Budget gps unit
 

Recommendations please

Your phone with Map My Ride?

a garmin watch is about the best device for the cost. if you get one with ANT you can hook cheap speed and cadence and such to it too.

Lezyne
 

I have an earlier variant of the Lezyne Macro GPS.

Not great for mapping and turn by turn, pretty rudimentary and cumbersome.

But it's rock solid for basic and simple recording of a ride, plus HR, cadence, RPM sensor values, running long per charge, and easy upload to Strava from the phone app post ride.

I like the configurable display, I'll run six values with time of day, miles ridden, rpm, HR, speed, and ??

It put an end to constant Strava phone battles with broken recordings.

And I think it was $109 or $119 on sale. I spent $10-12? for the second handlebar mount, and toss it into a mesh pocket on my backpack when hiking.

Very happy with it.

I bought a Garmin Edge 200 when Best Buy was closing them out a few years ago. I only wanted the basic data, but I wanted to be able to move the unit from bike to bike. It only tracks your speed and mileage and will give a basic bread crumb route back to your starting point, but when you upload the data, you can see your whole route. Basically it is the GPS version of the Avocet computer. The Edge 200 was replaced by the Edge 25, which is still available.

Garmin Edge 130. Cheap and has everything I need. Been using it since December 2020 and no complaints.

+1 beat me to it

next up garmin gps watch, super versatile....not just for bikes

you can start at about $150 for a garmin venu..... gps, wrist pulse etc

https://buy.garmin.com/en-US/US/p/70...n/010-02427-00

What do you want to do with your GPS?

XOSS G+. I've had one for 18 months now, no real complaints. I've written a bunch about it in other threads, including the gadget forum. Costs about $50 on Amazon, occasionally discounted as deep as half that price.

It's bare bones, no navigation aids. It records GPS but doesn't offer maps, breadcrumb trails, turns, etc. If navigation was a priority I'd consider Lezyne and Bryton on a budget; or Wahoo, Garmin, etc., if price wasn't an issue.

It's small and lightweight, like an old school wired computer, smaller and lighter than any Wahoo, Garmin, etc.

It's compatible with most ANT+ and Bluetooth sensors, with the exception of power meters -- which XOSS says they're working on. I have a XOSS convertible speed/cadence earth induction sensor that wraps around the hub or crank arm; and older Wahoo speed/cadence sensors that are ANT+ only; and Wahoo Tickr HR monitor.

When I run the same sensors (Wahoo and XOSS brand speed, cadence, heart rate) on the XOSS and my phone, the sensors connect via ANT+ to the XOSS and Bluetooth on my phone. If I had only an entry level Bryton Rider 15 (Bluetooth only), I couldn't share my sensors with both the Bryton and my phone, since Bluetooth wants to share with only one device at a time, while ANT+ can share with more than one device.

Long runtime per charge, longer with the display light disabled. I can usually get 2-3 rides of 2-4 hours per charge with backlight enabled. It would probably last me a week if I disabled the backlight. Recharges quickly too.

It's compatible with most worldwide navigation satellites -- GPS, Glonass, BeiDou -- although I suspect it defaults to the system for the country where it's sold and can't be manually changed. It might automatically switch internally, I don't know.

GPS is more accurate than my phones. I've compared results by disabling location enhancement on my phone, so it can't use cell towers, wifi, etc., to assist in navigation and location. The XOSS is consistently more accurate.

Some users bicker over the XOSS app, mostly because it doesn't show calorie burns to their satisfaction. I don't care, I don't rely on devices and apps for calorie estimates. The odometer can't be reset, which annoys some users but, again, it doesn't bother me. I swap the XOSS between various bikes anyway. It has barometric pressure and temperature sensors but those are only guesstimates. I rely on Strava for more accurate elevation gain estimates. And the XOSS tends to be fooled by sunlight directly on the device, or heat reflected from the pavement, so it may read 100+F when the ambient temp is around 90F.

But it's great for the basics: speed, cadence, heart rate, time (of day, elapsed), approximate grade incline, etc. And I've set mine to sound a beeping alarm when my heart rate exceeds 160 bpm, which reminds me to rein it in a bit when I'm tired or it's hot and muggy outdoors, or if my heart rate spikes for no apparent reason (common with my auto immune disorder) -- all good reminders to ease up unless I'm feeling really well and aiming for a hard workout.

The XOSS app can sync with Strava after a ride and usually works pretty well. Recently they've made it easier to download data files and manually upload them to other software.

Saved my phone battery when I was using a phone with a battery that drained within a day. Now I'm using a phone with a 3-day battery so it's less an issue. I still run Wahoo Fitness or other apps simultaneously as backups. But I'd rather not mount my phone on the handlebar/stem.

I've had a Lezyne Super GPS for over 4 years now.

It's absolutely reliable. Navigation is basic, but easy to create routes and easy to follow prompts. Battery still lasts for a ton of rides and its never frozen or dropped a signal.

