Garmin Edge Touring or 810?

I was using my old Etrex 30 at the weekend and had forgotten the bar mount/was using my Edge50 to record the route. Got to thinking again about a single device.

I want to –
– record for Strava and track my rides
– follow pre-planned routes (or downloaded GPX’s) both on and off road

I’ve already got UK wide OS mapping and I don’t use HRMs or use my Edge for training. The ‘virtual partner’ feature on courses on the old Edge 605 I had was really annoying (and the navigation was worse than useless)

The Touring is about £130, the 810 about £100 more.

The questions for any owners are –

– does the 810 (or 800) have any useful navigation features missing from the Touring?
– is the linkup with your phone on the 810 (and Live segments) good/fun/useful or is it an unreliable battery drain (I’ve had garmin devices for a while…..)

From memory, the Touring has a feature where you tell it how far you want to go and it makes up the route for you – I can see this being a great way to explore somewhere new.

I’ve got the 810. I do like being able to upload via my phone but it’s not a must-have. You can do it without leaving the bluetooth on during the ride so it’s not a massive drain.

Live segments can be reasonably useful. My segment-hunting friends really like it for improving their times. I use it for training reps and to help a bit with navigation on new roads. Again, not a must-have.

From memory, the Touring has a feature where you tell it how far you want to go and it makes up the route for you – I can see this being a great way to explore somewhere new.

With no local knowledge of good roads/nightmare roads at all. I can’t see myself ever using that to be honest.

Plot or download a route I know is meant to be good and follow it easily is the objective.

(my simple GPS is the 200 not the 50 as I wrote above)

Plot or download a route I know is meant to be good and follow it easily is the objective.

The 810 is pretty good at this. I can’t speak to the touring, but if it works in much the same way I suspect the extra £100 for the 810 could be best spent elsewhere.

I couldn’t get the Touring to navigate me without making up its own route and knackering mine, and I sent it back and got an 800 instead. But on a recent ride I tried out a Touring for a bit (its owner might be able to fill you in on how it works) and I think you can follow a GPX/TCX happily enough on it. Just not with turn-by-turn directions AFAICT (unless you’re happy to risk it diverting you from your planned route), which may or may not be a big deal for you.

The other main issue I had with the Touring was that it gave less control over how much detail (clutter) to display on the map screen. I think maybe there were a few other things missing, but I can’t recall much else that bothered me.

I find the numeric displays much easier to read on the Touring, though.

I have a touring and got some OS map for it which are loads better than the original.

The round trip function is great in my opinion as you set it to either road, touring or off road. The off roads are not really off road though.

I got a Touring, because it was cheap. However for me, as someone who works away and is often in need of a ride, I do use its routing features. I’ve not tried planning a random route of a given number of miles yet, but it does also let you plan a route using waypoints and this I have used.

I have a quick scan of the map for likely roads or places, then I put in four or five waypoints and ride off. It is more convenient than using a computer. The routing it chooses however is a bit weird. It’s slightly obsessed with cycleways which is a PITA when on a road bike. The solution though apparently is to download different maps. The weighting for the different kinds of road/path is actually in the maps not on the device, so apparently with something like velomaps it works much better.

I couldn’t get the Touring to navigate me without making up its own route and knackering mine

It can be done, but it’s not the default. You set re-routing to off, and ‘lock on roads’ to off as well I think, and leave turn guidance on. When I navigate now I get the road map, its chosen route, and my own GPX path all plotted. Whilst still being readable.

I couldn’t get the Touring to navigate me without making up its own route and knackering mine, and I sent it back and got an 800 instead. But on a recent ride I tried out a Touring for a bit (its owner might be able to fill you in on how it works) and I think you can follow a GPX/TCX happily enough on it. Just not with turn-by-turn directions AFAICT (unless you’re happy to risk it diverting you from your planned route), which may or may not be a big deal for you.

