Garmin heart rate peak

raymond82

I recently bought a Garmin edge 500 to replace my broken Bryton. I'm using it now with the Bryton heart rate chest belt and this works fine, except that the first 10 minutes of each ride the heart rate shows very high peaks (up to 250 bpm but usually between 190 and 220).

I had the same with the old Bryton computer so I don't think it's an incompatibility issue. Anyway it always disappears after 10 minutes or so and after that everything works fine. Any idea what it could be?

Thanks!

Grill

Spiking is usually caused by poor contact on the strap. Are you licking the sensors before attaching the strap and is it tight enough?

raymond82

Thanks for the reply! I'll try licking the strap next time (probably I'll rinse it first). I thought a bad connection would just give me no reading at all so I never thought that could be the problem.

gloomyandy

Is this the first 10 minutes of wearing the strap, or the first 10 minutes of a ride? It may be you are getting some static electricity effects that are picked up by the strap. There are a number of threads on the Garmin forum about problems like this with the various Garmin straps.

CYCLESPORT1

All of the above - or see a doctor FAST !

Buzzatronic

I have the same problems sometimes. I've basically started dunking the contacts into a cup of water before I attach it since I don't sweat much early in the ride. This seems to keep my heart rate from spiking to 250+ due to contact issues (although it still happens on rare occasion).

I've considered getting some HRM contact gel to see if that helps but I haven't gotten around to it.

bikingjohn

take a look
http://www.dcrainmaker.com/2010/08/solu ... pikes.html

The Polar strap is a bit better IME.

Coach H

Buzzatronic wrote:

I've considered getting some HRM contact gel to see if that helps but I haven't gotten around to it.

A cheap alternative thats easliy available is Aloe Vera gel. You can get small 50ml bottles from health food shops or chemists that should last ages as you only need a smear

Muffintop

I once got my heartrate to show 260 riding in a car. Are you doing that?

Mx

bamboy74

Is it the soft strap and how long have you had it ? I've had a couple of the soft strap ones from both Bryton and Garmin and they didn't last more than a year - same symptoms as you and then just constantly high readings. I've bought a plastic garmin strap to replace it and it's miles better. I don't even need to wet it to get correct readings.

raymond82

I must have missed an email alert, I see that there were a lot more comments after I last checked. My apologies...

I actually came back to the thread to say that I bought a conductive gel and it completely solved the problem! It's a gel meant for people that use electrical stimulation to grow muscle (I was slightly embarrassed when buying it) but it works great! So it is a problem of the contact of the strap with the skin like suggested above, at least in my case.

Thanks again for the input, I'll keep a closer eye on new posts from now on...

Anonymous

Can you let me know what its called? I have the same issue - average HRM for rides will be 200 with highs of 250.

I think I have a naturally high HR (resting around 100) but I'm pretty sure even I don't go into cardiac arrest when doing intervals....

raymond82

This particular one is called "Universal Contact Gel" by "Orange Care" but you can probably find lots of different brands. Typing "conductive gel" in ebay gets quite some hits too. I'm happy I bought it, it also works really well with another hear rate strap that used to take up to 20 minutes before it would give me a reading.

wongataa

I find wetting the conductive areas on the strap works for me. If you want the gel I think you can get it in Boots.

Anonymous

Yeah I do that but my heart still reads very high. A friend lent me a premium one last night, which seems to work better.