Just bought a Garmin Edge 810, I plan to use it on and off road as a way of finding new routes and broadening my horizons a little. I tend to follow the same old loops out of habit.

So, any tips, setup advice, likely issues I should expect, great route websites?

Thanks!

Read and digest

If you find yourself liking a particular software version, don’t update it – EVER!

Well I’d say get over to the Garmin Forum sharpish, register too. Then scan the 810 threads.. all of them.
Do the 4.2 update.
Get OSM if it doesn’t have it.
Get Connect.
Get Express.
Get Strava.
Get a HRM.
Get a Cadence sensor.
Get a Ordinance Survey map of the areas you are interested in.
Once in Connect you can look up routes and then download them and/or create your own. Pretty simple to create routes, save them and share or download others and modify too.

As for the device, well it’s pretty intuitive, turn on and load your details into it. DCRainmaker has a lot of info on the device, best off going there for a peek. GCN did a bit on it too so thats helpful.

As for a lot of us, well we’ve sort of settled into the fact that it’s not the best at recording (all) rides on occasion due to freezes and such. But we’re all kinda happy with it. Most of the bugs on TBT have been fixed too..

Don’t trust it not to crash when depending on it for navigation.
And as above, don’t update the software if you find one that works.
Also turn off auto updates for the phone app if you are using it. My app auto updated and now I cant upload any rides.
Finally don’t trust garmin route creator. It will try and send you the wrong way around islands, the wrong way up one way streets and duel carriages and then the unit will crash when you divert from the route.

Wow, thank you everyone. Lots of research to do.

There’s quite a bit of negativity on this thread!

The open street maps from talkytoaster (or linked from the DCrainmaker article) are very good, and the navigation works well in my experience. I’ve used it to navigate in UK, France & Spain on road. I haven’t tried offroad much yet. You’ll need a microSD card to store the maps on.

The new firmware allows you to use live strava segments if that’s your thing (I’ve tried it, it works well, I’m not sure if they’re my cup of tea).

My only gripe is that the bluetooth pairing with my iPhone is a bit flaky so I tend to sync my rides over cable now instead (which is hardly a hardship).

Use it on your local routes to begin with till you get confidence with it. Mine at first kept wanting to send me on roads instead of the route I had put in it and drove me nuts.. You can unselect that.

oh, a neat trick is to have your name and contact number on at the start up screen – Good if it gets lost.

Connect the Garmin 810 to a laptop or computer via the USB.
Then look for the internal storage folder of the Garmin.
There should be an internal directory called Garmin.
Within this folder you should see a folder called startup.txt – double click and it should open notepad or similar.
You can know edit this at the bottom and include your personnel details you might want putting in to suit.

Must admit now I am more familiar with it I love it. and got a nice shiny silicone cover for it too 🙂

More negativity from me but the latest strava update wont work for me either.
Over all the unit is good but the software on the the unit, phone and internet is about the worst I have ever experienced. I cant believe how they can get away with producing such rubbish and us user just have to accept it.

stevious – Member
There’s quite a bit of negativity on this thread!

Oh I dunno about that. I honestly think it’s one THE best pieces of kit I’ve bought. Nope I really do. It’s taken me to some bloody excellent places I would never have thought about going to.
It’s just there are a few (cough) bugs with using it and for 99% of that time it’ll be fine, the 1% is just silly stuff that a) we’ve gotten used too b) Garmin should fix.

I kinda think of using it as getting a puncture now, 99% of the time you don’t, when you do it’s a minor irritation.. 😀

I cant believe how they can get away with producing such rubbish and us user just have to accept it.

They get away with it as there’s no real competition. If TomTom or the likes really went for this market I bet the Garmins would quickly become much better. e.g. I can’t believe that the Missus’ (car) Garmin even comes from the same company!

I’ve been using the latest (Ver 4.20) update for a week or so without any problems, I had to disconnect from Strava delete my starred segments and re-connect again to get them to transfer but they working fine now.
I’ve not experienced the crashes some moan about on the Garmin Forum but I rarely use turn-by-turn navigation.

Again, thank you for the replies. Very useful.

I got it out of the box, and just kind of looked at it, wondering what it was all about, so this is all very helpful.

There are alternatives to Garmin out there. I use a Mio 505 (Mio is essentially Magellan) and ive found it pretty easy to use & quite intuitive.
Admittedly, it doesn’t use OS mapping but then I don’t use it for mtb rides as I prefer to rely on an actual OS map – call me a Luddite!
For road riding its been great, I found you have to set it up to avoid cycle paths as this would create some ‘interesting’ diversions for a carbon road bike on expensive lightweight wheels, but I’ve never had a navigational failure/system crash when actually navigating.
To be fair, the unit did go bonkers but Mio replaced it (they actually gave me the upgraded version with all Western European maps) for free so I’m happy about that.