That was what I remember from our chat at the time (and matched my experience of trying to navigate with the 605). It also reflects a mate’s experience of the 1000 (!). However, I did a ride with someone else who bought one when I did (i sent mine back to Amazon unopened) and he seems to manage to follow a downloaded route (was one of Jack Thurston’s ‘lost lanes’) seemingly complete with Turn by Turn navigation.

Garmin’s do seem very fussy about file format. I think part of my previous problem was creating my routes in Tracklogs (i’ve paid for it, it’s still got a nice interface). I tried using a GPX downloaded from here[/url] at the weekend and my Etrex
20 wouldn’t recognise it until I’d uploaded it into GPSies and downloaded it again (which doubled the filesize (!\?)

AFAICR it will do turn by turn navigation just fine. It’s just that it won’t necessarily be the route you’d originally planned (though it often will). I’d say “maybe they’ve updated the firmware since then and fixed it”, but this is Garmin we’re talking about.

TBH I’ve accidentally fallen into following routes without turn directions (because you need to go and edit the route to tick a box before you then come back out and say you want to navigate, because Garmin and usability go together like underpants and macro-economic theory) and it’s been ok, I don’t seem to miss the directions too much. But then I’ve not done any huge rides for ages. When I get back to doing properly big routes I think I’ll be more bothered again.

Anyway, probably best speak to someone who’s still got one 🙂

The Touring will follow exactly the route you want, providing you have the options set correctly. As others have said though, it’s own routing can be somewhat annoying, and does favour bike paths. I’ve had it trying to take me down gravel paths despite telling it to avoid unpaved roads. The real highlight, down to the mapping rather than the device itself, was when telling it to take me the quickest way home, it tried to take me right through the Nissan plant in Sunderland.

My most successful navigation on any Garmin is still on an old B&W Etrex with no map (just a breadcrumb trail). On screen I’d have an arrow for route direction and a ‘distance off course’. that and the direction of the line were enough to minimise getting lost and the B&W screen was easy to read.

When you’re navigating with the 800 (and presumably the Touring) will they track your actual route independently of the navigation? Ie if you end navigation on one route and start another do you get a track for the day?

Errrr…. not quite sure actually. You can re-route during the ride, not sure if you can end navigation. If you press stop, it invites you to discard or save the ride, and I think you have to press one of those two; but you can start it again and the prompt goes away and you are as you were.

Will try and see if there’s a stop navigation option tonight.

It’s just that it won’t necessarily be the route you’d originally planned (though it often will)

Ah yes – it WILL do its own routing between your track/course points, yes. When waypoint planning, you can choose them carefully to force it, and review it before riding. However when you are following your own TCX/GPX the points are every 10m or so along your ride so this isn’t an issue. Only thing it does then is try and direct you onto a cyclepath alongside the road which is kind of annoying as it messes up the turn prompts slightly. But it’s very minor as you are only talking about pavement v road and you can see what it’s doing on the screen so you can second guess it.

I think part of my previous problem was creating my routes in Tracklogs

Just done that. The unit labels my course as 0m long, but it’s definitely there. I think I will get a distance when I get a gps lock and start the ride which is when it calculates its own road-specific course based on my track log. It’s worth noting that on the Touring you only get saved courses, not tracks or routes, and it seems that its interpretation of what a ‘course’ should mean is slightly different to other units.

I was using my old Etrex 30 at the weekend and had forgotten the bar mount/was using my Edge50 to record the route. Got to thinking again about a single device.

I want to –
– record for Strava and track my rides
– follow pre-planned routes (or downloaded GPX’s) both on and off road
…

What’s wrong with the Etrex 30? (Or have I missed something…?)

Just done that. The unit labels my course as 0m long

by Tracklogs I mean tracklogs.co.uk

What’s wrong with the Etrex 30? (Or have I missed something…?)

Small screen (2.2″ against 2.6 on the Touring/800). No good for logging rides for Strava. At the moment I use the Edge 200 most of the time and only dig out the Etrex when I need navigation. Then have to find a mount for that bike (or not as was the case at the weekend), and ride with 2 devices.

