Bryton Rider 50: a good alternative to the Garmin 800?

GBP182 at Cycle Surgery

I have one and it's fine. Feature wise it is about the same as the Garmin 800. The 810 has phone tethering and such I think which the Bryton does not. I'm pretty happy with it and I'd probably get the same again if I lost this one.

I have a couple of complaints which you might want to be aware of, but I wouldn't let them put you off. I'm sure I'd have complaints about Garmin too.

+ Initially my maps didn't work correctly. Customer service was pretty slow and Wiggle was no real help (I could have returned it but I didn't want to). After around a week they gave me software to do a factory reset and reinstall the maps to the memory card and it has worked perfectly ever since.

+ The mount is not great. The connection between the mount and the computer is very solid but the mount is held on to the bars or stem with industrial strength rubber bands. I've had one snap on me. They give you a bunch of spares but this makes me think they snap often enough. Nearly two years with only that one problem so not a major deal.

I think the battery life is better than Garmin (from what I hear). My cycle commute is around 10 hours per week and the battery generally lasts all the way through.

There is one screen that I love which I don't think the Garmin has (but I could be wrong). It shows you the height profile of your planned route and where you are on it. It also tells you how far and how much climbing to the next peak (when planning the route you need to say what you want to count as a peak). I find it nice to know whether there's still 3k of climbing to go or if I'm nearly there.

I got the Rider 50, but I did pay extra for the bundle that had the more detailed maps. Reviews indicate that the base maps on the Bryton are better than the base maps on the Garmin but I was willing to pay the extra. As far as I know that's still the top end model, there is some information about a new one but I don't think you can actually buy it yet.

I got mine on Wiggle and it was a lot cheaper than the Garmin 800. I think you can probably get better deals on the Garmin than on the Bryton. So how much cheaper the Bryton is depends on how much shopping around for deals you do, if you get a great deal the price difference is not as much.

I have the bryton rider 35. Cant fault the yoke. Being using it for nealry 2 years now and never had any trouble with it. Its an older basic model with no maps but does the job for me. In the 2 years they have pumped alot of money into the software and their website making some great improvements along the way. Great alternative to garmin computers.

They also sponsor AG2R which im a fan off since the nico days

I investigated the Bryton but rejected it on the grounds that you cannot use the likesof OpenCycleMap with it.