Garmin 800 virtual partner help please

mattsccm

Using the 800 on the turbo.
All I want to do is set the VP for an average speed over a set distance. Lets say a 10 mile route with 25mph average.
I cannot find anything telling how to go about this. There is a Garmin site that misses bits out. Never even bothered with any of the training bits before, only using speed, HR and navigation.
Any one able to show me from scratch?

peteco

I could be wrong, but I think you need to record a ride first, and then use that as the baseline for a Virtual Partner target.

Pete

mattsccm

Bugger. That's just what I don't want to do.
I can just have the average speed on but thought that the VP would be more flexible is run 25mph for a set time then 20 say.

apreading

I dont know what it does if you are not following a course.

If you are following a course though, it does one of two things:

1) A course that you have plotted on a computer will have an average speed and apply it all ride. When following that course, VP will go at that constant speed although you can adjust up or down as a percentage. It goes at a constant speed though, so when you go uphill you will fall behind, and when you go downhill you will catch up/get in front. Not really that useful to be honest unless you are riding on the flat or a constant gradient.

2) A course that has been created from a previous activity, either by the device or by Garmin Connect (whether its one of your activities or someone else's shared one on GC). When following that, the Garmin knows what the speed was at each point of the ride and VP varies its pace to accurately plot where you should be in comparison at any point. This is really useful but not well documented.

The 810 is the same although the document method two better, to the extent that many thought it was a new feature but it was always there on the 800 too.

As I said, I have no idea whether you can set a speed when not following a route though, so the above may or may not be of use...

mattsccm

Ta.
Not interested in following a course.
Seems a totally pointless exercise on the turbo. It's mentally so much easier to just sit at a certain speed and play with the gears to vary cadence and effort.
I can just choose an average speed and stick to it but I just thought that there would be more.

apreading

Ah - didnt realise this was for a turbo. What you could do is plot a 50-100 mile route at a speed of 25mph, tell the garmin to follow that route (even though you are not riding it - just dont look at the map). Then when you want to drop to 20mph, set VP to run at 80%. Yes, it is a bit ham fisted but hey, it should do what you need with no real hardship.

Unless someone else comes along saying the device can do it another way, this should work.

There is some kind of workout thing on the 800 too I think but I dont know how that works and if it might offer an alternative...

peteco

Having said I think you can't do this, I have just googled "Workouts" for an 800, and it appears to have some functionality in this area. I have owned my 800 for 3 years and have never used it, but will have a look today to see what is possible.

Pete

peteco

Had a quick look at this and I think the Edge 800 can do what you want with "Workouts" not with Virtual Partner.

You can define a Workout on the device. Each Workout consists of a series of sequential Steps.

Each Step is of the form:

For n mins/km/etc, keep my speed/heart rate/power/cadence/etc between x and y
or
Stay in this step until my Heart Rate reaches z bpm

The device will beep if you exceed one of the limits

I have had a quick play and it seems pretty simple to set up - haven't tested it yet though.

Pete