Clydesdales/Athenas (200+ lb / 91+ kg) - Garmin 500 - who's got one? I have a gripe

I found one on ebay for crazy cheap (new in box, 216 for the whole kit... normally they're 350 so yeah, I was worried ha ha)

Anyway, the thing's great but it's goofy. it keeps auto-pausing in the middle of a ride. I was cruising around at about 17 mph on Tuesday and it kept pausing. what? I did change the auto pause to pause when I get below 1 mph but I'm going to turn off auto-pause if this keeps up.

Today, i went for a short post-lunch spin of not quite 6 miles just to get the rust off, and my phone GPS (all sports GPS app) says I went 5.88 miles. Garmin says I went 5.05 miles, that's a pretty large difference. It was locked on from minute 1 so there's no reason for that large of a discrepancy.

It also kept displaying the wrong speed - I'm going 19 down a slight hill and it would say I was going 0 for a second or two, or maybe 9 mph. Very disconcerting.

And then on my final hill of the day, a nice 15% grade according to the front of the display, it kept pausing even though I was managing about 7 mph up the hill.

Anybody have any idea what's going on? I have the cadence / speed transmitter installed and I had to kind of tilt it over to get the thing close enough to the crank to sense my cadence, which put the wheel sensor so close to the spokes that I had to flip the magnet around the other way. (the seat stays are curved a lot and run very close to the wheel)

except for inaccurate data, I love it. :lol:

I really want to use it in stead of my phone for a variety of reasons (battery being one of them, and my phone GPS receiver is sometimes sketchy)

Any tips or advice are welcome, thanks.

I don't have an Edge 500, but my 705 has several different modes for determining distance and speed. It's possible to tell the device to use only the speed sensor, combined with a wheel size that you enter manually. If the wheel size is incorrect, you'll see errors in both speed and distance traveled. In general, you should probably have the unit use GPS to determine distance and speed or you should make sure that the wheel size is set appropriately.

The Edge 705 also allows you to set the speed at which the unit considers you stopped. If that number is set too high, it might account for the auto-pausing.

My Edge 705 was also a bit flakey when I initially installed it. Turned out that the battery in the speed/cadence sensor needed to be replaced. If you press the test button on the speed/cadence sensor on don't see a consistent, visible light then the battery might need replacing.

Does your garmin have the same speed & cadence sensor (I think it's a GSC-10 or 1)?

I've been perusing the garmin site and it would appear there are plenty of problems.

I'll try the test light, thanks. I just noticed it also gave me a max cadence of 154 for my ride today... if I get up over 110 my butt bounces all over, so I'm pretty sure 154 is right out. :D

The auto pause has a delay, but it shouldn't do what you're describing. That and the inaccurate grade percentage I find kind of annoying. A 15% grade is pretty extreme.

Press the GSC-10 sensor button. Do the red and green LEDs blink when the magnets pass?

If you have your auto timer pause below 1mph, you might as well turn it off or increase it to something higher.

Go to Settings>About Edge

Which firmware version are you using? 2.8 is the latest.

Have you set a starting elevation point ?

[See Page 43 of the manual.]

Not sure if you have an ANT+™ speed and cadence sensor installed or not?

The unit is much more accurate with the sensors installed than simply relying upon GPS position points to calculate speed and distance.

Re: higher than expected cadence readings. Try not coasting with your left foot horizontal and trailing, where you're placing the left crank arm w/magnet next to the sensor.

I think the 15% might actually be close on my street, it's a nasty hill. Nasty! My actual drive way was closer to 24 degrees and I don't bother riding up it.

The sensor lights do light up when the magnet passes the sensor, but maybe 58 times out of the 60 before it turns off. I may need to spend some time trying to improve the layout but it's challenging with the shape of my chain stays. If the part that sticks out measured cadence and the built-in part measured the wheel magnet I'd be all set.

It looks like the auto-pause was automatic, so I changed it to 2 mph, guess I"ll be trying this again tomorrow to see what gives.

Firmware: 2.8. I updated it when I first set up the computer.

I have *not* set any elevation points yet, although the elevation in my results seems to match what my phone says and even changing it to elevation correction doesn't appear to change the results of the workout.

The wheel size was also set to auto so I changed that to 2096 for a 700c/23 tire, maybe that will help a little.

