Bryton 35 - Never works in Mass Start Races

StorckSpeed

I bought a Bryton 35 at the beginning of the year and have been using it on a daily basis. For the most part I've been pretty happy with it. It logs every mile during training and I never have any issues with it.

However - I've taken part in 3 Mass start races this year and during each one, it fails to find the satellite.
The latest one, yesterday, was only 58 minutes long. The Bryton worked happily during my warm-up and logged my speed. But come the event I pressed start and I knew straight away it wasn't going to work. I stopped it, switched it off and on again but nothing. After the race was finished I went to a cafe for tea and some home bakes and when I came out, it worked perfectly again. I just don't understand it.
Is anyone else experiencing issues like these.
Do GPS units get interference from other GPS units?
Any ideas what might be going on?

lc1981

I remember a clubmate saying that his Cateye computer interfered with his Garmin somehow if he had both on at the same time. I don't think it stopped it working altogether, but perhaps you are getting some sort of interference.

StorckSpeed

Yep - I'm fairly sure I'm getting some kind of interference, disappointing though after spending a lot of money on the thing. Most of my cycle mates have Garmins and they never seem to have any issues.
I'm going to have to buy a speed sensor to curb these problems just never thought I'd have to that with a GPS unit. Very disappointed.

lc1981

It's also worth mentioning that the one person I know who owns a Bryton is always having problems with it not starting.

lakeland

You could buy the garmin cadence sensor which will allow you to measure speed/distance via the sensor rather than gps at the start of the race?

rolf_f

lc1981 wrote:

It's also worth mentioning that the one person I know who owns a Bryton is always having problems with it not starting.

It isn't worth mentioning. I use Bryton GPS and never have a problem with it starting. That isn't really worth mentioning either - one or two individual experiences is statistically insignificant. There are plenty of glitches with them which you'll see if you look at the forums but then there are with Garmins as well. They are new technology and not really what they will be soon.

What is worth mentioning is that the OP should contact Bryton (directly or via the forums - there is one on Facebook and another run by the South African importers but used by anyone) and see if this is a known issue or a fault on the specific unit. In which case, Bryton should replace it. And if they don't, then it is time to get cross!

Incidentally, you can use the Garmin combined speed and cadence sensors on the Bryton units if you don't like cluttering the bike with sensors everywhere.

lc1981

Rolf F wrote:

...one or two individual experiences is statistically insignificant. There are plenty of glitches with them which you'll see if you look at the forums but then there are with Garmins as well. They are new technology and not really what they will be soon.

Quite true, though as you say, there are plenty of complaints about them online, which suggests that the problems are not isolated cases. You're also right that plenty of people seem to have problems with Garmins, too.

StorckSpeed

I have tried to contact Bryton via their website, I did this before writing on the Forum. To date I have not had a reply but it is the weekend!
I know that Bryton's have their problems, I also know that Garmin are not perfect either, my wife has a Garmin forerunner and this is constantly having problems finding the satellite.
But this isn't a General operating problem it's a specific problem I can identify and quantify.
What's really irking me is that I have absolutely no problems with my Bryton EVER. Until I really want to know how fast I'm going (ie during a race) and in this instance ie. 3 occasions it's let me down. I know I pressed the START button because I can see the route in the Bryton website, so I know it's not operator error, but there's no useful data and of course it didn't show data when I was riding. I just wondered if this is a common problem with GPS units, I'm convinced I'm getting interference from other peoples GPS/Computer/Power meter or something. I was actually fairly sure I wouldn't be alone in experiencing this issue but seems I am....

tiredofwhiners

Silly question perhaps, but are you having the repeated problems in the same area or no matter whereabouts you are in the UK?

I recently reported a problem with the Hannington BBC TV transmitter which was undoubtedly leaking into the GPS signal band - so much so that the raw data from my Garmin was used by Ofcom to trace the fault. The data was corrupted at completely different times and days but always at the exact same road location and otherwise the Garmin was fine.

Are there any other non-GPS common factors involved i.e electronics used by others in the vicinity, proximity to an airport, etc etc ?

sungod

gps receivers are passive, there shouldn't be any interference from the other bikes as far as gps signals themselves go

but it's possible that it's getting confused/swamped by all the surrounding bluetooth and other rf from cadence/speed/power/heartrate senders plus mobile phones - there's a road i use where both garmin and srm computers get wiped out by speed radar signals, so no data are logged in that area

another thought, can you set it to *not* look for bluetooth/whatever devices? if it's currently set to scan for them that might be why you get the problem when surrounded by other bikes

giropaul

Any road race I've ever ridden I've been too busy watching the moves, working out the combines, looking out for hazards and breathing through my ears to bother about anything else, especially looking at a computer!

lc1981

giropaul wrote:

Any road race I've ever ridden I've been too busy watching the moves, working out the combines, looking out for hazards and breathing through my ears to bother about anything else, especially looking at a computer!

Nice to see some stats afterwards though, I would have thought.

giropaul

lc1981 wrote:

giropaul wrote:

Any road race I've ever ridden I've been too busy watching the moves, working out the combines, looking out for hazards and breathing through my ears to bother about anything else, especially looking at a computer!

