will also wall-charge using other USB wall chargers which is nice
- you get DVDs of Western Europe maps which I haven't used and you get a 2gb Micro USB with the 1:50,000 UK map which is fine for my use, I'm not worried about greater detail and if I was would probably choose the massive Satmap 10 instead for serious off-road trail following

The unit is nicey built, tactile and I like the buttons. Despite the bouncing and scratching my first unit took the incident in its stride. Since this happened with no user error after a few days only I did not consider I should live with a cosmetically spoiled unit hence the change. However, it was clearly capable of surviving this sort of thing.

If Bryton bring out a touchscreen to rival the 800 I wouldn 't want it anyway, the Rider 50 seems like a lot of unit/mapping for £170 and I am really pleased with it as long as the mount incident was a one-off.

I hope this helps.

seanoconn

Don't have any experience of brytons but when you say you can't afford garmin money, you can buy a garmin edge 500 for the same money as a bryton, £173 on handtec with heart rate and cadence. The 500's a pretty well respected unit.

paul64

The Rider 30 compares with 500, the Rider 50 is the 705 equivalent.

steve36

paul64,thank you for your post,been looking at the edge 800 and the bryton rider 50,
the bryton is coming out on top at the moment!
thanks again
steve

betweenthewheels

I have to say "thank you" to Paul too.

Like him, I 'took the plunge' last week, and my Rider 50 has just arrived.

I won't get to take it out until the weekend, but I am looking forward to seeing how it does.
It is nice to see that I could have made a worthwhile purchase.

Not that it means anything, but first impressions, out of the box, are of a well made piece of kit.

It would be great to hear some more peoples' experience.

Thanks,

Matt

amaferanga

paul64 wrote:

The Rider 30 compares with 500, the Rider 50 is the 705 equivalent.

Yep and the Rider 30 is actually more expensive than the Edge 500.

And it looks like the Rider 50 with HR + speed/cadence is more expensive than the Edge 705 with HR + speed/cadence.

Given the issues Garmin have I'd expect there to be quite a number of teething problems with the Brytons, but if they actually become significantly cheaper than the comparable Garmin and work as well then I'd consider getting one.

paul64

How do you get to the conclusion on the pricing?
All 705 derivatives appear to come with HR strap, seems to be circa £275 or £300 incl cadence/speed sensor.
Rider 50 is £225 with HR strap or £250 incl cadence/speed sensor plus you can forego the HR strap and pay £170 which is what I did.

What am I missing (not that it really matters)?

le_boss

you can get the 705 with hrm, cadence and uk & ireland maps for £249 at handtec.

personally i would always pick garmin over bryton, and from the reviews i have read it would appear that the bryton has just as many 'bugs' as garmin.

what im wondering is how long until mobile phones properly come in to the cycling gps market?? (by this i mean phones with gps navigation equal to or greater than the edge series, wihich can match the 15hours garmin battery life)

rickard_372

I'm very hopeful that this could be a really good product. Just waiting to order one when the spring arrives.

It's cheaper then Garmin edge 500, looks way better. It has more training functions then garmin 500. And you can see what's on the screen in direct sunlight unlike the 500.
And most important of all it has 35 hours battery life compare to garmins 18.

Maybe Iphone applications could be something to chose from if bryton 50 is what you looking at. But the mobile suppliers won't come up with something as small and light as the rider 30, especially not these days when new mobiles goes bigger.

Negative in reviews so far, what I've found, has been brytonsports software which they probably improve the minute we talk. And they only offer one year warranty, garmin gives two.

//Rickard

amaferanga

rickard_372 wrote:

I'm very hopeful that this could be a really good product. Just waiting to order one when the spring arrives.

It's cheaper then Garmin edge 500, looks way better. It has more training functions then garmin 500. And you can see what's on the screen in direct sunlight unlike the 500.
And most important of all it has 35 hours battery life compare to garmins 18.

Maybe Iphone applications could be something to chose from if bryton 50 is what you looking at. But the mobile suppliers won't come up with something as small and light as the rider 30, especially not these days when new mobiles goes bigger.

Negative in reviews so far, what I've found, has been brytonsports software which they probably improve the minute we talk. And they only offer one year warranty, garmin gives two.

//Rickard

Really?

Garmin Edge 500 £136.62

paul64

The arrival of the Bryton units has to be good for the consumer, irrespective of one's personal choice. When a bike computer costs the equivalent of a good set of wheels (and the 705 and 800 do) or even a modest frame then competition to drive down the prices has to be a good thing.

When you make your choice it's a mix of whether you want a map (Rider 50, 705 or 800) or can do without (Rider 30 or 500) then cadence/HR sensors or not, maps/software and touchscreen (800) or not. Interesting that some won't risk the unknown Bryton name preferring the 'quality and assurance' of the Garmin name. That's the very reason I did ot choose Garmin, I wa sunhappy at the quantity of reported problems and disatisfaction of 705, eTrex and other models. The 500 was tempting granted.

I look forward to reading user reports from other Rider 50 owners too as a few more take a punt.