Your Garmin help, please

My thoughts on the Garmin 705 after the first week:
Navigating doesnt seem to work. It seems typical to wait a very very long time to load a route. Mine doesnt seem to work at all on this function.
HRM has ceased to pair and I cant get it to link again.
It seems to have the processing power of an early Casio calculator.

All in all a complete pile of shit!

800 is much better. I refused to buy a 705 because of the flakiness. 800s still have issues but are actually usable.

@hippy thanks for the advice. I am going to try a 500 instead. Hopefully less features = less to possibly go wrong.

I've loaded a 294km tcx file on a 510 for a trip that starts Thursday - and I simply don't trust the bugger even though the 510 says it's ready to go-go.

Back from Sweden now - The profecy obliged - 510 stopped giving turn warnings (visual and audible) after 90km ridden of the 294km tcx file.

What firmware are you running? I had awful problems with it hanging at 100% until I rolled back the firmware to 2 or 3 versions before the latest one, no trouble since then. Also much better since installing OSM maps.

So I have a garmin 500 currently mounted to the road and fixed bike. I am now using the MTB for winter but will still use the roadie on the weekends. Can I use the garmin for both the small wheeled MTB and the roadie interchangeably?

Do you have a speed/candence/power meter fitting on either bike? If the answer is no, then fire away - the Garmin won't know or care what bike it's on. If the answer's yes, then you can still fire away, but you'll need to set up multiple bike profiles so the Garmin knows which sensors are on which bike.

Ok cheers, at the moment no sensors on the MTB but depending on if I use it all winter, I may fit one. Would I need to select which profile each time i use the garmin or would it automatically know once set?

On that note, anyone have a spare stem mount and bands they can lose for a few quid?

On the 800 you have to manually select the bike profile to use, this is achieved by giving the on button a short press when the unit is already on. This brings up the bike profiles allowing you to either create, delete or select one that you want.

Ok cheers, at the moment no sensors on the MTB but depending on if I use it all winter, I may fit one. Would I need to select which profile each time i use the garmin or would it automatically know once set?

You set the profile, and it stays on that profile until you change it for another one, IIRC. That's the way the 200/800/810 work, anyway - I don't have a 500.

Perfect thanks will give it a go on the weekend.

The Garmin External battery packs I bought from Handtec are going back so I'll let you know how that goes. They're shit. I'm guessing they're old so they've discharged too much or something. Basically my 2-3 year old one lasts for 13hrs whereas one of these brand new ones only managed 5 hours today. Fuck that for almost £60!

So I sold the 705.
Got a 500 from Handtec, good price and service.
It seems much better. Nice and simple to use, lighter.
I haven't tried using the breadcrumb trail feature yet. I know lots of people were having issues with this so we will see.
Overall I am much happier with this one so far.

You can trust the 500 with loading .tcx and do navigation - the 510, not so much.

So is it only tcx files I should download?
Not gpx or any other format?

Good guide here

http://ridewithgps.com/help/garmin-edge-500

i have updated my edge 500 from 2.8 to 3.3 and have the feel that navigation with uploaded tcx files does not work like it should. any one else with same prob ? what to do ?

Get a 705. Works.

.tcx will give you turn by turn and names on the roads - but not any alternative routes, only the planned - with breadcrumps if you deviate.

.gpx will give you a line on the screen - with breadcrumps if you deviate.

anyone else find the breadcrumb trail just disappears every now and then on their 500?

Yup

Thanks for the answers peeps!

What's the best way to get US maps on a Nuvi car GPS? Anyone used an SD card containing OSM maps or should I just stump for the Garmin ones to be on the safe side?

Oof, thanks for that. Saved me there. 500 it is then. Is firmware specific? There seems to be conflicting views on it.

The european OSM maps worked on a friends Nuvi car gps, so I would expect the same for the US