Nice to see some stats afterwards though, I would have thought.

The only stats I was ever interested in were on the prize list

StorckSpeed

Bryton working perfectly this morning, as I knew it would.
The 3 times I've had the problem were in Glencoe in April, Cairngorms in June and Aberdeenshire this weekend, so fairly scattered about.
Good tip about the Bluetooth but I don't think the Bryton supports Bluetooth, can't find where to turn bluetooth on or off anyway.
This has got me thinking however and maybe next time I'll disable all the other bits and pieces and see if it's better, eg. heartrate monitor, cadence, power etc.

Thanks for your suggestions.

rolf_f

StorckSpeed wrote:

Bryton working perfectly this morning, as I knew it would.
The 3 times I've had the problem were in Glencoe in April, Cairngorms in June and Aberdeenshire this weekend, so fairly scattered about.
Good tip about the Bluetooth but I don't think the Bryton supports Bluetooth, can't find where to turn bluetooth on or off anyway.
This has got me thinking however and maybe next time I'll disable all the other bits and pieces and see if it's better, eg. heartrate monitor, cadence, power etc.

Thanks for your suggestions.

If you are disabling cadence anyway, why not stick a magnet on the rear wheel, tilt the sensor inwards and use that for speed?

Hals1967

I've used a Bryton for over a year and have had no probs whatsoever - however I do only use a HR sensor and not speed\cadence.

For cadence i still use my Cateye wireless and it has never interfered with the Bryton (ooh matron...)

giner1961

Strange, i have a Bryton 35 and use it for all my rides. I have used it for the Sunday club ride (not a road race i know) but other riders have various other gps computers and i have not had a problem with it recording a ride etc.

StorckSpeed

giner1961 - I can't argue with that either, I haven't ridden with the club since the end of June but before that I was out every Sunday with them. I never experienced any issues then. Of course some Sundays there were only 3 of us and at most there was 20.
The Mass start races I've taken part in have over 100 entries, the 2 sportives have around 400-500 entries.
I'm fairly confident that it's not just a coincidence that the 3 times I've had issues are the 3 times I've been in Mass start races. I'm scheduled to take part in another at the end of September so that's another test.
Like I say it worked perfectly during the warm up, but 2 minutes later standing at the start line, lined up with everyone else it just didn't work.

malcolmfrost

The 3 times I've had the problem were in Glencoe in April, Cairngorms in June and Aberdeenshire this weekend, so fairly scattered about.

But they are all in the "far" North, ie North of the M3 and in hilly regions.
GPS satellites are ranged in orbits http://www.kowoma.de/en/gps/orbits.htm that go up to N55 ie somewhere around Newcastle, so as you go further, the satellites will be lower against the horizon, more easily obscured by hills and bodies in a mass start, especially if you're starting by heading North.
Just a possibility.

gloomyandy

Any chance of returning to the places you had problems when there is not a mass start event going on, to see if the Bryton works in that location then? My bet is that as others have said the amount of radio noise is just swamping the device. I've seen similar problems at large computer conferences. Demos of wireless tech work fine in rehearsal but fail horribly when there is a room full of people with mobiles, Wifi, Bluetooth and lord knows what other sort of radios... Maybe the receiver/aerial used in some devices is better at handling the spurious signals than others?

StorckSpeed

gloomyandy wrote:

Any chance of returning to the places you had problems when there is not a mass start event going on,

The last event I took part in took place on roads I regularly train on, and as mentioned before, I never have any issues during training.

I've just had a reply from Bryton Technical Support who seem genuinely interested. They're not aware of anyone else having issues like this. I've had to give them a load of information and ansewr some questions, including some questions asked on this post. They've checked my data, have checked the software version on my GPS and I had to capture some additional files and send these to them. Here's hoping they find something useful, if not it's looking like a speed sensor for me.

Boabie38

I'm sure I had this same problem with my Rider 35 at the Graeme Obree sportive in Ayrshire.

From memory my Bryton didn't record roughly the first mile (did display data, just didn't record data, I use HRM, Speed and Cadence) after that every thing was fine. Will double check my data tonight.

If you have direct contact details from Bryton, pass it on and I'll get in touch once I have the correct data.

Mark

StorckSpeed

Well - I've had a response from Bryton.
I use the Bryton speed/cadence sensor with it set to cadence. On the Bryton 35 I have both the speed and cadence sensor options both permanently set to on. I have a device ID set on both these options so shouldn't have any issues. However Bryton are fairly sure that a Bryton sensor on another bike is causing me issues. This is causing my device to search for new sensors, and once it does this the speed sensor always takes priority over GPS. So if I lose the guy or he loses me during the race the GPS stops showing speed data. When I press STOP the Bryton stops searching for a sensor and goes back to normal operation. Of course it's nearly always the same guys who turn up to each race so I always get the problem during races.
Solution - if not being used turn off all sensor options. Alternatively fit a speed sensor, this will stop any hunting issues. Meanwhile Bryton are going to rewrite their software to solve this issue.