Garmin Edge 800

I haven't noticed the new one in terms that it is just as good as the old one. Haven't had a problem with it...

I thought i was gonna hate wearing it but once it was on never noticed it in 40miles.

I think Scherrit has one

Corinne does. Scherrit is a technophobe.
Scherrit and I did use it to get to Fairfield Airport or something. It worked once we worked out how to flip it around the right way and map roads rather than as the crow flies.

I love my 800. Map my rides using ridewithgps.com, upload to Garmin, go out, come back without getting lost. A revelation!

Doesn't support turn by turn directions running OSM though.

Turn by turn works perfect on OSM - maybe you have a non-routeable map?

Doesn't support turn by turn directions running OSM though.

I've used a 705 for years and upgraded to an 800 at the beginning of the summer.

It is definitely an improvement. The touch screen works well and route calculation takes seconds rather than up to 10 minutes like on the 705. Battery life is solid and the mounting is a lot more practical.

Cons: New colour high-res screen is not as easy to read as the 705 screen due to contrast problems. You do get used to it but if you have sweat running in your eyes, it can be a little bit of a struggle. Navigation alerts don't seem to be as loud as on the 705...I tended to miss turnings when riding with lots of background noise. Once again you do get used to this though.

Overall its a clear improvement. Its a lot of money to upgrade though...

Arec you sure that OSM does not support turn by turn directions?
I use OSM and it is "advertised" as routable and gives turn by turn directions on my Etrex legend HCX, it also beeps and lights up the screen temporarily at night.

Do you use the basemap only or have you installed a more detailed one?

I love my 800. Map my rides using ridewithgps.com, upload to Garmin, go out, come back without getting lost. A revelation!

Now you have raised it I'm not 100%.

I definitely remember it not being possible on thge 705 about a year ago.

I'll see if I can get OSM to work on my 800 tonight and post back here.

I love my 800. Map my rides using ridewithgps.com, upload to Garmin, go out, come back without getting lost. A revelation!

Exactly this is just what I love, I hate stopping every 10 minutes and checking route sheets, or even checking my phone map when I've been really lost.

Its worth mentioning that postcode search is a whole lot easier on the 800 compared to the 705 and you can now plot routes to street intersections which can be pretty handy when you're in an unfamiliar part of town.

I love my 800. Map my rides using ridewithgps.com, upload to Garmin, go out, come back without getting lost. A revelation!

WITCHCRAFT!!

Who is this new wools?

The OSM maps definitely do turn-by-turn. Just stick in the end point and it'll route you there. There was an issue with searching the maps, not sure if that's still the case.

As an OSM alternative there's also these cycle specific ones at http://www.velomap.org/ Personally I found the routes a bit too circuitous but they're decent if you want cycle paths, quiet roads, etc.

Anyone got a spare mount they want to sell?

got spare 705 mounts ;)

does anyone know where I can pick up a garmin ant+ adaptor for iphone? A london store is what I need.

How is the Edge 800 at night? How bright is the screen? How readable?
Any idea how long the battery lasts with the brightness up?

@mergatron Hippy - screen is bright. Settings are changed easily.
I've not used it at night but during the day it will easily work for 6/7 hours. I'm no north London hill champ but I rode today for 4 hours and used only 15% of the battery. (Note I'm not using the cadence/heart rate option)

I did use it last week and left the house in the dark and rode for an hour. More than readable.

Separately, the set up is fiddly and for what they cost should be much easier. When downloading gpx files (on a mac) show them in "finder" and drag them to "New Files". Am thankful for Dave4 for the tips but if someone gets one make sure you ask someone how to use it!

Hippy...if you have it set to 30s light up time with brightness as low as poss I've managed to get 12 hours of night riding out of it with time to spare. The key thing is to trust your route so you don't keep checking you're on track and wasting battery.

In terms of readability, I find the higher res (than 705) colour screen harder to read with sweat in my eyes...I seem to have become acustomed to it though. Took me a few weeks.

Cheers arvy. I'm considering it as an option for a 24hr TT so it needs to last that long. I don't think stock will do but with the powermonkey it should/might:
https://powertraveller.com/news/detail.php?id=000296&redirect_url=%2Fnews%2Findex.php

What part of the setup is fiddly? What did you have trouble with?

