GPS tech (Garmin, Hammerhead, Wahoo, RWGPS, etc)

So srs

You've learned well, young Hippy.

I added a new road to OSM recently. Pretty straight-forward, and it appeared in the public map same day. RWGPS say they refresh their database from OSM and other sources roughly every 4-6 weeks so then it'll be routable. (csb)

I said I was going to do this for some of my TCR 'mistakes' but never got around to it. Like where there's a road and then some fucker has just put up a fence across it. Private property bitches!

Anyone else had this problem with the Wahoo Elemnt Bolt? Rubber button seal is coming off. Always been careful with it & am now worried about the waterproofing.

I bought it through Wiggle under a year ago, have send off an email to Wahoo about it first though.

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Exact same thing happened to me two weeks ago. Sent an email to Wahoo and within a couple of hours had a reply saying they'd replace. Got the replacement within a week. Very good service considering I bought from Sigma last April (!)

Ah great, cheers for the response, that's reassuring!

is there much between the garmin 520 plus and the 820?
Both are a similar price on halfords, leaning towards the 520 because I'm not sure about the touchscreen, I think I'd prefer buttons.
I have an old edge 500 but fancied something with clearer nav options and something that's a bit easier to upload rides with (pc only reads the presence of the 500 1 in 5 attempts nowdays).

Battery life could sway me for the occasional overnighter.
Don't know much about the wahoo offerings in comparison.....

someone make up my mind for me

I had a 520 plus but had to get rid of it due to the lack of map pan facility, was a deal breaker for me.

Other than that it was a solid unit

I’ve just received a brand new, boxed Edge 1030 (with mounts etc) as a replacement from Garmin UK (for the same screen halo issue as my original 820 also had).

I’m offline pretty much all day today but can post up more details of it’s merits/flaws on Monday if anyone is interested in taking it off my hands. I’m thinking £320 with a black bumper case thrown in..

[NOW SOLD]

Has anyone got any experience with the miocyclo, i dont need a lot of data its turn by turn mapping im interested in

My mate had/has one, we called it the Fisher Price bike computer, but it was actually pretty good! Not exactly an in depth review.

The Garmin Touring is quite good for mapping with minimal data.

Could be interested, I'll have a think. I like the idea of good battery life, but not keen on Garmins!

cheers

I've had a couple of PMs about the 1030 so, as promised, I'll stick my thoughts on it here..

The Good

I did 8000km on the original unit and it never crashed once (or lost any data).
The screen is excellent in daylight or sunny conditions - no need for a backlight at all.
The touchscreen is infinitely better than the 820 (and doesn't have the laggy refresh rate either).
The battery life is fantastic - in daylight I've done 7 hour rides that used less than 25%, and at night I've done 200km with the backlight on low throughout and only used 50%.
Rides upload over wifi in seconds.
You quickly get used to its massive size.
The new mount is great, no longer above stem height, and has an extra mount on the bottom for the battery pack. I've never used that pack but I realised that you could strap one of the standard old Garmin mounts to any roundish light and twist that on underneath the mount. So you can get a Hope V1 or something similar (I've used Lezyne Macros and Moons too) mounted below the 1030 and out of the way of your cables/bars (and meaning it's not partially obscured by the unit, from some angles, as it would be if you has it on top of your bars).

The Bad (or unknown)

The battery life is (I believe) partially achieved at the expense of the screen colour saturation (more details below).
Touch screen still not quite as immediate as the 800 (hence leaving the backlight on a lot as you can't 100% reliably tap it with a winter gloved finger to light it up)
The usual quirks of Garmin UI.
The 'halo' - this is the display starting to 'degrade' around the edges after about 2000km - which seems to have been randomly affecting 820s and 1030s for over a year. Garmin claim it's not impacting all units - and seem to be happy to throw replacements at it (even out of warranty, based on their forum). My pet theory is that it relates to using them in 'Night Mode' (which I always do) - based on me having the problem with both an 820 and 1030, but that may be bollocks. It's still perfectly usable with the halo - but would get worse over time.
The Unknown - I never used sensors or bluetooth much, or the live segments, tracking or TBT nav (I usually had that disabled as I prefer to just follow the line) so can't comment too much on the reliability of that side of things. However I did use it on a turbo with speed/cadence sensors a couple of times, and have uploaded some rides via BT and it was perfectly fine every time (better than other devices i have used). I gather from the reports of units crashing on the Garmin forum that they are almost all related to people having BT running all the time - which may explain why mine has been bulletproof in comparison.
It's fucking white(!) - hence the need for the black bumper case.

