Just bought Garmin Edge800 - any tips?
Discussion
As title says really, just bought an Edge800 and from my initial play with Basecamp software, garmin connect and the device itself it looks quite complex and not particularly intuative, especially given the useless manuals that come with it.
Can anyone offer any tips on either the device or basecamp? I have the trailpack so have the OS maps and intend to mainly use it for off road trail riding.
Cheers,
Graham
Can anyone offer any tips on either the device or basecamp? I have the trailpack so have the OS maps and intend to mainly use it for off road trail riding.
Cheers,
Graham
I've also got one, and have to say it's far less user friendly than the edge 500. I have started using it with routes created and downloaded from bike route toaster, and it's really good for that as long as you can accurately locate the start point and begin the route from there as even being a few metres away won't allow you to start the route off. The virtual partner also works pretty well.
I've had my Edge 800 for a while now and I'm very happy with it. I have the OS 50K maps and use them for road riding and occasionally hiking. I don't really bother with Basecamp, I just use Garmin Connect for uploading and displaying stuff after the ride.
I plan or download GPX routes using Bike Route Toaster or similar, and I have Memory Map on my PC to view routes/tracks on OS maps. I usually know roughly where I'm going (despite what others might say) so I do not usually use routes for navigation (i.e with turn prompts) but just have tracks which I follow. I have tried the sat-nav features out of curiosity and they work but aren't in the Tom Tom league.
Yes, the manual is pretty poor but it's a pretty robust thing so just try a few toy routes or tracks in your area and see how it goes. If it all goes wrong you can just go back to the initial set-up and start again.
I plan or download GPX routes using Bike Route Toaster or similar, and I have Memory Map on my PC to view routes/tracks on OS maps. I usually know roughly where I'm going (despite what others might say) so I do not usually use routes for navigation (i.e with turn prompts) but just have tracks which I follow. I have tried the sat-nav features out of curiosity and they work but aren't in the Tom Tom league.
Yes, the manual is pretty poor but it's a pretty robust thing so just try a few toy routes or tracks in your area and see how it goes. If it all goes wrong you can just go back to the initial set-up and start again.
Thanks for the advice guys. Am going to have a play this evening and see how I get on. For my understanding what's the difference between a track and a route? Is it simply the route gives you turn by turn directions where as a track is shown as something to follow on the screen but no directions? Do you use waypoints?
In terms of cost I managed to get the trail pack for £359, from wiggle. Think most places are offering the same deal.
Cheers,
Graham
In terms of cost I managed to get the trail pack for £359, from wiggle. Think most places are offering the same deal.
Cheers,
Graham
A route or course is a series of significant points (turns, waypoints) which are used by the Edge for navigation, including prompts. A track is like a breadcrumb trail which records where you, or someone else, have been and shows as a highlighted line on the maps. The Garmin forums are full of discussion on the details of this, they really should try to make it clearer.
At last. I have the precious in my hands. I cycled to work today, so I will be able to test it out on the way home. 
I'm ecstatic! The data you can pull off after a ride is so exciting! The 1:50000 maps are quite hard to see whist moving, so it has it's limits for nav, but it's nice and clear to see whist waiting at a junction for example. A lot faster than a paper map, and it always knows where you are.
EDIT: Image above shows data for 3 laps of Richmond Park... hence repeated altitude readout.
EDIT: Image above shows data for 3 laps of Richmond Park... hence repeated altitude readout.
Edited by Mr Gear on Thursday 16th June 11:16
Mr Gear said:
Ha, not for the nav, but the data-logging is immense!
The maps will be more handy for my ride down to Brighton in a few weeks.
Oh yes, there's plenty of data. Heart rate and cadence still to come ?The maps will be more handy for my ride down to Brighton in a few weeks.
I always find the temperature record interesting, strangely. It dropped 6 degrees when I was caught in a rain storm last night...
Captain Beaky said:
Oh yes, there's plenty of data. Heart rate and cadence still to come ?
I always find the temperature record interesting, strangely. It dropped 6 degrees when I was caught in a rain storm last night...
I might buy the heart-rate sensor at a later date, but cadence doesn't interest me that much. I pedal as much as I can when I can!I always find the temperature record interesting, strangely. It dropped 6 degrees when I was caught in a rain storm last night...
As for teh temp graph, I am interested in this too... I wonder where it gets reading from? Is it the unit itself? I haven't seen and on-board display screen for this yet, and when I cycled in the sun on Tuesday I would have expected the unit to get really hot, but it didn't show this. I concluded therefore that it is a temperature overlay extracted from some external data source. Correct me if you know any different!
Mr Gear said:
I might buy the heart-rate sensor at a later date, but cadence doesn't interest me that much. I pedal as much as I can when I can!
As for teh temp graph, I am interested in this too... I wonder where it gets reading from? Is it the unit itself? I haven't seen and on-board display screen for this yet, and when I cycled in the sun on Tuesday I would have expected the unit to get really hot, but it didn't show this. I concluded therefore that it is a temperature overlay extracted from some external data source. Correct me if you know any different!
There's a thermometer in the unit but it's reasonably well damped so the readings don't change too quickly. I can always tell when I've been into a cafe though.As for teh temp graph, I am interested in this too... I wonder where it gets reading from? Is it the unit itself? I haven't seen and on-board display screen for this yet, and when I cycled in the sun on Tuesday I would have expected the unit to get really hot, but it didn't show this. I concluded therefore that it is a temperature overlay extracted from some external data source. Correct me if you know any different!
You can display the temperature, you just need to add it to one of the screens.
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