HELP ME PICK A NEW BIKE COMPUTER PLEASE

Dana Burns

 

Hi all,

In the spirit of taking advice from my  EN peeps, it has been suggested I race IM without a watch in the swim and have a separate bike computer and maybe run watch.  I bought a Garmin 920XT last December, and I kinda have buyers remorse. Partly because I am not a technology whiz coupled with I don't think it's intuitive.

What do you suggest for my bike that won't break the bank yet will give me what I need?  It will need to be paired with my PM, which I am unsure of what that brand  will be as my current Stages stopped working when I rode through a deep puddle (oops).  

Thanks for the input,

Dana

rlh2000

I've been happy with my Garmin 500. Displays anything I'd want including power and HR, and can do turn by turn directions, which is great! My guess is with so many people liking fancier things, you could probably find a second hand one real cheap, but even new they are affordable.

tim cronk

Very happy Garmin 500 owner here. Lots of good deals on them and can't go wrong. I did just upgrade to the 520 and it's worth it to me just for the blue tooth wifi download thru the smart phone. It does a lot more but being technically challenged myself I'm not yet using all the features.

Paul Hough

I've had a Garmin 500 for something like 6 years. The original still works but the battery life started fading this year and is now only good for Half IM and less. So I went out bought another 500...very cheap too. I don't need all the doo-dads the upgrades offer. The 500 is bombproof.

Dana Burns

Thanks all, 500 it is!

Rich Stanbaugh

I loved my 500... I did recently change to the 520 because Garmin is no longer making SW updates for the 500. If you do not like the 920, you may not like the 520 either - I'm not trying to talk you into a change. Just wanted to make sure that you are aware that Software updates are no longer coming to the 500 before you spend money.

Dana Burns

I did not know that Rich! That would have sucked if I pulled the trigger without knowing that. Thank you!!!

MattAaronson

I train with a Garmin 800 and race with a 500. The 800 has maps for turn-by-turn directions which allows me to do different and less familiar training routes, and it has more data fields. The Edge 500 is tiny but still easy to read (I set it up with 5 data fields) so great for racing. The subsequent models have failed to reproduce the same tiny form factor.

moetai@gmail.com

+1 on the 500

Francis Picard

last year for my first IM I used the 920xt for the full day. I had the quick release on the bike for the watch.. but didnt have a PM, so i was just looking at my hR.

Now that I own a PM, i decided to buy a garmin 520 for the bike since the Pm provides alot more data than a watch, I will be using the watch for the swim, T1, T2 and the run.

Tom Glynn

I bought an 800 years ago for all the mapping stuff but never use it. I like the bigger screen though. My wife has the 500 and it's a great computer.

Frederick Guesneau

I always used Garmin for running (910xt). Never bothered to use it for my bike. I use the Joule GPS for the bike. Never had any problems. I also use powertap power hub

William Jenks

I am like Matt...like the 800 for the mapping. If you are happy with the mapping on a 310/910 type watch, then don't bother...the 5x0 series will do just fine. The 800 is either discontinued or at least the "very old" model and can be gotten for cheap. It won't be updated, but I am not looking to replace it.

My one quibble with the 800 is that the "color" map screen is a bit hard to read to me. I can't distinguish the colors very well. I wish it were just black and white and used a different thickness of line (or dotted line or something) to show routes, instead of trying to distinguish something sort of purple.