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GARMIN Edge 520 IPX7 Waterproof Grade Bicycle Computer-288.43 and Free Shipping| GearBest.com
Coupon code: TWGarmin Coupon price: $264.99

GARMIN Edge 500 IPX7 Waterproof GPS Bicycle Computer-129.96 and Free Shipping| GearBest.com

I have used the 500 in the past and now use the 520. I had some Bluetooth issues with the 520 but firmware version 6.0 has fixed them.

Just a warning: Gearbest shipping takes forEVER and their customer service is essentially non-existent. Good price, but potentially risky in my experience.

Funny, v6.0 broke Bluetooth on mine, it had been working well before. I've deleted and added the connections twice since the upgrade.

Did you try powering off your phone? This helped my problem after the 6.0 update. Also the Garmin Connect phone app updated to 3.51 today on my phone. The change log said it fixed some bugs. I had an issue on today's ride but I got it working again during the ride.

why are bike gps so expensive when one for a car is 100 bucks.

I'm guessing the economy of scale.

Just an FYI, the new GPS chips that do Glownas as well as the US GPS system are $5/chip. This from a surveyor friend that uses far more accurate GPS equipment than Garmin makes. It was in a trade publication. In the case of Garmin, they have liitle to motivate them to sell for less. The fact they keep breaking their own crap with obviously untested firmware "fixes" just shows how little competitive incentive they have. At least allot more are coming to market for less. Their software may not be better, but at least I will be paying less for semi funtional crap.

I know pretty much nothing about Garmin GPS units, but I'm in the process of tracking down a Garmin GPS unit. I'm targeting a Garmin 800. Am I going for the wrong one? I did see that the 800s have the luxury that I could reroute my route and it has saved bike maps. My main reason for this is for the following scenario, I'm following a route, I leave the route (in the city) and I have to reroute my ride. I don't have internet access too.

Am I on the right track on tracking down a 800, or should I shoot for another model or brand?

Thanks for reading this and I very much appreciate your input.

I upgraded from my Edge 500 to an 800 when I decided I should ride long distances this year and not wait for organized rides because I made too many wrong turns when there were multiple options or bike routes were stashed under bridges.

I returned a Wahoo ELEMNT and Edge 810 before getting there and recommend it as the least bad option when you need maps and navigation.

The 800 is more reliable than the 810 - I didn't get through my first day without crashing my 810, and lost data within a few days.

I didn't crash my 800 until ~140 miles into its first long ride which you can work around - reboot and change courses more frequently than every 100 miles, and splice the activities together afterwards.

The 510 doesn't do maps. The 520 has very little space for maps, doesn't take mini-SD cards which can be written quickly, and doesn't do navigation. Garmin's firmware quality gets worse as they add features, so I'd be reluctant to try an Edge 1000 at any price given its age and complexity, and at $500 versus $170 for a refurbished 800 I'd definitely pass.

The ELEMNT hardware is nice but it currently does no turn-by-turn or routing. The maps have no street names. Good roads for cycling disappear when you zoom out. There's no way to pan the map. I found it less functional for navigation than the 6 year old Edge 500 without maps - at least that gave distance to the next turns plus alerts and beeps when reaching them. I'll revisit when Wahoo fixes its shortcomings where they currently plan to have that done by the end of 2016.

I was unable to find any non-Garmin GPS with support for maps and .tcx files with user-defined way points like FOOD - Safeway right which are great for optional stops on long rides.

The Magellan/Mio 505 comes close - you get maps and navigation, but no .tcx files. It's alleged to have good routing.

Lots of GPS units do bread crumb courses only with no turn-by-turn, or are just for recording your rides.

I love my 520. But I'm having trouble figuring out how to get Strava segments to work on it. When I bought the unit it seemed like it wouldn't be such a complicated process.

Car GPS doesn't need a battery or to be built from low-power components. It just draws from your car. I don't know how much that affects price, but it's definitely not a good comparison.

An update. I deleted the bluetooth connections on both devices, rebooted them, and added the connections back. The iPhone has stayed persistently connected ever since. Because I've had to do this before on other devices I'm ready to take back my inference that the problems were caused by the v6.0 update.

Right. Plus size and weight. The case also is surprisingly rugged