This article, by the way, links to lots of setup/usage tips:
http://www.dcrainmaker.com/2010/08/garmin-edge-800-in-depth-first-look.html

Hippy...if you have it set to 30s light up time with brightness as low as poss I've managed to get 12 hours of night riding out of it with time to spare. The key thing is to trust your route so you don't keep checking you're on track and wasting battery.

In terms of readability, I find the higher res (than 705) colour screen harder to read with sweat in my eyes...I seem to have become acustomed to it though. Took me a few weeks.

Cheers. 12 hours is good so it'd do the night time but if I was to use it for the whole event I'd need the extended pack. I probably wouldn't be checking the route (hopefully it'll be well signed like the last one) but will want to see my power. I'm wary of the problems Garmins have had in the past with power meters though so this could still be a deal breaker.

Anyone using it successfully with a power meter? Any problems? I heard it took a LOT of firmware updates before the 705 did a basic job.

Someone must be able to help Hippy with the 24hr option. Even for my light use I know it wouldn't last 24hrs.

And note, although it does work with winter gloves you still faff. If you are used to apple (ipad/iphone) interfaces it is nowhere near as smooth and note you are probably doing a lot more when trying to use it.

The set up: fussy on my browser (firefox on a mac). The link that you provided might have saved me an hour or two, so thanks for that.

The Garmin terminology is not intuitive (or clear) but for the absolutely uninitiated (me two weeks ago). 'Courses' are what you follow. I'm sure most PC users won't have a problem. Even changing from metric to imperial units takes you through a number of steps.

Crucically I'm also waiting for an updated SD card (with OS maps) which might make things much easier when following routes.

Finally for Hippy - if you only need it for a one-off why not borrow one?

i am wondering if an exposure light could also be used as a powerpack for the garmin

I posted this in the other thread...

http://www.lfgss.com/post2547895-272.html

... but I've never used a power meter so don't know about that. You'd hope that the quoted 20 hours from the battery pack - plus the 13 hours I've had from the 800 (and the 12 from Stonehedge) would mean 24hrs would be no problem but I wouldn't like to encourage someone to blow £300+ to find out it doesn't do what they wanted.

You'd be welcome to borrow them but I'm not sure how you'd know for sure without doing a 24hr test run! Even if you did 12hrs and had, say, 60% of the battery left I'm not sure you could totally trust it...

Finally for Hippy - if you only need it for a one-off why not borrow one?

It's more than just the one off. I thought it might be useful making my training rides more interesting. I was doing a LOT of miles for last year's but it was mostly A-road loops which get very boring after a while.
The idea was that I could use it to 'get lost' on the bike and still be able to get home or still complete my set distance/time for the day, that kind of thing. Maybe set a goal town to reach that's a certain distance away. I never used to plan routes but I've found that out of sheer boredom every weekend now I've tweaked my normal loop a little bit to get off the A40 or whatever and onto some more interesting lanes. I might go back to A roads on the TT bike but time will tell.
There's also the case of racing with what you train with - I wouldn't want to be using anything new on race day and I'd want to be sure I know exactly how the 800 works. I couldn't ask anyone for a lend of one for enough time to get that done so I'd buy my own.

I already have a Garmin etrex HCx and a set of Europe maps so I'm only £250+extended battery (£60?) away from buying an 800. Still need convincing though I guess. Plus it would help to know how reliable the new one is for PT data.

How often do Garmin release new models?

I posted this in the other thread...

http://www.lfgss.com/post2547895-272.html

... but I've never used a power meter so don't know about that. You'd hope that the quoted 20 hours from the battery pack - plus the 13 hours I've had from the 800 (and the 12 from Stonehedge) would mean 24hrs would be no problem but I wouldn't like to encourage someone to blow £300+ to find out it doesn't do what they wanted.

You'd be welcome to borrow them but I'm not sure how you'd know for sure without doing a 24hr test run! Even if you did 12hrs and had, say, 60% of the battery left I'm not sure you could totally trust it...

Yeah that's the powermonkey that Corinne showed me and I've been thinking about using to get a day's power out of the Garmin.

Another reason to get the Garmin rather than use my time-scheduled phone GPS position is that I will have a much more accurate track of where I've been which might help save me from the probem of losing laps and mileage after the race when they count the laps up. I did just under 450mi but they initially had me down for 405 and then bumped me to 425 but it's still short. Having a full GPS record might help convince them their counting is off, should I need to.

I guess, if it's crap I could ebay it and recover a bit of the cost. I usually hang onto gadgets though.