PSA – Dont let your Garmin Edge run out of juice

So 104 miles into a 120 mile epic road ride in Ireland and my Garmin Edge 800 runs out of juice (my own fault – it wasn’t fully charged at the start)

No worries I though, just track the rest on my phone.

However when I downloaded the track from the Garmin it’s lost much of the data from the ride. I’d stopped recording twice on route – once for a long lunch, during which it turned itself off, and once more briefly to get a mars bar from a shop. The downloaded track contains the full distance etc, but only the route data up to the first stop.

I’m guessing it saves the file when it turns off, but not when it dies.

And yes, I’ve tried recovering from the FIT file, but no joy.

And advice, sympathy etc gratefully received !!!

Something similar happened to me at the weekend. It saved the ride stats but not the route. No idea why, but I was’t overly impressed. At £200 for a glorified bike computer and less than a month since purchase I expect it to work flawlessly. How do you recover from the fit file?

When it turns off it converts the ride to a FIT file (same as when you hold lap reset).
Until it converts it, the files are temporary. After losing a couple of rides when I had a power loss at the point of upload, I now hold lap reset after every ride to convert the file.
Won’t help you recover the data…

A search on the Garmin Forum took me here[/url]

I’ve had mine 3 years and generally been very happy with it – but there are one or two major flaws with it

And advice, sympathy etc gratefully received !!!

Don’t worry about it? The enjoyment of the ride is the important bit not the GPS file!

I now hold lap reset after every ride to convert the file.

Pretty sure it tells you to do this in the manual… it’s certainly how I’ve always done it.

Don’t know if pressing LAP periodically on longer rides (or using auto lap) will act as any kind of insurance in case of power loss?

@christhetall – what major flaws are you referring to? Always been very happy with my garmins (200 & 800 plus a running watch).

@christhetall – what major flaws are you referring to? Always been very happy with my garmins (200 & 800 plus a running watch).

Hmmm. A data logger that loses data if the battery runs out? It’s not like the battery dieing is an unlikely scenario…

For all-day rides I tend to do it in two segments just because an hour of it logging me stationary at lunch seems a bit inefficient.

To be fair, it does warn you that the battery is low…

t’s not like the battery dieing is an unlikely scenario…

Well I’ve got thousands of rides logged on mine and it’s never happened to me! 🙂 Just leave it connected to the computer for an hour or so whenever you transfer the data.

It’s easily capable of recording for 12 hrs or more (less if you use the backlight or map page a lot) so if it runs out because you haven’t charged it that’s not really Garmin’s fault! You could always pack an external USB charger if you’re that absent minded!

I have a Mio 505, if and when it runs out of juice it simply stops recording the track but when you recharge the tracked ride up to fail point is uploaded to the website 🙂 plus, if i stop for lunch i pause it then turn it off. When i resume my ride i turn it back on & press record, it then asks me if i want to continue recording the original track.

I don’t think this even scrapes it in as a “first world problem”.

One bug bear I’ve had with it is the ease with which you can accidently hit the start/stop button (e.g. when lifting the bike). You can’t protect against this with lock.

Another is trying to scroll around the map. Always seems to put in waypoints. “Navigate to start of ride” never seems to work. My data screens frequently change themselves !

Low battery warning isn’t obvious (enough) !!!!

There’s more but it’s all pretty minor or avoidable – mostly it’s been brilliant, but you just feel it could be better

I don’t think this even scrapes it in as a “first world problem”.

You should have heard me ranting about BBC iPlayer not working on my telly last night !!

One bug bear I’ve had with it is the ease with which you can accidently hit the start/stop button (e.g. when lifting the bike). You can’t protect against this with lock.

Another is trying to scroll around the map. Always seems to put in waypoints. “Navigate to start of ride” never seems to work. My data screens frequently change themselves !Can’t say any of that has ever happened to me! Are you sure yours isn’t possessed? Or do you just have hands like the BFG?!

Logs this thread for the Garmin Forum linky.. ta

I’ve had a 605 for years; on a couple of occasions the battery has been basically flat but I’ve sortof recorded routes by turning it on every ten minutes, letting it record 30 seconds or so until it died, then patching the route together from the fragments once I got home. It’s never lost anything doing this, so I’m surprised that’s not how it’s meant to work!

Ride never happened then 🙄

Interesting. On both the Dakota and Oregon I’ve been sing recently the (gpx) file us simply terminated when the battery expires. Is there nowhere in the Edge from where you can recover the gpx file?

I now hold lap reset after every ride to convert the file.

What does this do? I have an Edge 510 and haven’t heard of this.

New one on me too…

I have a 305 edge, which works as I want it to. When I use it, I mostly use the map screen which allows me to set the two data fields to show the info I want to see and the bread crumb trail.
When the 500 came out, I bought one hoping that for similar money to what I paid for the 305, I’d receive similar features and functionality, with a marginal increase in runtime for the unit.
So, the result was that I can’t change the fields in the map screen. It seems that Garmin have deliberately removed this capability, I expect as an incentive to get met to buy a model higher in the range.
Also, the battery level indicator is proper ploop.
I once switched the 500 on and it indicated a battery level of 43% which you’d be forgiven for thinking would be enough for a two hour ride…. 40 minutes later the thing is dead on the bars.
I’ve had it with Garmin, I’m now looking for an alternative unit, not from Garmin.

The battery indicator works the other way too – start at 100%, go for 2 hour ride and finish with 94%.

The battery indicator isn’t particularly accurate, as above. However, my unit stores all data until the point of battery running completely flat. It served me for four good rides in France and died 15km short of completing the Etape on a single charge. I thought this was pretty good since it was linked to a HRM and cadence sensor throughout. A 500 fwiw. Are people running the latest firmware?

Is the data not still in the /laps folder or somewhere? That’s where I’ve found it on my 705 when it’s given me a corrupt .tcx file. Though IME it’s faster and more enjoyable to ride the route again than to recover and edit it…

Are people running the latest firmware?
Yeap, 3.3 is the latest, I believe.

But still no option to select what data can be shown in the two fields on the map screen. I can’t think of any plausible reason to restrict the option to select the info shown in the data fields. Its possible for all the other pages.

I now hold lap reset after every ride to convert the file.

What does this do? I have an Edge 510 and haven’t heard of this.
What do you do at the end of a ride then?

You finish and save the ride (on my 800 anyway) by holding the lap/reset button for a few seconds. It resets average speed, distance etc to zero. If you just use ‘start/stop’ at the end and start of each ride then aren’t you recording all your rides as one massive ride?

Edit:

But still no option to select what data can be shown in the two fields on the map screen. I can’t think of any plausible reason to restrict the option to select the info shown in the data fields. Its possible for all the other pages.

Yes there is!
Spanner icon->Bike settings->->Training pages->Map->2->then tap on the data field you want to change.

Does no one read the manual anymore? 😉