In the good news department, the actual track I rode was much better than what my phone came up with in terms of not riding off-road, so I have high hopes that once I figure out whatever issue I'm having I'll really like this thing.

Anyway, the thing's great but it's goofy. it keeps auto-pausing in the middle of a ride. I was cruising around at about 17 mph on Tuesday and it kept pausing.

It also kept displaying the wrong speed - I'm going 19 down a slight hill and it would say I was going 0 for a second or two, or maybe 9 mph. Very disconcerting.

And then on my final hill of the day, a nice 15% grade according to the front of the display, it kept pausing even though I was managing about 7 mph up the hill.

Anybody have any idea what's going on? I have the cadence / speed transmitter installed and I had to kind of tilt it over to get the thing close enough to the crank to sense my cadence, which put the wheel sensor so close to the spokes that I had to flip the magnet around the other way. (the seat stays are curved a lot and run very close to the wheel)


You're having problems with your GSC10. Maybe it's not installed quite right, maybe it's flaky.



Today, i went for a short post-lunch spin of not quite 6 miles just to get the rust off, and my phone GPS (all sports GPS app) says I went 5.88 miles. Garmin says I went 5.05 miles, that's a pretty large difference. It was locked on from minute 1 so there's no reason for that large of a discrepancy.
GPS error adds up. I've gone about half a mile in 40 minutes on a trainer.


Any tips or advice are welcome, thanks.Turn off auto-pause. With it on you can't accurately capture the training stress of a ride.

Your favorite desktop (Golden Cheetah is free, runs on Windows/Mac/Linux) or web based software (connect.garmin.com, mapmyride.com, etc.) will give you a moving average speed for bragging rights or whatever (although it still varies too much based on traffic where you're not pedaling to approach a light or accelerate from a stop).

Alright, looks like the cadence sensor thing is somehow not functioning, I'll fiddle with it in the AM, maybe try a new battery for kicks too.

I'll try turning auto-pause off too.

The sensor lights do light up when the magnet passes the sensor, but maybe 58 times out of the 60 before it turns off. I may need to spend some time trying to improve the layout but it's challenging with the shape of my chain stays. If the part that sticks out measured cadence and the built-in part measured the wheel magnet I'd be all set.

Might not be a bad idea to take the GSC-10 off the bike and make sure everything works properly without it.

When you put the GSC-10 back on, the first thing to do is get the speed sensor working. Speed is more important than cadence. When placing the GSC-10, try to put it on the chainstay near the point where the crank arm is closest to the stay. Then place the cadence sensor on the crank arm.

If the cadence sensor doesn't trigger reliably, there are a couple of tricks you can try:

1) Put a piece of rubber of plastic between the cadence magnet and the crank arm, to push the cadence magnet closer to the frame. I cut up a piece of rubber that came with my Edge 705.

2) Stack another magnet on top of the first. Neodymium magnets work best. I used a spare speed or cadence sensor I had lying around from a previous computer. You can test the setup using just magnetic attraction to keep the two magnets in place. Once you're sure it works, you may want to glue the second magnet to the first to prevent it from getting lost.


The wheel size was also set to auto so I changed that to 2096 for a 700c/23 tire, maybe that will help a little.

If you're going to input the wheel size yourself, you owe it to yourself to measure the circumference of your actual wheel. I've never yet found a real-world tire that matched the values printed on a chart...

I had lots of problems with the S/C sensor, I ended up just taking it off my bike.

Make sure you're running the latest firmware from Garmin. It should prompt you for that while you've got it syncing with their website.

It also kept displaying the wrong speed - I'm going 19 down a slight hill and it would say I was going 0 for a second or two, or maybe 9 mph. Very disconcerting.

...

Anybody have any idea what's going on? I have the cadence / speed transmitter installed and I had to kind of tilt it over to get the thing close enough to the crank to sense my cadence, which put the wheel sensor so close to the spokes that I had to flip the magnet around the other way. (the seat stays are curved a lot and run very close to the wheel)

I have an Edge 800, and the cadence sensor. Mine also cuts out like that, eg I'm doing 30+ mph down a hill and it'll show my speed as zero for a few seconds, or even minutes. To fix the problem, I'm using GPS for speed and distance, not the sensor. The downside is every now and then it'll report thousands of miles, because it thinks I biked from Seattle to Mongolia back to Seattle, in a minute or two, but this type of problem happens much less often than the cadence sensor cutting out.

