Garmin Bike computers
 

I have an Edge 305 that I use to track my rides, and for the past week it's been losing data. When I finish a ride, it either has no data at all, or it thinks my ride was in January of 1970 (even though the current time on the device is correct). I upload my data to Strava, and I'm sick of losing it because of a wonky computer, so I'm replacing it.

What's a decent replacement these days? The Edge 500 seems reasonably priced, but is there something better that people are using? I don't need fancy maps, I just want ride time, speed, averages, grade, cadence, etc.

Went from a 305 to 500. Can't tell the difference other than the battery life, size, and time it takes to lock on.

Thanks, that's sort of what I was hoping. I've never had battery life issues with my 305, but it does sometimes take a while to find a sat signal.

If you are buying new I would at least grab a 510... but get an 810 if you really want a bit more.

I have had the 500 and just upgraded to the 810 for the only reason of more data fields on the larger screen..

I don't really use the mapping feature.

Except that the 510 is $300+, whereas a lot of places have the 500 for $139. It would have to do a lot more to be worth more than 2x the price.

Sounds like the spring underneath the battery finally wore out. It was a design "feature" of the 305. Surprised it took yours this long to develop narcolepsy and Alzheimer's.

500 is pretty decent, the 510 refresh is better. DCR as usual covers the details more in depth than we forumites can:

Garmin Edge 510 In-Depth Review | DC Rainmaker

500 is so cheap because it is obsolete tech. Biggest difference for starters is 510 is touchscreen enabled, unlike the 500...and TBH that is a huge difference considering how clunky menus are to navigate around without touch. There also lots of other new features over the 500. From phone integration to automagic ride uploading etc.

I use a 510 I bought on ebay. It replaced a 500 that got crushed in a collision. Another option is the Cateye Stealth. Almost all of the features of a 500 but around $99.

I just got a 510 and I have nothing but good things to say

I LOL'd at that (causing my wife to jump).

I'll look more closely at the 510. I found out that Garmin will refurb my 305 for $79 if all else fails.

That was how my old 305 died a few years ago, leading to my 705 which led me to the Edge 1000. The rubber underneath the zip ties would either harden (305 mount), or the zip ties would be tight enough, to prevent shock absorption by the rubber sheet...the gold (IIRC) battery spring on the inside of the 305 would then be metal-fatigued over time by the shock stresses transmitted to the computer from the road/bike....resulting in narcolepsy and/or Alzheimer's.

Was a very common defect in the design...and $79 to replace a bad spring (probably) is kinda punk...especially with how much better the new units are at signal acquisition and time and features for not that much more.

I doubt mine's a spring problem. It doesn't power off, it just thinks my ride happened a zillion years ago, so it won't upload to Strava, so I have to do a manual entry and copy all the info from the Garmin. There was one time where it had no data, but that was mountain biking, so I can see the spring problem being the cause of that. And once it thought I rode from the end of one mtb ride back to the start in a perfectly straight line in 0.1 seconds! hah.

We'll see what I can find a 510 for!

Dunno what Amazon has them for these days, you can get 10% off from Clever Training with the coupon code on DCRainmaker's blog.

Probably the memory is worn out. It can only do so many read/write cycles before it goes bad.

What I think he means is the 500 goes about 15 hours between charges

Love my 810 no issues at all. Never lost anything on it, Bluetooth downloads to my phone and IPod as soon as I pull into garage from a ride.