No good for logging rides for Strava

Why not? (Other than the need to connect it to a PC to upload… maybe that’s it?)

by Tracklogs I mean tracklogs.co.uk

That’s the one.

Just used the mapping routing features of my Touring on tonight’s ride in an unfamiliar area. Turned out to be shite, so I re-routed on the fly. Well, I say unfamiliar – you do have to know the general lay of the land and have looked at the map somewhat before you leave.

So the quality of navigation is different between the two? I thought they were the same but the 810 just had a few extra features. I’m going to get one myself and was confused between the two, too!

The questions for any owners are –

– does the 810 (or 800) have any useful navigation features missing from the Touring?
– is the linkup with your phone on the 810 (and Live segments) good/fun/useful or is it an unreliable battery drain (I’ve had garmin devices for a while…..)
Bluetooth – winner now it works properly with connect, I use it to upload and other stuff with the device. Never used the live. Down side to bluetooth uploads is I forget to plug it in to charge it so about once a week it was going flat, now have it on charge more.
Live segments fun for an hour or so then it just beeps a lot. Turned them off.

Happy with the nav, for some of the points above I’ve loaded other courses so that I can work out how to get from where I am to a point I know on another ride (really useful just overlays that course on the map and I can nav to that.)
Road follow easy arrows, some beeps etc. lots of warnings and wrong way stuff.
Off road good and easy to follow though I tend to rely on the line more than the directions. Within 10-20m of a junction you can tell if you are wrong.

Re ending one navigation and starting another, yes you can do that with it still recording your ride. There’s a little cross you click to end navigation which is completely independent of ride recording

I don’t think my touring alerts me when I go off route though…?

One feature that I keep on getting caught out on, whilst using my Touring, although assume it will be the same with any of the Garmin devices, is when downloading routes off Strava. It gets saved as a continuous breadcrumb trail, without any turn/junction waypoints.

I still use my 200 for uploading road routes, including turn-by-turn directions – works really well, although obviously limited by only being a breadcrumb trail.

Gavin, tracks are always just breadcrumb trails. When you start navigation, it creates all the turn-by-turn directions. That’s what it means when it says ‘calculating…’

Yes, that’s true. I was referring to when I’m off-road, and have forgotten to add a few waypoints. When trails split, I have to search around a little to check I’m taking the correct route.

It’s worth noting that on the Touring you only get saved courses, not tracks or routes,

Just read this again and this isn’t what i expected.

My understanding is that there are 3 main types of ‘track’

Route – a number of waypoints. Used to be a physical memory limitation of the GPS with really old ones only coping with about 50 though theres no logical reason for a restricted number on a new device. When you ‘navigate a route’ the GPS points you in a straight line from one waypoint to the next.

Track
File format usually GPX – a breadcrumb trail. Historically created as a record of an actual trip but when computer based route creation came along it was suddenly easy to create your own tracklog to follow. Old GPS’s used to have a ‘TracBack’ function to follow a track and it would give you a simple ‘direction to next trackpoint’ and ‘distance off course’.

“Navigating a track’ was always risky on the old Garmin Edges as it took the large number of points in a track and threw a lot (most) of them away to create a route, guessing where the junctions were and a direction was required. What made me give up and sell my Edge 605 – it would dump skirting around a wood or try to take me across a stream rather than over the bridge out of sight 200m further along or some crap.

The turn by turn navigation on the current Edges must do something similar but presumably if theres a routable map it should be able to do a pretty good job (well, should be perfect…) on road but could still go nuts off road.

Course
File format usually TCX (though did they use CRS at one point?) Like a track but with timing information. The Garmin training devices (eg 800) use this to create a virtual partner to race against (an annoying distraction if you just want to follow a pre planned route).

Does the touring require courses? I didn’t think it did virtual partner stuff.

Nonono – what I meant was, they are *called* courses on the device, but they are just tracks.