I've owned every Oregon unit Garmin made, and every one of them had some important problem. It culminated in one of them, advertised as submersible waterproof, not working after I hiked in a rainstorm. Garmin makes very mediocre products. I put the cadence sensor on twice, verifying that it's alined properly and reads out, and I've had three bike mechanics look it over and tweak it if necessary. It isn't on wrong, it just doesn't always work.

The reason yours is reporting 5 miles on a 6 mile ride is that yours wasn't working 1/6 of the time.

PS - My max cadence is 223 rpm on each and every ride, according to Garmin. What an amazing coincidence!!

I've had the opposite expriences with my 705. I have sensors on 3 different bikes and mine have been pretty reliable. The only time I had a random "seattle-mongolia-seattle" event was on a trip to northern PA. I was on one of my bikes that doesn't have a sensor and the unit lost the GPS signal, it did a sort of deadreckon track using my last known speed, heading while the signal was lost but then shot back to my actual position once the signal was regained. None of that was noticeable while I was riding and I didn't catch it until I downloaded the data after the fact.

The only thing I can recommend is to go to the Garmin forums and see what other users are saying. If there's a firmware/hardware issue there's a much greater chance of it coming up in those forums vs this one where there is a small number of garmin users.

223 max cadence! Man, mine was only 150. I better get spinning!

The consensus on the garmin forums seems to be that the speed and cadence sensor isn't very good, unfortunately, since it costs more than some standalone bike computers. :( I'm going to try the reversed battery-reset trick and then slap on an additional magnet to the crank so that maybe I can rotate the sensor more vertical and hopefully those two things combined with maybe a new battery will do the trick.

I'm ok with the occasional Los Angeles - Hawaii leg, it happens with all GPS units and probably can't be avoided. You might think the unit would discard an update that radically bad though. Interestingly, I had many, many tracks on a single 45 mile ride that were out in the middle of the Pacific back when I had a blackberry. I thought I would just edit the track to get rid of the offending points, but there were thousands.

The consensus on the garmin forums seems to be that the speed and cadence sensor isn't very good, unfortunately, since it costs more than some standalone bike computers. :(

Sounds like it's too late for this advice to help you ... but Amazon sells them for about 1/3 what my LBS does.


You might think the unit would discard an update that radically bad though.

YES!!! Garmin took the time to write a "virtual training buddy" program for their unit. They could easily have spent a minute fraction of that time writing a "sanity check" function into the unit that compares the current GPS reading against the last few of them in the track log, and ignores anything where a cyclist breaks the sound barrier. I make computer software for a living, and I know this isn't hard to do. I even wrote an app that can remove the faulty data from my track logs because of this problem.

SF - it's been on my Amazon wish list for a long time... but they're roughly 350-370 depending on the color scheme even at amazon.

I got mine brand new on fleabay for 219 shipped. (I'm talking about the one with the flawed speed sensor and the HR monitor)

Same with the speed - I'm going 19, 19, 19, 0, 19, 19, 19.... c'mon. (NB: downhill speeds admitted in public only thanks.)

I've had the opposite expriences with my 705. I have sensors on 3 different bikes and mine have been pretty reliable. The only time I had a random "seattle-mongolia-seattle" event was on a trip to northern PA. I was on one of my bikes that doesn't have a sensor and the unit lost the GPS signal, it did a sort of deadreckon track using my last known speed, heading while the signal was lost but then shot back to my actual position once the signal was regained. None of that was noticeable while I was riding and I didn't catch it until I downloaded the data after the fact.

Agree. I have an Edge 705 and several different GSC-10 sensors on different bikes and haven't had any major problems with them.

I've only had one occasion where the GPS glitched: it was on an organized ride and I was quite amused to point out to my friends that my average speed was over 300mph and they needed to pick-up the pace if they wanted to keep up :D This seemed to be a common complaint with whatever version of the firmware I had installed at the time. After I updated to the latest firmware, I didn't have the problem again...

Agree. I have an Edge 705 and several different GSC-10 sensors on different bikes and haven't had any major problems with them.

