Thinking about getting a heart rate monitor , really just for a bit of interest as I’m a bit of a stats geek when it comes to riding. So two questions :
1. Can you recommend a good Ant+ heat rate monitor (for use with Garmin Edge)
2. Any advice on how to go about training with it. I’m well aware of how to train With heart rate with respect to running, but with cycling having a totally different effect on max heart rate , I was wondering any of you go about it.

Thanks

1) Garmin Premium HR strap
2) Pretty much the same as running but you need to do the LTHR test for both disciplines as the zones will be different.

I got a Mio one when my garmin one seemed not to be working (should’ve googled before buying but there you go – now I have 2 straps)

The Mio one is much better than the garmin IMO

Go for the older rigid Garmin Strap, the soft straps can fail after a bit as the salt in sweat contaminates the band and you get erratic readings.

Rinsing the strap every so often helps, but my premium one only lasted a year, before getting problematic. It would take a while to give a reading and then over time started to spike, then wouldn’t go above 130 and then stopped reading entirely.

Replacement rigid one has been faultless so far. Link to Garmin, there are cheaper prices elsewhere, Amazon was the best deal when I got mine.

https://buy.garmin.com/en-GB/GB/p/10996

Is this for MTB or road? Off road it’s interesting data but you can’t train against it due to the terrain. You can take your mtb on road but that will probably be tedious 🙂

After having problems getting the straps to work, I ended up with a Vivosmart HR, not as accurate but much easier to use (if a little more expensive)

Have a look at powertap powercal adds power into the equation. Gets a great write up on dc rainmaker. Use mine for my road bike and gives me what I’m looking for.

This will be used for road biking.
Thanks everyone

wahoo tikr – does ant+ and BT …. works well on my
old edge 800 as well as the elemnt, edge 820 and iphone.

Found the rigid garmin one caused read issues when I was cold
or there was a strong headwind cooling everything donw – might
have been not enough sweat ??

allan23 – Member

Go for the older rigid Garmin Strap, the soft straps can fail after a bit as the salt in sweat contaminates the band and you get erratic readings.

The beauty of the Premium strap is that you can just unclip the electronics every-so-often and throw it in the wash with your kit. Mine start going flaky after about 3 years of use, at which point I just had to buy a replacement strap (got one for £7 iirc) as the electronics were fine

allan23 – Member
Go for the older rigid Garmin Strap, the soft straps can fail after a bit as the salt in sweat contaminates the band and you get erratic readings.

Rinsing the strap every so often helps, but my premium one only lasted a year, before getting problematic. It would take a while to give a reading and then over time started to spike, then wouldn’t go above 130 and then stopped reading entirely.

You’re not meant to rinse it every so often. You’re supposed to wash it properly in the washing machine after every 7 uses. My premium strap is now three years old, used at least 6 days a week, and I’m a heavy sweater. It still works perfectly as it’s washed once a week.