I really like my Bryton Rider 530 unit. It's supported by a very good smartphone app and you can easily download route maps through the supporting BrytonSport website. That said, the 530 is discontinued, but Bryton has a number of newer reasonable-priced units for sale.

Basically just speed and distance.

So gonna butt in here with my 2c. I have a Garmin 130 that stopped overwriting at some point 3-4 years ago after 5-6 years of normal use, probably from not updating it or downloading the old files to clear it out. Still works fine on a ride for time, speed, distance at the time of the ride. I think it was $99 on sale with $35 rebate at Performance. Next up is a Garmin 520 Plus bundle, couple of mounts and the unit, I think regular price was originally $389 but there were other places that had it for other lower prices, I think Performance had it on sale for $249, I bought one and then found it on sale elsewhere for $199 so I took it back and the manager said I can beat that, he rerings it up, hands me the 520 back with the new receipt, $139 with a $50 rebate and away I went, I loved those guys, they saved me $1000's.

Both of these are smarter than me by a long shot.

My point here is something else completely, IMO a GPS has to map the ride as evidence in the case of a collision, it can prove if a driver is not telling the truth and can win the claim or lawsuit in catastrophic cases as well as big and small ones.

In other words I encourage you to get all the features you really need. ;)

I don't know if you still have this, but ever since Wahoo scared the crap out of Garmin by introducing devices that work (how novel), it has been worthwhile to hook your Garmin up to a computer and update it occasionally. I take old rides off at the end of the year. I got rid of my 800, but there hadn't been a decent update in many years and then they pushed one through that fixed a lot of stuff. I had not been updating it because I was afraid they would mess something up. I'm a lot less worried about that now.

I have a garmin watch, but it's a little awkward to use it as a bike computer, so I have never done it. I have thought about it just for the novelty of it.

I use an Adidas application, with my smartphone, called adidas Running by Runtastic. You can select different sports, including different cycling disciplines. Also, a friend recommended the Xiaomi Amazfit GTS 2 smartwatch to me. Very comfortable, light, accurate (both GPS and heart rate) and at a good price. I think I'll get one of them tho.

This does not use GPS to calculate speed?

So do you want a GPS unit or a bike computer? If you just want speed and distance, your phone with any number of apps will be fine. What is your budget? For under US$100 Lezyne is pretty hard to beat: https://ride.lezyne.com/collections/...macro-easy-gps

if you pair a GPS unit to a speed sensor, it will most likely use it as its data source. Using the GPS data for speed calcs is there when you don't have any other sensors.

On my newer bikes I use the Garmin 520. I've had it for 6 or 7 years now. For the vintage bikes I like to keep the electronics off the bike so I use a Garmin Fenix watch. The watch does everything I want, plus it's good for swimming, so it's a single solution to a few "problems" I percieved.

Be aware that the accuracy of GPS speed readings is highly dependent on a clear view of the sky and the number of satellites that are currently above the horizon. Also, readings are slightly delayed because the speed is based on the calculation distance/time for the prior two readings. This is not a signficant issue in wide open country with no trees, buildings or hills, but can be wildly inaccurate if there are a lot of those features. In any case, a phone can substitute for a GPS unit for most folks...that's what I use for the most part. The main issue that people have with using a phone is battery life, a problem that can be resolved with a cheap "lipstick" battery.

Not the OPS inexpensive set up, but I do similar.... use a garmin Fenix watch as my "source of truth" and link it to the a garmin 130 to display (only because the 130 was a gift) the garmin130 is a nice little unit on it's own

I see this a lot on part of bike trail that I frequently ride. My speed jumps around from 15 to 12 to 16 to 13 to 17 to 14, etc., wherever the tree canopy is heavier. The gps finds itself as soon as there is a gap in the trees. I live in the same part of the state as the OP, which is mostly flat farm land.

[QUOTE=merziac;22095793
My point here is something else completely, IMO a GPS has to map the ride as evidence in the case of a collision, it can prove if a driver is not telling the truth and can win the claim or lawsuit in catastrophic cases as well as big and small ones.
[/QUOTE]
I like GPS and use it quite a lot.
I don't think the Track data in any GPS we are likely to use would be a)detailed enough b)accurate enough c) secure enough to be useful in 'accident reconstruction' for the courts.
Detail: How close are the track points?
Accuracy: Individual positions can be inaccurate but tend to get smoothed out as the track points accumulate.
About security: track data in a .gpx file can easily be edited.

My advice: Stop at stop signs and red lights and don't assume others will do the same. Try to ride on roads that have paved width for a bike.
It's a risky world and we are defenceless on our bikes.

Agree- if you don't want to be able to 'save your ride' then a simple bike computer will do the job, cost less, and remove worries about battery life. My the old 'wired' bike computer (not available any more) needs a battery every few years.

It seems everything is 'phone-centric' nowadays, but using a $1000 (non-rugged, non-waterproof) device with a battery life in hours for a simple task doesn't make sense to me.

The one thing I don't want is wires wrapped around my fork that why I think
the units from Lezyne or XOSS might be best for me