I've only had one occasion where the GPS glitched: it was on an organized ride and I was quite amused to point out to my friends that my average speed was over 300mph and they needed to pick-up the pace if they wanted to keep up :D This seemed to be a common complaint with whatever version of the firmware I had installed at the time. After I updated to the latest firmware, I didn't have the problem again...


+1 - Close to 3000 miles on my 705 and Im yet to have a "glitch". Rock-sold reliability and I have ridden the same training runs many, many times and the reported speeds and distances are spot on. I love my 705. :love:

Well, screw you guys with the 705! But seriously, why is the same GSC-10 reliable on your GPS and not mine? Weird.

Update: I went to radio shack and bought a variety of magnets, none of them did me any good. I pillaged the cadence sensor magnet from another bike computer, glued it on top of my existing crank magnet to give it more "reach" and reoriented the GSC-10 into a more vertical alignment. This allows me to put the wheel magnet on the way it's supposed to be put on and it seems to be triggering the sensor every rotation now.

We'll see tomorrow, got a nice little solo ride planned on the SART. Maybe I'll run across Beanz; usually I get up too early. :D

Well, screw you guys with the 705! But seriously, why is the same GSC-10 reliable on your GPS and not mine?

There are likely two causes of problems: 1) placement of the GSC-10 and, 2) bugs in the firmware of your Edge 500.

I have GSC-10s installed on my road and touring bikes. The chainstays are relatively straight and the Q-factor of my cranks is pretty narrow, so everything lines up nicely as far as the GSC-10 is concerned. Sounds like placement on your bike may be more difficult, but it seems like you're on the right track to fixing it.

Garmin is also pretty good at releasing buggy firmware. I waited at least 18 months before buying my Edge 705, because it seemed like early adopters were having a number of problems. By the time I bought, the majority of the worst problems were fixed, though to this day the unit will occasionally stop displaying the gradient in the middle of a ride... I haven't followed the Edge 500 and Edge 800, so I don't have any idea if there are firmware problems with it.

I have Edge 500 and GSC-10, and have had only a few issues:

When mine Auto-pauses all the time - data is full.. delete all of the training history from the previous user. It gives no indication when its memory is full, and starts acting screwy.

When starting up, does not always pick up the GSC on the correct bike. Is a total pain at events with other ANT+ devices, or on group rides. On Mup rides, I can tell you the heart rate of everyone around me.

The only times I have gotten screwy speed or position data is when I have used it without the GSC-10. In tree covered areas the signal pops out, speed goes nuts, and then comes back in to reasonable.

Never had a cadence issue.

Well, I fiddled with the GSC-10 yesterday and ended up gluing an additional cadence sensor magnet from an old computer to the existing magnet. That let me straighten out the GSC-10 (make it sit nearly vertical on the chain stay) and today - I had zero problems with speed and cadence. (Well, after I remembered to re-pair it I had no problems). Thanks for the suggestion sstorkel!

SO it would appear that my garmin is functioning correctly for now, and that's dang nice. I really like it.

The only remaining quirk, and it's probably my fault, is that I seem to end up with a data point at my house for rides that start way far away (if I drive to one, let's say). I'm positive I hit the reset button this morning after a hike with the kids but that data was right there with my ride data from later in the day. The instructions just say hold "reset" to reset the timer and save your data, which is what I did. I'm sure I'll get the hang of it eventually.

I'll have to remember the data full issue - I don't see any reason to store every ride I've ever done on it, that's for sure.

"reset" doesn't clear the memory. It does signify the difference between one timed event and another. Whereby allowing you to start and stop the timer during a timed event. Does that make sense?

You're having problems with your GSC10. Maybe it's not installed quite right, maybe it's flaky.

GPS error adds up. I've gone about half a mile in 40 minutes on a trainer.

Turn off auto-pause. With it on you can't accurately capture the training stress of a ride.



And the when he stops at a stop sign or what ever it keeps running (which means inaccurate data)

Leave your auto pause on.

And the when he stops at a stop sign or what ever it keeps running (which means inaccurate data)

It depends on what you're trying to capture: if you want to be able to show your buddies the highest average speed possible, then leave auto-pause on. Heck, set it auto-pause to 20mph; then you'll look really fast!

