Just got one of these the other day to use on road and gravel bikes. Setup seems easy on my 2 Garmin devices (1040) and (840), though the light does seem to default to Auto, which appears to be full on all the time, though apparently adjusts for the environment and approaching traffic ? Is it worth remembering to press the top button 3 times every time to put to daybright ? not sure if it retains that setting once switched off.
and the rubber band mount does seem particularly crap, thankfully i bought the Garmin branded second bike mount, which is a simple allen bolt clamp and appears much better and more secure.
anything I need to know ? just switch it on and go ride I guess !
Mine is set up to go on as soon as I turn my Garmin head unit on. Default is solid non flashing mode. I set mine to flashing rear on my head unit and off when I’m at a cafe. Only trouble is it keeps beeping when I’m in a cafe when cars pass 😩
Useful, I have just been playing with it and it seems to hold the individual light setting, even when switched off, so hopefully it will default to daybright rather than solid when I use it. I set it to go on when the timer starts, how do you make it go foo when stopped at cafe or the likes ?
I just switch it off and put it in my pocket at cafe stops
Stop the timer.
Don't Save the ride though, just switch the head unit off. When you're ready to leave, switch it on and start the timer to Resume the ride.
I bought a lanyard for mine, which is looped around the seatpost. I'm not so worried about losing it now that I have one of the bolt-on mounts though.
perfect, cheers Colin
My tip is to buy both the dedicated Garmin round seat post mounts and saddle rail mounts from Amazon for my race and best bikes with aero integrated seat posts. It is a little too bright and flashy for club rides, so could do with some attenuation over the lens. It doesn't auto switch with my baby Edge 130, but does with the 510. I don't use the audio alarm, but just look at the head unit occasionally like a rear view mirror. Buy a cheap silicone cover from eBay for £10 because the switch on the top is liable to fill with grit and fail - Garmin official fix is to run under warm water for 10 minutes (they used to replace under warranty).
I'd replace it with another in a heartbeat, and will probably buy an extra when they move to USB-C.
For the lanyard, I cut a hoop of old road inner tube and stretched it over the Varia, then threaded a spare lanyard through that, just for peace of mind.
For the mount, I 3d printed a saddle rail attachment. It zip ties on and is clean, light and secure. I still use the lanyard though just in case!
I have the sound turned off on mine and just keep an eye on the head unit, there's no way I could stand my garmin beeping every time a car goes past but that's obviously personal preference.
I also moved the little icons showing each vehicle to the right hand side of my garmin screen as (if you live in the UK at least) that seems like a more intuitive place to see traffic passing you.
Might be worth noting also, that, unless something changed, to properly turn it off requires a *6 second* continuous press of the button on the unit (I think the LED flashes blue to confirm). If you just press once, it goes into standby mode (or possibly radar on/light off mode I can't remember)- but either way, a single press of the button does not turn it off even though it very much seems like it.
I bought a third party 3D printed mount for mine that fits a D-shaped seatpost which has worked fine and looks way better than what is to my mind the in-elegant Garmin mount(s). But, I have noticed that the plastic seems to have degraded pretty quickly in that the quarter-turn on the mount now seems loose and nowhere near as snug as it used to be, so I do wonder about the longevity of these sorts of printed third party mounts- especially when smashing my Giant TCR through pot-hole strewn farm-roads 😮 That said, I don't have a lanyard and it has stayed on up to now.
I bought a GoPro Mount adaptor for mine and have it on the saddle rails.
Works well so long as I don’t put anything on the top of my rack…
Thanks Duggan I didn’t realise it needed a long press to turn it off. Mine has been left on for the last 2 years. It annoyed me lighting up every time I switched my Garmin head unit on. I only use it for road rides so all the messages on my head unit on forming and disconnecting light network was annoying on gravel rides. 😂 What a diddy I am.
Depending on your bike, there's a guy on eBay called Magcad who makes custom 3D-printed mounts that are really nice. They're industrially 3D printed, so they're much better than your standard home 3D prints.
If you're using a standard round post, you can get mounts on AliExpress for really cheap—they're decent; I have two.