I’ve been jealously eyeing my fellow cyclists’ Garmin cycling computers for quite some time. Last week I scored a great deal on a Garmin Edge 305 on craigslist.
If you’re serious about becoming a better cyclist, or are just really anal about tracking your rides, you can’t go wrong with a Garmin.
The Edge 305 comes with GPS, a heart rate monitor, and a speed/cadence sensor. The unit uses GPS to track your speed and distance. I was a bit weary of the measurements at first, but then paid attention to the mile markers. As I rolled past each mile marker, the Garmin accurately ticked off the miles.
You can also use the Garmin inside, which is a big bonus for those of us in snowy climates. Because the speed and cadence sensors mount on the rear wheel, you’ll get accurate speed and distance measurements. My old computer’s sensor mounted on the front wheel, so I have no idea how fast or far I was going when riding the trainer.
You can set up two screens with up to eight pieces of data on each screen. I chose to show speed, distance, average speed, max speed and heart rate on the first screen. On the second screen, I’m showing grade, calories burned, ride time, cadence, and time of day. I’m still tweaking those screens to give me the best data mash up.
There’s also a rudimentary route map, an altimeter and some pretty cool training features. One of which allows you to race against yourself using a prior ride as the benchmark.
Using the device on the road lets you know things that you might not have known otherwise, like the grade of that hill you just climbed. But where it really shines is when you get home and plug it into your computer. Garmin has an online and software based training suite, where you can download the data from your device. You can see graphs of your ride and use those graphs to compare your heart rate to the altitude or grade of your ride.
Garmin also allows you to export the data in a couple different formats. You can also use a browser plugin to import ride data to other sites. I import my ride data to www.MapMyRide.com.
I was also nicely surprised by Garmin’s support of Macintosh computers. I was able to install the training software and upgrade my device’s firmware from my Mac. And when I couldn’t figure out how to remove the name of the user who had the device before me, Garmin sent me an email with step-by-step instructions.
The device isn’t perfect. There are a few things that I would like to change. First off, on the first few rides, I forgot to start the timer right away. Since the unit only tracks your data with the timer on, I missed a little bit of data. My old computer would just start collecting data as soon as I started riding. Although this has problems as well, such as when you forget to clear out the old data.
Another thing that I would like to see is the ability to add a third bike computer screen. I find that it’s kind of hard to read all the data when you’ve got so much to look at on each screen.
Bottom line, if you’re a serious cyclist, this computer can really help with your training.
If you’ve got the cash, the new versions have color screens, better maps and even more features.
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