If you want an accurate picture of the work you're really doing, turn auto-pause off. Yes, it will bring your average speed down but it should: you're not doing work when you're stopped at a stop sign, buying Gatorade at the corner store, or pretending to fiddle around with the stuff in your seat wedge. You'll get a better picture of your average power output, average heart rate, and pace if you don't enable the auto-pause feature...

If you want an accurate picture of the work you're really doing, turn auto-pause off. Yes, it will bring your average speed down but it should: you're not doing work when you're stopped at a stop sign, buying Gatorade at the corner store, or pretending to fiddle around with the stuff in your seat wedge. You'll get a better picture of your average power output, average heart rate, and pace if you don't enable the auto-pause feature...

+1 Well said

Strava automatically removes stopped time with auto-pause off. TrainingPeaks recommends turning it off. I haven't tried these third party tools yet.

Son of a ***! So today the damn speed sensor decides to take a holiday for about 4 miles and the garmin thinks I only rode 30 miles.

To me, auto-pause on, auto-pause off is decidedly secondary to getting REASONABLY accurate data on my ride. I fiddled with it again, it sort of worked again, but then kept auto-pausing, so I turned it off and off it stays. I'm done with that feature and frankly, average speed is irrelevant unless you're riding the same patch of asphalt every time anyway.

So after a while the speed came back on all by itself but it fluctuated up and down like it was GPS speed, not wheel sensor speed. I was maintaining a rock steady pace (cadence wasn't changing at all) but the speed went up and down by a half mile per hour. Does anybody at Garmin actually use these things? Crikey.

I did try the cue sheet part today and that was really cool... went on a large group ride and of course, we stayed together for a while but I never grabbed a cue sheet at the start - my garmin kept me on track. It has a tendency to make the turns look further away, and tell you "oops, missed your turn" as you're riding through the intersection, but with a little attention it worked well anyway.

Sounds like you need to either:

1) Replace the battery in your GSC-10

or

2) Have someone check your install/placement of the GSC-10. Again, it's more important to have reliable speed information than cadence if you're forced to chose between the two

or

3) Have Garmin send you another GSC-10

Aside from having to replace the battery in a every brand-new GSC-10 that I've purchased, mine have been rock-solid reliable...

Well, I have two spare batteries for that thing I just bought so that's the next remedy I'll try.

Aside from having to replace the battery in a every brand-new GSC-10 that I've purchased, mine have been rock-solid reliable...

Just curious does an almost dead or weak battery show any symptoms or were your batteries always dead? I installed my sensor last July, and I never had any problems with it other than the one time it moved slightly on the chain stay away from the pedal magnet on the crank arm. This caused the cadence not to show. Re-positioning it fixed it.

The one that was IN my speed sensor read 3.0 volts on a multi-meter. The new one I put in read nearly 3.3 v. You really can't judge a battery's capacity on voltage but a good condition battery should display full voltage on a voltmeter.

I also just noticed that the little speed sensor arm thing moves. :notamused: I think I'm going to flip the sensor upside down, I just don't like the idea of the spokes moving INTO the sensor arm... if there's any contact, iI'd rather have the motion of the spoke knock the speed sensor arm over.

Oy, I'd love to spend 15 minutes with the dweebs that wrote the software for this thing, I've never had so many WTF moments with a new piece of electronics ever.

Your favorite desktop (Golden Cheetah is free, runs on Windows/Mac/Linux) or web based software (connect.garmin.com, mapmyride.com, etc.) will give you a moving average speed for bragging rights or whatever (although it still varies too much based on traffic where you're not pedaling to approach a light or accelerate from a stop).

Golden Cheetah is a nice little find I'd never heard of before, I use primarily Linux. Thanks for the tip.

I've never had any issues. You have to hold reset down and wait for it to clear the ride to start a new ride.

Just curious does an almost dead or weak battery show any symptoms or were your batteries always dead?

In my case, I had inconsistent results from the speed/cadence displays. Sometimes, for example, cadence would come in and out over the course of a ride. Other times I'd be spinning like mad (110+rpm for me) and the display would report only 40-50rpm. When I swapped in a new battery, I also noticed that the test LED was quite a bit brighter.

I also just noticed that the little speed sensor arm thing moves. :notamused: I think I'm going to flip the sensor upside down, I just don't like the idea of the spokes moving INTO the sensor arm... if there's any contact, iI'd rather have the motion of the spoke knock the speed sensor arm over.

