Electronics, Lighting, & Gadgets - A Bouncing Baby Garmin

I finally decided to go for the Garmin Edge. It'll be here in a few days, and I'm psyched. Any tips on getting off on the right foot? (I know. I know. Read the manual). I'll be using it for heart rate zone training as a mileage counter, and, I hope as a way to keep track of my routes. Thanks.

A couple of things if you use Training>Workouts>Advanced. (You will use this mode if you download your workouts from Training Center)

All alerts are controlled by the advanced mode. Therefore, if you have alerts turned off in the system setup, Garmin will still give you alerts unless you program the "no alerts" in TC. I contacted Garmin and they did not think this was a fault. It seems to me to be an unnessary redundancy.

All timing is controlled by the advanced mode. Therefore, if you have auto pause turned on in the system setup, you still have to manually turn off the timer when you come to a rest stop and turn it back on when you resume your ride. Otherwise, your speed data will be off. I contacted Garmin and here they agreed that a firmware change needed to be made.

I've owned my unit for about 2 weeks now. Definitely read the manual and contact Garmin support if you find anything that seems to contradict logical operation. They promise 48 hour turnaround on all emails, and seem to have the staff to handle it. I chuckled when the technician replied to my emails with the title "2nd shift support staff".

unless you're going to download workouts to your edge, don't bother with the really lame garmin software when there are far more useful options out there, like www.zonefivesoftware.com 's sporttracks. It's free and incredibly powerful, muchmoreso than garmin's clunky software.

Thanks for the tips, guys. Much appreciated.

Are you saying, rodrigaj, that unlike a bike computer, if you don't swtich off the timer, the 305 will average you rest stops into average speed?

All timing is controlled by the advanced mode. Therefore, if you have auto pause turned on in the system setup, you still have to manually turn off the timer when you come to a rest stop and turn it back on when you resume your ride. Otherwise, your speed data will be off..

That has not been my experience. I have auto pause set @ 4MPH. Any time I am stopped or under 4 MPH is not counted (without turning the timer off).

Thanks for the tips, guys. Much appreciated.

Are you saying, rodrigaj, that unlike a bike computer, if you don't swtich off the timer, the 305 will average you rest stops into average speed?


Not in my experience, altho Motion based is somewhat inconsistent regarding this-- using stopped time in some reports & not others. Training Center ignores stopped time or time beneath the auto pause limit.

I hestitated to bring this up because I knew I would get the folks who do not use the advanced mode saying "not in my experience".

The two problems that I outlined have been fully verified by Garmin Support using the latest firmware 3.2. They occur ONLY when you are in the advanced mode (Training>Workouts>Advanced).

JTravis - The answer to your question is the Garmin works fine, auto pause works fine, EXCEPT WHEN YOU ARE IN THE ADVANCED MODE. Wait until you get your garmin, you may not even use the advanced mode. This is the mode when you want to program in your own personal workouts using TC.

Ok, one thing I learned the hard way was that you need to press 'Reset' between rides if you do not download the first ride to Training Center/Motion Based. Otherwise what happens is that it simply adds more laps onto the first ride.

Here is what I did: I created a course using www.mapmyride.com (http://www.mapmyride.com) from my house to the beginning of a group ride. Under training I selected "Do Course". When I was ready I hit "start" on the timer, and then while driving to the course with my new toy in my lap I had it record the ride. Just before I stopped the car I hit the "stop" button and then manually turned off "Do Course". Unfortunately this was not enough because on pressing "start" as soon as I got the bike unloaded from the car and started off with the group, it just added time and laps to the driving portion. So my average speed was something like 40 mph, I had another 26 miles of distance etc.

So in a nutshell, if you do an activity with your Edge and then want to record a new activity you must press the "lap" button for 3 seconds (it will count down on the screen). This allows you to separate different activities on the same day. I tried the same routine on Sunday - drive to the course while recording it, stop following the course, RESET, "Start" and it worked perfectly. Unfortunately none of this is covered in the manual.