Re: Cycle Computers: Bikefanclub.com

I would seriously consider the Garmin. Back in this thread I mentioned the only reason I hadn't tried the Garmin was the lack of a power meter. Earlier this year I decided to try it anyway and picked up a 305 with the heartrate and cadence sensor.

I come from several years of using the Polar 725x with power system, so my opinions are a bit slanted from knowing the polar system so well (I'm betting its the very system you were thinking of Darby).

Overall, I am very pleased with the 305 and though I do miss my power data, the additional features of the Garmin really make up for the lost metrics. I too had heard the units suffer from short battery life, but I also haven't seen that yet. I picked up a spare battery (APC UPB10) I can use should that ever be a problem for super long rides or multi-day rides but I haven't crossed that road yet.

Things I dig about the Garmin 305:
- GPS I like being able to correlate a location on a map to my speed, heartrate and cadence.

- Time based alerting I hydrate on a very strict schedule and the Garmin's time based alerting is a great secondary reminder it's time to drink.

- GPS Based Auto Lap It's cool to have the unit keep track of laps if that's part of your outdoor riding.

- Works well with a trainer During the week I ride almost exclusively on the trainer, and the rear mounted speed sensor works great and is a must for me. I had also heard the cadence/speed sensors ran out of batteries quickly too, but I also haven't seen that. I did have to replace the cadence battery when I first got the unit, but haven't had to replace it since.

- Customer Support If you ever have a problem with your 305, give customer support a call. I'm telling you, Garmin's customer support is second to none and a total pleasure to work with. Two thumbs WAY up. I'm used to the total pricks Polar hires for customer service reps, who will lecture you, talk down at you, promise to send things that never arrive and leave you on hold for a million years.

- Apple Support Very few cycle computers out there support OSX, so this is another pretty big win for me.

- Display Configuration Lets you configure the fields you want to see on the screen as well as control how many different fields display at a time. The fewer the fields, the larger the numbers (would be great for you Darby since you mention wanting a large display). Personally, I really dig seeing 8 different datapoints on the same screen. The numbers are tiny with that many fields shown, but not as much as you might think and I love have quick access to that much ride data. Totally love it!

- Frequent Firmware Updates Garmin has been very good at working the kinks out of the 305 with up-to-date firmware releases. If you get a new device be sure to update its firmware, it will be lots more stable and I suspect the batteries perform better with the newer firmware. If you have any trouble upgrading the firmware, call Customer Support.

Things I DON'T like about the Garmin 305:
- Weak/Recreational Training Software The software feels like what it exactly is. GPS software first and training software second. I'm guessing this is why Garmin has partnered so closely with MotionBased to fill in the gaps as it were. The Motionbased app is nice, but like the Garmin software, has a recreational rider feel to it. The Motionbased application doesn't support the tracking of rides done on a trainer.

In a related beef, Polar's software keeps each workout in it's own file which is easily exportable/importable. This feature is great for those who have a coach that likes to keep track of how you are doing. It's also handy for programmer like me, since I have my own web based training tool to keep track of my workouts. I can very easily send only my new workout files to my training application. Garmin forces you to export your entire history in order to get the raw stats for a single ride. The resulting history file gets massive very quickly as it contains every GPS recorded plot point. These things probably aren't a problem to 99% of the folks out there using the software, but lack of support for transportable statistical information is why I say the software is targeted toward "recreational riders", rather than a team based rider or a statistical power user.

- GPS Based Auto Lap yeah I both love and hate this feature. It's great if you ride outside, but it needs to be turned off when on the trainer. Otherwise you end up with 5 second laps.

Anyway, thats my 10 cents on the subject. I'm sure there are other things I both like and don't like about it but they escape me at the moment. I think for the price, flexibility, and features the Garmin 305 is a great choice.

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