Their website forum has hundreds if not thousands of reports of the Garmin 800 locking up or freezing.

This kind of bug will unfortunately result in personal injury.

They will get sued.

They will lose.

I like the gomadic battery pack because it is relatively light and the cord is the perfect distance to my Revelate Bento-ish bag that sits on my top tube and holds my food and battery case.

**********?

It does not take a lot of imagination or even a professional risk assessment to recognize that a misguided cyclist could die as a result of this little software bug.

One of the most brutal crashes I have ever witnessed happened when a person followed their garmin's prompt at the last second. I'm sure they get sued all the time. That forum is probably a gold mine for lawyers, but I wonder if any of them ever win anything

I have a gomatic, but it's so huge that I haven't figured out how to mount it to the bike. I'm using a couple of lipstick battery packs, they work fin and it's easy to mount them to the handlebars. I use a twofish mount, but just about anything would do

My gomadic fits right into my Revelate bag along with a decent amount of food. With 4 Energizer Lithium batteries, it weighs 100g and should have not problem going 600k. You could duct tape it to the underside of the toptube. Rando bikes are already beasts of burden and ugly as sin.

https://www.revelatedesigns.com/inde...ckpit/Gas-Tank

You aren't making any sense.

The 0.34 second warning is a lovely design feature. What were they thinking************************************************************

This tiny incovenience can be overcome by purchasing a "RidewithGPS" subscription. When you export the course, it will ask how far in advance you want to be prompted for a turn. I select 150 m. This is about 10 seconds on a descent and about 20 seconds twiddling along.

User error.

Anyway, Weatherby was talking about Garmin being sued because the device just stopped working (which is silly). The sort of situation you describe isn't relevant at all.

There have to be many more cases where users of car navigation units have crashed. I don't think there are "huge" numbers of suits in those case (no doubt, there have to be some).

With the bicycle Garmins, few people would sue and few lawyers would take the case (on contingency).

(Very few people would pay out-of-pocket to bring a suit and no lawyer would take a case on contingency unless it was likely to produce a settlement, at least.)

Are you as scared of the device as other people are?

We live in a litigious society. Garmin has already been sued by motorist for similar incidents. Cyclists are more vulerable to harm with these bugs. There is no valid design reason the device should freeze and stop providing guidance 120-180 miles from home. What if the cyclist is in a remote area?

You pretend to be an engineer or software guy; you should understand what a risk assessment is.

This device can have some utility but it is not a well conceived or executed design. It is flawed.

Do you really have to respond to every single post I make on the Garmin? Are you on their payroll? Do you sell these for a living? Or just an amateur shill?

As I indicated in another post in another thread, I have spent 30+ years in quality assurance and have an engineering background. Garmin did not do their homework on this device and they failed the final exam. Period. My opinion after 2 weeks use. You have a different opinion. Fine. Give it a rest.

Now you are a lawyer?

Clearly, using the device safely is beyond what you are capable of.

You should immediately destroy the device to keep yourself from harm.

To continue using the device would be very irresponsible.

You aren't making any sense.

If you believed the stuff you are saying, you would have already thrown the device away.

You are BS-ing here. Find one example where a motorist sued any GPS manufacturer when their unit just stopped working.

You aren't making any sense.

Scary.

Whatever, dude. If you were using a smartphone for navigation or a non-GPS unit and got distracted by it, that company's exposure would be the same.

Or, if a bicycle frame cracked, and caused a crash, the manufacturer is liable. That hasn't prevented companies (large and small) from selling frames.

There's lots of stuff that could potentially kill a cyclist. Failed brakes (brake shoes, brake cables, brake track), failed wheels (worn-out hubs, busted spokes, bent rims)... If your tire goes at an inopportune moment, you're kissing pavement; that doesn't stop people from selling and buying substandard tires. A GPS is probably one of the least risky things on a bike.


While I agree that it'd be great for these units to do 200+ miles without fault, and that Garmin's software is often lacking: There are actually some design parameters which probably conflict with the ability to do a 180+ mile course.

One is that very few of Garmin's customers are doing routes that long.

Another is that few cyclists want a unit the size of an eTrex on their handlebars. The 200 and 500 are small, for example, which limits both processing power and battery life.


If you're going to do a 180 mile ride with only one electronic device to guide you, and you're not savvy enough to know how to handle yourself without that unit (or to print out a paper cue sheet as a backup), then I don't have a lot of sympathy for you.


Which device? The 800?

What qualifies as "not well conceived or executed?" A unit that has a few bugs? Does it really have that many more bugs than any other electronic device in its class?


Well, that's comprehensive :innocent:

Did you at least update the firmware?

If your Garmin told you to ride your bike off a cliff, would you....?

Nope, that's what peer pressure is for.