How could the spoke move into the sensor arm? The GSC-10 should be installed on the top of the left chain stay. If should be positioned on the stay such that it ends up between the front of the rim and the hub. The angle between the arm and the body of the sensor shouldn't be greater than 90 degrees. Something like this:

http://www.bkits.at/weblog/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/garmin_gsc10.jpg

In this position, if a spoke were to hit the arm somehow, the arm would be knocked against the chain stay and the wheel would continue to rotate...

How could the spoke move into the sensor arm? The GSC-10 should be installed on the top of the left chain stay. If should be positioned on the stay such that it ends up between the front of the rim and the hub. The angle between the arm and the body of the sensor shouldn't be greater than 90 degrees. Something like this:

http://www.bkits.at/weblog/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/garmin_gsc10.jpg

In this position, if a spoke were to hit the arm somehow, the arm would be knocked against the chain stay and the wheel would continue to rotate...

That would be the smart way to install it, but a GIS reveals this as the second image:

http://farm5.staticflickr.com/4004/4348249356_be9feb208d.jpg (http://www.flickr.com/photos/mikkelz/4348249356/)
Garmin GSC 10 Speed/Cadence sensor (http://www.flickr.com/photos/mikkelz/4348249356/) by mikkelz (http://www.flickr.com/people/mikkelz/), on Flickr

That second image is exactly what mine would have to look like, right down to the logo on the chain stay :D. The chain stays are very shaped (hard to see in that image, but they are) - there's barely any room between the chain stay and the wheel where the braking surface is, which complicates the install in two ways - the cadence sensor is further away from the crank, which also has a slight curve to it (which is why I glued that extra magnet on) and the speed sensor is so close to the spokes no matter what I do with it that it strikes the spokes with the slightest misalignment.

If I flip it, any physical contact will have the effect of pushing the GSC-10 arm further away - that's what I meant by that.

I used it sensor free tonight and it was dead on. I also killed the auto pause and I got an overall speed and a moving speed and THAT was dead on. I do want cadence though, so I'll keep fiddling but I generally know about where I am in the range anyway.

I was very happy with it tonight though. :)

That second image is exactly what mine would have to look like, right down to the logo on the chain stay :D. The chain stays are very shaped (hard to see in that image, but they are) - there's barely any room between the chain stay and the wheel where the braking surface is, which complicates the install in two ways - the cadence sensor is further away from the crank, which also has a slight curve to it (which is why I glued that extra magnet on) and the speed sensor is so close to the spokes no matter what I do with it that it strikes the spokes with the slightest misalignment.

So, it sounds like what you're trying to do is put the speed sensor magnet as close to the rim as possible? That may not be the best placement.

My bike is also has minimal clearance near the brake track. Luckily, my chain stays bulge out as they approach the wheel hub. I have the cadence magnet perched, literally, behind the pedal spindle on the crank arm. The magnet for the speed sensor is about 1/3rd of the way down the spoke from the rim. This positions the sensor on the chain stay in a place which gives decent clearance between the sensor arm and the spokes, without having to flip the arm up like the picture that dehoff posted. I don't have a ton of extra room, but I've never had a spoke contact the sensor arm...

Some folks have had better luck using "rare earth" type magnets with the Garmin GSC-10 speed/cadence sensor. This type magnet is quite strong; so this magnet can be smaller in size, if need be. (from what I have read)

I have the cadence magnet just barely in "front" of the pedal axle right now but the chain stays don't really start swooping back out to accommodate the hub until after the pedal. I'm not whacking my heels on the chainstays with this bike, which is great.

Even with a double thick magnet, I had to slightly tilt the sensor towards the crank to get a good cadence reading.

After fidding with it some more tonight, I'm not sure if I have it mounted securely enough to prevent any motion while riding. I think I need another rubber strip for the opposite side so the zip ties don't slide - the diameter of the chain stay gets smaller towards the dropouts, so with sufficient vibration, the sensor wants to walk backwards. I'm not sure that's what happened but it's a theory.

@Trojanhorse , what type of magnet are you using? MY cheapo unit was having drop outs a lot so i added a magnet on to the stock one .

