I have had my Garmin 500 for a couple weeks now and am very satisified with it. As far as routes from Map My Ride, you can add them to the 500 (I've only tried it with Map My Ride). On MMR, choose to save the route to your Garmin (.crs file). Move this file to your Garmin under the "Courses" folder. Once you turn on your Garmin and navigate to "Courses" under the menu, your Garmin will install the course. You can follow-it while you are riding, although the map doesn't have a great deal of detail. It is nice to use when on a road you are semi-familiar with, but I would be hesitant to use it as my sole navigation in unfamiliar territory.