Garmin 500 - any good?

Anonymous

I've been considering getting a Garmin edge 500 computer for the bike - mainly because my phone's GPS tracking is a little weak, and frequently gets totally lost when under even mild tree cover.

Does anyone here have a Garmin edge 500? How have you found it's accuracy when mountain biking?
Also, do you know if the basic package includes the wheel-based speed sensor as a backup when GPS is dropped, or is that only in the bundle offer?

Deputy Dawg

I doesn't have maps if that makes any difference. I'm looking about for a gps myself but had already discounted the 500 for this very reason.

Anonymous

I'm not after maps, but I've become rather fond of keeping track of distances and so on in Endomondo. The problem is, the GPS isn't fantastic on the phone, and battery life is reduced to about 8 hours with endomondo on.

Frodo1095

I believe you only get the speed sensor in the bundle.
I have been looking at the Bryton Rider 30/35 bundle, basically a copy of the garmin 500 but cheaper.

Anonymous

Ah, ok. thanks. It sayd there's the additional cadence sensor in the bundle (which I actually have zero interest in, frankly), but it doesn't speculate whether the speed sensor is also an extra. gutted.
After putting up with crap accuracy from cheaper GPS systems, I'm more than willing to pay the extra for a Garmin unit, provided it does what I want it to.

bdu98252

I have a garmin 500 and find it very good. THe battery life is excellent at over 10 hours from fully charged. I also like the features once you link it to you PC as it will show you the data and your tracks on a map. You can then make this a route and it will tell you how far ahead or behind you are which is good for fitness testing. It is worth the money.

Anonymous

bdu98252, did you get the normal one, or the bundle? I'm interested if there's a wheel speed sensor for backup when the GPS signal is lost.

Or, have you ever had any weird traces from the GPS?
I can show you a recent Endomondo trail that shows you the kind of issue I'm getting.

mikeeye

The cadence sensor also has a magnet and pickup for the rear wheel. So - without the cadence sensor, you get speed only from the GPS, but with the sensor, you get speed picked up from wheel revolutions. It automatically determines the circumference of the wheel when you first sync the sensor to the Edge.

Anonymous

MikeEye wrote:

The cadence sensor also has a magnet and pickup for the rear wheel. So - without the cadence sensor, you get speed only from the GPS, but with the sensor, you get speed picked up from wheel revolutions. It automatically determines the circumference of the wheel when you first sync the sensor to the Edge.

AH!
Does it have to be the rear wheel? Because I really don't think I could fit a rear wheel sensor.

Right then, back to the accuracy thing, how are you guys finding yours in densely wooded areas?

toasty

Accuracy has been very good on my Edge 500, getting a lock can take a while if you're in dense woodland, but once it's got you the numbers seem fairly sensible. I'll upload a few logs for you to compare with Endo, spotting this thread just reminded me I haven't peered over the Mountain Mayhem logs yet

The altitude sensor isn't fantastic, it spots changes in altitude fairly accurately though, so you'll find the profile of the course is fairly similar. The temperature sensor is even worse come to think of it, it's always wildly optimistic and adds about 5 degrees onto everything. For just recording where I've been though it's been brilliant, much less of a faff than a normal bike computer and you get a lot more info out of it. You can heavilty customise the screen layout as well, to get what you want out of it, hiding the useless stuff.

I don't use the cadence or heart rate sensors (even though I own both, too much of a faff), it also gets swapped between 3 bikes, so all 3 have mounts on them. It's just a matter of clicking on and going.

Anonymous

Cheers, Toasty.
For comparison, here's a recent log of mine...
http://www.endomondo.com/workouts/vimdzCD-VyI

See that straight line near the 17 mile marker? That's not right at all.
Also, between 18 and 20 miles, the log is practically a series of straight lines which again is not right.

There's a few places where it's gone awry, but those are the most noticeable for anyone who doesn't know the route.

Now, it's "OK", I'm not overly fussed, and I appreciate that it's pretty cool that a phone can do things like this at all. But I've become rather fond of this GPS logging, to keep track of how much I ride - especially since it turns out I ride a hell of a lot more than I thought I did!
But It's just come to my attention since I got my wireless speedo/odometer working again that the GPS log is frequently well off the mark, missing out quite a few chunks of trail!

So if I was to spend money to get better (it's mostly the battery life increase I'm after, really), then I want to make sure that it IS more accurate.

toasty

Mountain Mayhem - http://connect.garmin.com/activity/93660177
Follow The Dog - http://connect.garmin.com/activity/93660244

To be honest, I normally keep my logs locally on the Garmin Training Center software, it's quite a bit quicker to work with and seems a bit tidier. You can split things into folders, browsing the map is quicker, no uploading required etc, it has more of a calendar layout, like the Endomundo software.

The exported logs can be loaded into loads of different online analysis tools though.

In both of those, there are 2 laps, on top of each other, so you can just about see the variation each lap. If you put your mouse over the graphs at the bottom it gives you info for different parts of the track too. It's worth noting the first lap of MM was very cloudy, which may have thrown the tracking a bit.

Anonymous

Hmm, accuracy wise, it looks about the same then, unfortunately, there's still big loops that are a bit gammy-shaped on yours too.
I suspect that they're pretty accurate on road bikes, but the tree cover in mountain biking scuppers them.
Cheers for the info.

toasty

Yeah, they're not perfect, I swapped the FTD log to a ride where both laps were a bit closer. I was meandering about on the first lap of that other log so it looked a bit off.

The logs are generally with in 5% of each other distance wise, it's not perfect but the simplicity of clipping it on any of my bikes is the biggest bonus for me. It's a very sturdy little unit too, quite happy to be dropped on rocks or thrown around.

I'd be intruiged to hear what people with other setups recorded for either of the above actually, the MM one is just a full lap, the FTD one is starting the timer going into section 1, stopping it coming out of the last section.

mikeeye

yeehaamcgee wrote:

MikeEye wrote:

The cadence sensor also has a magnet and pickup for the rear wheel. So - without the cadence sensor, you get speed only from the GPS, but with the sensor, you get speed picked up from wheel revolutions. It automatically determines the circumference of the wheel when you first sync the sensor to the Edge.

AH!
Does it have to be the rear wheel? Because I really don't think I could fit a rear wheel sensor.

Right then, back to the accuracy thing, how are you guys finding yours in densely wooded areas?

I guess you could fit the cadence sensor on the front forks. Obviously it won't then work for cadence, but I guess it would work for speed. It fastens on with cable ties so I don't see why it couldn't be fastened securely to your forks.