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Deleted member 20519
Guest
This is my review of the Garmin Edge 200 GPS Bike Computer.
I've been using my old Blackberry for the last few months to record my rides using a third party GPS application (GPS Logger II for the curious). It was a pain to use. The signal kept dropping out, it was giving ridiculous max speeds (939mph!) and it was a chore to upload to Strava. I had to export the GPX file onto a memory card, then use a memory card adapter to connect it to my PC, then I had to copy the GPX file over and only then could I upload to Strava. I decided that it would be a good idea to invest in a proper bike computer to track my rides.
I had a few ideas of what I needed in my head -
After doing some research, I found the Garmin Edge 200. I wasn't worried about the lack of HRM (Heart Rate Monitor) or Cadence Sensor because I didn't feel that these things would benefit me, they would have been nice add-ons but you can only get them with the Garmin Edge 500 which is over twice the price. The cheapest place I found it was Wiggle.co.uk for £87.99, it seemed to fit the bill so I went ahead and ordered it after reading some positive reviews.
Two days later, it arrived. It comes with everything you need to get started including:
Two bike mounts (so you can swap it between bikes) and a bunch of rubber o-rings of different sizes to accomodate for different diameter handlebars and stems.
A UK and a US power adapter.
A standard mini USB cable.
12 instruction booklets in 12 different languages
and of course, the unit itself.
The Edge 200 is small, a bit larger than your average bike computer but certainly not big by any means. It fits nicely on top of a stem or on your handlebars.
After powering it on for the first time, I went through some basic setup options and created a profile of myself including weight, age, gender, etc. It took about 20 minutes for the Edge 200 to acquire a GPS lock the first time I used it but that was just because it hadn't been turned on before. Each time I turn it on now, it's ready to go in just a matter of seconds.
I used the largest o-ring and one of the two mounts to attach it to my stem, I'm a big fan of the twist-lock style mount that the Garmin has, it makes it very easy to pop it on and off of the bike which is ideal if you need to lock your bike up and you don't want to waste time fiddling to release your bike computer.
On the main menu you have four options: Courses - Ride - History - Settings.
'Courses' lets you follow a course that you've created but we'll talk about that in a second.
'Ride' lets you record a ride and then you can save it to export to Strava or any other similar sites.
'History' lets you look back at all of your previous rides and you can see what your fastest ride was, what your longest ride was and you can also check the odomoter and see how many miles you've done in total and how long you've ridden for.
'Settings' is pretty self explanatory.
If you create a Garmin Connect account, you can upload your recorded rides to view them but you can also create a course to follow. It's very easy to use and you just plot a few points on a map and it will automatically create a route for you. Once you've created it, you just hit the 'Send to Device' button and it will automatically transfer the course to your Garmin - simple! Following a course is easy, you just load up the course on your Garmin and then you start recording your ride. You get a top down view of the route and it will beep and tell you if you've gone the wrong way, it also gives you a handy arrow that points in the direction of where you should be. Like I said, it's basic, but it works.
So all in all this is a very capable GPS computer at an attractive price. It lets you record your rides but also lets you upload routes to follow, this makes exploring new places easy (as long as you plan the route beforehand). If you're looking for a simple GPS computer and you aren't interested in looking at how fast your heart is beating on your commute or how fast your legs are spinning then this is for you!
I've been using my old Blackberry for the last few months to record my rides using a third party GPS application (GPS Logger II for the curious). It was a pain to use. The signal kept dropping out, it was giving ridiculous max speeds (939mph!) and it was a chore to upload to Strava. I had to export the GPX file onto a memory card, then use a memory card adapter to connect it to my PC, then I had to copy the GPX file over and only then could I upload to Strava. I decided that it would be a good idea to invest in a proper bike computer to track my rides.
I had a few ideas of what I needed in my head -
- Something relatively cheap (I wasn't willing to spend any more than £90)
- Something that records my rides using GPS
- Something that lets me easily upload to Strava
- Something that lets me upload courses to follow a route (I get lost... a lot)
After doing some research, I found the Garmin Edge 200. I wasn't worried about the lack of HRM (Heart Rate Monitor) or Cadence Sensor because I didn't feel that these things would benefit me, they would have been nice add-ons but you can only get them with the Garmin Edge 500 which is over twice the price. The cheapest place I found it was Wiggle.co.uk for £87.99, it seemed to fit the bill so I went ahead and ordered it after reading some positive reviews.
Two days later, it arrived. It comes with everything you need to get started including:
Two bike mounts (so you can swap it between bikes) and a bunch of rubber o-rings of different sizes to accomodate for different diameter handlebars and stems.
A UK and a US power adapter.
A standard mini USB cable.
12 instruction booklets in 12 different languages
and of course, the unit itself.
The Edge 200 is small, a bit larger than your average bike computer but certainly not big by any means. It fits nicely on top of a stem or on your handlebars.
After powering it on for the first time, I went through some basic setup options and created a profile of myself including weight, age, gender, etc. It took about 20 minutes for the Edge 200 to acquire a GPS lock the first time I used it but that was just because it hadn't been turned on before. Each time I turn it on now, it's ready to go in just a matter of seconds.
I used the largest o-ring and one of the two mounts to attach it to my stem, I'm a big fan of the twist-lock style mount that the Garmin has, it makes it very easy to pop it on and off of the bike which is ideal if you need to lock your bike up and you don't want to waste time fiddling to release your bike computer.
On the main menu you have four options: Courses - Ride - History - Settings.
'Courses' lets you follow a course that you've created but we'll talk about that in a second.
'Ride' lets you record a ride and then you can save it to export to Strava or any other similar sites.
'History' lets you look back at all of your previous rides and you can see what your fastest ride was, what your longest ride was and you can also check the odomoter and see how many miles you've done in total and how long you've ridden for.
'Settings' is pretty self explanatory.
If you create a Garmin Connect account, you can upload your recorded rides to view them but you can also create a course to follow. It's very easy to use and you just plot a few points on a map and it will automatically create a route for you. Once you've created it, you just hit the 'Send to Device' button and it will automatically transfer the course to your Garmin - simple! Following a course is easy, you just load up the course on your Garmin and then you start recording your ride. You get a top down view of the route and it will beep and tell you if you've gone the wrong way, it also gives you a handy arrow that points in the direction of where you should be. Like I said, it's basic, but it works.
So all in all this is a very capable GPS computer at an attractive price. It lets you record your rides but also lets you upload routes to follow, this makes exploring new places easy (as long as you plan the route beforehand). If you're looking for a simple GPS computer and you aren't interested in looking at how fast your heart is beating on your commute or how fast your legs are spinning then this is for you!
prob e-bay or something do you think!!