If you are uploading, you can use GPX or TCXs. If uploading to the device manually you put them in the NewFiles folder and then restart the device – it converts them into Garmin .fit files and you find them in the ‘courses’ section of the ‘where to’ menu.

Yes, that’s true. I was referring to when I’m off-road, and have forgotten to add a few waypoints. When trails split, I have to search around a little to check I’m taking the correct route.

Hmm. I do get prompts off-road.. but maybe it’s only for certain types of trail..? Hmm.

http://www.dcrainmaker.com/2015/07/introduce-segments-series.html

Ah. I think this is the deciding function – you can pre load segments and they show up on the map when you’re out. That’s a killer trail finding tool…..

Don’t think there’s any question that the 810 is better. I’d like one. It’s just twice the price.

I’ve just made the swap from an etrex 30 to an edge 800. I hated the mount for the etrex 30, hated the fact I had to use cable ties everytime and hated how big and heavy and complicated it was to use when on a bike at least. Sure it has far more features and abilities but these were all things I didnt need on the bike and I wanted to have something more suited to bike use and less for walking use as I own OS Maps on my iphone so at a pinch I can use that with batteries when out walking somewhere strange.

Managed to pick up an edge 800 for practically the same cost as I’ve fetched for my etrex 30 so happy its not cost me much and still has the os mapping features. Its so simple to use, I’ve switched it from roadie to hardtail to full suss already in seconds when I’ve wanted to. I’ve already used it to find trails in my local spots that I wasn’t sure of but never would of bothered using the etrex for because of how slow and clunky it was. The courses option is simple to use with bikehike and drawing my route for the roadie and then telling the edge to follow my course with turn by turn. I’ve used strava combined with a website to pull off strava segments and then headed to the start of them and followed them, I can use the coaching bit to tell me if I’m ahead of behind but quite frankly I’m not going to look down at my gps the whole time I’d rather get to know the segment and then just go for it. It telling me I’m a bit behind can’t make me ride any faster!

I’m afraid I can’t comment on the touring garmin as when i was trying to decide between the two a secondhand edge 800 came up for the right price so I stopped trying to decide but at least it might help you decide its definitely a change you want to do!

I’ve fairly recently bought the Garmin Touring but I’m not overly keen.

The turn-by-turn routing is rather hit and miss. Last weekend on a 100 miler it decided to give up turn-by-turn routing at all even after re-loading. Oddly, if I selected the option to return to the starting point it would give turn-by-turn routing without a problem. Unfortunately that wasn’t what I wanted to do.

I’ve installed the latest software and spent quite a bit of time checking the settings as per various online resources. I may be doing something wrong but for me it’s not very intuitive or reliable.

not very intuitive or reliable

Welcome to navigation by Garmin 🙂

Last weekend on a 100 miler it decided to give up turn-by-turn routing at all even after re-loading.

I’ve had bugs with that too. Turn by turn stopped alerting me, although the turns were still on the map. I had to keep checking it. I turned it off and on again and restarted, but it kept failing. Then it kept the same prompt on screen for ages after that particular turn.

Not happened since though – last couple of rides it’s been spot on.

Following this keenly as I’ve just purchased a touring edge.. can you copy straps routes over onto the edge?

Strava?

If you can download a gpx or tcx, you can copy it.

I’ve got the touring, it was cheap and seemed to do the stuff I needed.

I’d recommend updating to new firmware which seems to stop the old issue of miss routing (which is very evident on reviews) and watching some of the online videos about settings

I have found that, if you’re using a calculated route with turn by turn junctions, it uses up the battery in about 6 hours. Much less than the 15 hours quoted.

Bluetooth would be cool though!

Touring purchased. Now the pain begins. Posted Q’s on http://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/garmin-edge-touring-5?replies=30#post-7752887

Ive just bought an Edge 810 from wiggle for £190 (reconditioned by Garmin, new batt & casing). It’s to replace my Etrex 20 which I’ve lost.