The thing is i used a HDD magnet which are neodymium magnets it is able to pick up a large spanner or two :)

IF you have a old HDD around open it and take the magnet out, Then break it in half to give that a try. If that doesn't give you a constant signal well i have some stronger ones here i can mail you . :innocent:

Ooh, didn't even think of stripping an HDD - I have a small basket of them floating around.

I stole the cadence magnet from my old cateye and stacked it on top of the GSC-10 magnet. I bought some magnets from Radio Shack but the ceramic ones stunk and the rare earth ones were too small.

Ooh, didn't even think of stripping an HDD - I have a small basket of them floating around.

I stole the cadence magnet from my old cateye and stacked it on top of the GSC-10 magnet. I bought some magnets from Radio Shack but the ceramic ones stunk and the rare earth ones were too small.


Hdd magnets are the best :) and they are brittle so just lay it on concrete and give it a tap with the hammer to make smaller very sharp magnets.:rolleyes:

Love my Edge 500.

However that being said, here's something that may help you. When I first got it I used it on my mountain bike which had stays and pedals that were really tightly grouped and had no problems with the GSC10 sensor. But when I got my road bike, everything was wider, especially the crank-arm-to-chainstay distance. The GSC10 just could not get reliable readings, no matter how awkwardly I angled the sensor. As it turns out, the magnets that the GSC10 come with are just too weak. I bought a pack of Neodymium 1/2"x1/8" circular magnets from Amazon (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001KV38ES/ref=oh_o02_s00_i00_details) and since my pedal spindles are steel, they are magnetic, and the magnet neatly snaps into place along the pedal axle. Don't need to glue it or tape it or anything, been using it this way for 6 months and it has yet to fall off. The new magnet is strong enough that I can move the sensor closer to the wheel magnet. Flawless readings every time now. Try it out.

Ordered.

Thanks for the link. My cranks aren't steel but with a tiny amount of glue they should stick right on top of the existing cadence sensor.

Son of a ***! So today the damn speed sensor decides to take a holiday for about 4 miles and the garmin thinks I only rode 30 miles.

To me, auto-pause on, auto-pause off is decidedly secondary to getting REASONABLY accurate data on my ride. I fiddled with it again, it sort of worked again, but then kept auto-pausing, so I turned it off and off it stays. I'm done with that feature and frankly, average speed is irrelevant unless you're riding the same patch of asphalt every time anyway.

So after a while the speed came back on all by itself but it fluctuated up and down like it was GPS speed, not wheel sensor speed. I was maintaining a rock steady pace (cadence wasn't changing at all) but the speed went up and down by a half mile per hour. Does anybody at Garmin actually use these things? Crikey.

I did try the cue sheet part today and that was really cool... went on a large group ride and of course, we stayed together for a while but I never grabbed a cue sheet at the start - my garmin kept me on track. It has a tendency to make the turns look further away, and tell you "oops, missed your turn" as you're riding through the intersection, but with a little attention it worked well anyway.

It sounds like yours is about as accurate as mine. I said to hell with the speed sensor, and get speed and distance from the GPS. It's sad that that's more accurate than counting how many times the wheel moves, but ... I just want data I can use.

I never tried rare earth magnets or anything. I assume the one that came with the thing works well enough, and, since mine doesn't, I think the problem is more likely to be the Garmin itself.

Well, I've been riding without the speed sensor and I do miss the cadence a little. I ordered a bushel of rare earth magnets from Amazon just now, so I'll try that. I also replaced the battery, I just haven't had a spare hour to fiddle with the sensor. As far as I can tell, you can't have the magnet too CLOSE to the sensor and you can't have it too far away, so my crank was too far away and teh wheel was practically hitting the sensor, so adding a magnet or two may allow me to screw with the sensor positioning a little more.

I should have about 12 leftover magnets if you want to try it. :D

Just to restore some hope to those who might be considering an Edge 500 and GSC10. Mine was purchased for me, new, in December. I haven't had an issue with it other than the high cadence readings as a result of coasting with left crank horizontal and trailing. On mine the GSC seems to tolerate gaps of up to about 10mm from both crank and wheel magnets. I certainly didn't spend more than 5 minutes installing the sensor and both magnets. And, haven't had an issue with them since. Other than the magnet once sliding up or down the spoke during transport in the back of the car.