Originally Posted by
clasher
I'm still using a garmin 500 and it seems like the thing can't reliably follow a breadcrumb trail from a tcx file. It drops cues, the line disappears from the screen for long periods of time, turns are skipped off the cue sheet. The main reason I bought a GPS was to use it to follow tcx routes and apparently garmin half-assed this feature on the 500. I'd rather give another company a try than buy another garmin. The wahoo bolt apparently does really well following a course and with the basic monochrome maps included it should help with funny intersections.
Seems like all the smartphone features like wifi uploading and route syncing are just icing on the cake for a unit that I can actually use to follow a course. I can also charge the wahoo bolt while I'm using it, the garmin 500 needs a special cable apparently. The charging issue was a pain on my first 1200 this year, I had to use my phone to record while the garmin charged, then I had to stitch all the rides back together.
My Edge 500 has been reliable-enough and I've learned enough tricks to make almost all of the weird hiccups manageable mid-ride. I try to be meticulous in route-creation and add custom cues for myself on RWGPS, I have the special Gomadic charger, I actually carry two 500s just in case one locks up (I can continue navigating using the other one because I will have to stitch the files together anyway)..... It's gotten me through two series and a 1200k so far.
But it's funny you mention it dropping cues, actually, given your location. My 500 has never done that to me here in PA over the 4 years I've owned it, but when I went up to ON for Granite Anvil in August, it kept doing a thing where it would lose signal for a split second, and then once it 'found itself', it would skip ahead one cue on the cue sheet, even though the map was still correct. It even lost itself twice and then skipped ahead two cues! It got really frustrating, but that was the only time it's ever happened to me.