Why am I selling it?

Well I'm an old man with poor eyesight - that is exacerbated by poor lighting and electronic displays - and I do most of my longer rides at night. This means I find the muted map colours are a real difficulty when relying on the backlight to make them out. This was reported by loads of people when they first turned the unit on indoors - but most of those people stopped complaining when they saw how good the display was outdoors and in daylight. You can see what I mean here...

https://forums.garmin.com/filedata/fetch?photoid=1250829

... I doubt it would be an issue for most people - no one else seems to care on the Garmin forum.

The downside of buying mine would be that apparently the warranty is either 90 days, or when the original warranty runs out - which in my case is early Feb. The jury seems to be out on this, as others claim they've been told it's a year from date of replacement and haven't been contradicted by Garmin on that. Also, as mentioned above - they seem to be doing their best to cover the halo issue indefinitely anyway as it's a source of embarrassment- but obviously I can't guarantee that. I guess it's a question of whether the potential extra 9 months of guaranteed warranty is worth another £100+ or not (I would guess they would charge less than that to replace anyway - but who knows).

So there it is - warts and all. FWIW it wouldn't massively surprise me if I ended up buying another at some point, as it was essentially bulletproof for long rides and would do a 400km Audax without needing recharging - and if Wahoo don't come up with something new soon I may be forced to admit it's still the best option for me. However as I don't foresee doing any unusual night rides in the next 6 months and this one is boxfresh it seems a sensible time to pass it on..

[NOW SOLD]

@hippy might want it.

Ta, I'd PMd him about it on Sat.

Is there any consensus about whether Garmin 820 or the wahoo bolt is the better device? Or is it simply a case of choose which set of annoying features bothers you the least?

I've never used a Bolt personally but battled with an 820 for a year. The Bolt seems to be almost universally liked whereas the 820 seems to be almost universally hated (including by me). I guess you've seen that the 520 has just been reduced to £149? I think it's arguably a closer match to the Bolt in terms of raw functionality than the 820 (unless your main interest is full navigation options - but if it is the Bolt may not be ideal either)...

https://www.dcrainmaker.com/2017/07/best-bike-gps-2017-garmin-wahoo.html

Ok. Makes sense.

Does anyone want to buy my Karoo? It's a brand new unit, replaced under warranty as the old one was missing the usb port cover (apparently it can only be fitted in the factory). Comes with the new bracket foot and all the accessories.

Up to date review on Road.cc

I actually really like it now and it's constantly improving with updates every two weeks, but I've started riding long distances (200km +) and the battery isn't ideal for this. I'm getting 8-9hrs depending on usage.

If something goes wrong with it, I'm happy to act as a go-between and return it in my name. Looking for £200, as used ones are going regularly for that on ebay, it currently sells new for £312

EDIT - I'm going to stick it on eBay this weekend. Hope that doesn't count as breaking the rules. Just giving first dibs to the forum.

Hi, I'm not sure if there's a more appropriate thread so thought i'd check here reasoning at worst case someone can point me at the correct thread. I'm debating a smartwatch/GPS watch for cycling and running. I've browsed a few contenders and I'm looking at the Garmin vivoactive 3 or a Samsung gear s3. Some reviews have mentioned iffy GPS coverage from the gear s3 so i was wondering if anyone here has used one? Or if anyone has a better suggestion?
My required features are the GPS is integrated (so i dont need to lug my phone running) and preferably that it can play music through my BT headphones. Can anyone offer first hand experience?

The running thread has good info on watches. Have a read/ask in there

cool, will do. Thanks

I appear to have lost my Garmin 130- what’s the latest and greatest in GPS computers?