Cycling Tech

onlineweb

I use a Fitbit Charge 4 and my iPhone. However, I don't mount my iPhone as its not the most durable piece of equipment ever made. I have also signed up to Strava.

Ideally, I would like a Garmin or Wahoo device to mount to my handlebars, as the GPS map would come in handy.

Any suggestions?

cletus

onlineweb wrote: »

I use a Fitbit Charge 4 and my iPhone. However, I don't mount my iPhone as its not the most durable piece of equipment ever made. I have also signed up to Strava.

Ideally, I would like a Garmin or Wahoo device to mount to my handlebars, as the GPS map would come in handy.

Any suggestions?

It all depends on what you want it to do. I bought the Garmin 520+ specifically because I wanted full map turn by turn navigation.

Otherwise, had I just wanted stats like speed, distance elevation etc, the 130 or similar would have worked.

Figure out your end goal use, and work back from there.

A piece of advice I used to give when selling polar heart rate monitor watches was to buy the best one you could afford, because it was a regular occurrence to have people but their first one, go for the simplest/cheapest option, and then be back in a few months looking to upgrade because they realised there were other features they needed/would like to have

onlineweb

Primarily, I'm looking for a good quality GPS Map with a touch screen for those cycling trips where you decide to go exploring.

The Fitbit and Strava provide all the other information I need such as heart rate, cardio, max & average speed, duration, elevation etc

nilhg

onlineweb wrote: »

Primarily, I'm looking for a good quality GPS Map with a touch screen for those cycling trips where you decide to go exploring.

The Fitbit and Strava provide all the other information I need such as heart rate, cardio, max & average speed, duration, elevation etc

The default starting point there is the Garmin Edge 830, there are alternatives but it's the market leader.

See also Wahoo elemt roam, lezeyne mega C, Sigma Rox

Tony04

I've found theres no real need for a touch screen as one it's not as responsive in the wet and two a button operated gps is a fair chunk cheaper and offers pretty much all the same features.
Also a gps like the wahoo elemnt bolt/garmin edge 530 can offer you all the same features as strava/Fitbit and even can integrate with strava so you can see you segment effort live

onlineweb

I did a bit of research today on this. It would appear that a lot of high tech Cycling GPS software/hardware devices can be costly.

I have an iPhone that could do a similar job. However, it would be expensive to replace if it broke due to an accident or if it fell off the bike.

The alternative is to buy a cheap pay as you go phone, I could download the Strava app, Fitbit app etc. and use Google maps.

Has anyone tried this or am I missing something?

nilhg

onlineweb wrote: »

I did a bit of research today on this. It would appear that a lot of high tech Cycling GPS software/hardware devices can be costly.

I have an iPhone that could do a similar job. However, it would be expensive to replace if it broke due to an accident or if it fell off the bike.

The alternative is to buy a cheap pay as you go phone, I could download the Strava app, Fitbit app etc. and use Google maps.

Has anyone tried this or am I missing something?

On a dry sunny day it might work half as well as a garmin edge....

Nothing decent in cycling is cheap.......

cletus

Battery life, mounting options would be the two big things. Strava has repeatedly shìt the bed for some of my friends who use it regularly, so syncing the Garmin to it avoids that issue

cletus

If you do go with a phone mount, this might be of some interest to you

Tony04

onlineweb wrote: »

I did a bit of research today on this. It would appear that a lot of high tech Cycling GPS software/hardware devices can be costly.

I have an iPhone that could do a similar job. However, it would be expensive to replace if it broke due to an accident or if it fell off the bike.

The alternative is to buy a cheap pay as you go phone, I could download the Strava app, Fitbit app etc. and use Google maps.

Has anyone tried this or am I missing something?

A phone with the battery to do that is probably going to cost you 150€ prepay and more in total if your using pay as you go, you can get a garmin edge 520 online for less than 200€ online, if you want to save money try and find something second hand

saccades

I used my Motorola G5 for Strava etc for ages.

Worked fine 95% of the time, would occasionally drop signal (sleive maan everytime) but it was too old/low rent for ANT+ so I bought an edge 800 from Kobtoubia (sp) as that hooks up with everything straight away.

lissard

Think seriously about this, if you get stuck in the middle of nowhere the last thing you want is for your phone battery to be dead. For this reason I do not use a phone for Strava. It is a lot handier to have something like an Edge 520 mounted on your stem, nice robust and easy to read and the battery is long lasting. If you get lost whip out the phone and google maps is readily available. Best of both worlds.