Garmin Edge 500 Cycling GPS (Neutral Color)
Garmin Edge 500 Cycling GPS (Neutral Color)
- High-sensitivity GPS receiver.
- Easy-to-read display.
- Barometric altimeter – for precise climb and descent data.
- Battery life – up to 18 hours.
- Sleek, lightweight design
Sharpen your cycling performance with Edge 500, a lightweight GPS-based cycling computer for performance-driven cyclists. Loaded with data, Edge 500 tracks your distance, speed, location and elevation with high sensitivity GPS. Add an ANT+™ compatible heart rate monitor, speed/cadence sensor or compatible power meter for a finely-tuned analysis of your ride. Jumpstart Your Training The Edge 500 attaches easily to the stem or handlebars of your bike with its low-profile bike mount. The Edge attaches easily to the mount with a simple quarter-turn. When you’re ready to ride, just power on your Edge, acquire GPS satellites and go. Edge 500 features a high-sensitivity GPS receiver with HotFix® satellite prediction to calculate your
List Price: $ 249.99
Price: $ 249.95
More GPS with Customer Reviews
Just a guy
January 5, 2012Great computer, but screen quality could be improved,
This is a great bike computer with tons of amazing features. My only complaint about the unit itself is that the screen quality could be improved. It is not clear and easy to read – especially when you just want to glance down and see information. You really need to take your eyes off of the road for a moment or two to figure out what fields you are viewing and what they say.
I have not had any problems at all with the function of the unit. It easily found satelites and is pretty obvious how to configure. I really like the ability to connect this to my computer after rides and keep a detailed log of my rides. I gave the software three stars because it is very buggy and still quite rough around the edges.
I purchased the Garmin Heart Rate Monitorseparately. I do not have the Garmin GSC 10 Speed/Cadence Bike Sensor- it seems unnecessary for me. I don’t really have a need to monitor my cadence and the speed measurements from the gps are very accurate – even on trails under pretty heavy foliage. I don’t use this on a trainer.
I would strongy suggest that anyone who is considering this purchase make sure they visit the Garmin Edge 500 Forum on the Garmin website. You will learn more there than you ever wanted to know about the device. The DC Rainmaker blog also has an excellent detailed write-up.
As far as size, it is roughly the same size as my old Planet Bike Protege 9.0 9-Function Bike Computer with 4-Line Display and Temperature. The mount couldn’t be easier. It uses two rubber bands to attach the base to the handlebars or stem. The unit locks into the base with a 90 degree twist – very easy and secure. It comes with tons of extra bands and I threw an extra set in my seat bag – just in case.
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|Thomas E. Tweedel
January 5, 2012A new level of bike computer (and more),
I got this unit to upgrade the tracking of my workouts and to start using a heart rate monitor to get more out of the time I was spending exercising.
I was wary of plunking out the bucks for this because there are plenty of stories of the unit not working very well. It seemed from reviews it was great or it was worthless depending on the luck of the draw. So I made sure to buy it from a place with a very liberal return policy.
Overview
This is the first GPS enabled unit that I’ve seen that was small enough for me to mount on my bike and not have it mistaken for a PDA or Smart Phone. It is optimized for biking.
The overall construction seems pretty good. The unit seems well sealed, has a large screen and a nice backlight.
There are 4 control buttons, two on each side. The buttons on the left generally activate or conform menu items, the buttons on the right are used for navigation. The buttons require a firm press and have a muted click, you won’t be hitting them accidentally. Actually trying to hit them while riding is a tad difficult.
Underneath at the bottom of the unit there is a rubber stopper that plugs a mini-usb port. This port is used for data transfer as well as charging.
The mount is simple and awesome. There is a base piece with a formed rubber pad that goes beneath it. There are four hooks on the mount and you get a bag full of elastomeric gasket seal like rubber bands. You simply put the base piece where you want it and hook the band to one hook, stretch it around your bar/stem and hook it to the hook on the other side. Two bands and your done. Clicking the unit in is easy, press it in and rotate 90 degrees. The mount is secure, flexible and easy, I can’t believe that more bike items don’t use this mount, it really allows me to put it places I could never think of. On one of my bikes the handlebars were taken up with lights but I am able to put this mount ON TOP OF a Bike Planet safety light which is cylinder shaped. Clamps on with no problem. On my other bike I have it attached to the basket mounting bracket, good luck at doing that with any other mount. If only all mounts were this good. The unit comes with two complete mounts standard.
The battery is an integral Li-ion unit that is not user accessible or replaceable. Its supposedly good for up to 18 hours and has a charge % listed. I ran it for 2.5 hours with occasional backlight use and it went from 100% to 87%. The battery can be charged with the included adaptor or from a computer USB port.
Some people criticize the unit for not having a replaceable battery. I don’t think that’s such a big deal, the life is long, the battery will last for years before needing replacement. When you consider how much power these units usually use if ran on CR-2032’s or other similar batteries you’d rack up quite a battery bill over the life of the unit and it wouldn’t be nearly as well sealed. The size of the unit would rule out AA or AAA’s without making it much bigger.
Features
The unit has a lot of features, it records more data than you know what to do with. It has support for external heart monitor and cadence sensor. You can read the specs to see all the stuff it records.
What is really nice is that you have three possible screens to look at. Each screen can be configured with whatever information you want. You can select to display anywhere between 1 and 8 pieces of information. 5 seems to be optimal in that you can get a large amount of screen space for your single most important info and then 4 smaller bits in other boxes. Each time you switch screens the backlight comes on which is great at night (this can be turned off).
The process for choosing info is not exactly intuitive or friendly but it works after you figure it out (hint>Bike settings>Data fields).
To get more accurate calorie count you will need to enter some data about yourself (height, weight, age etc). Don’t forget your bike information, the weight of your bike probably affects it as well.
Use
Using the unit on the ride is easy enough. Turn it on, it boots up in a few seconds and has your satellites locked shortly thereafter. Usually less than 10 seconds. Being GPS based you don’t need to program in wheel size or mess with sensors. Its easy to transfer from bike to bike and can hold 3 bike profiles.
I have the auto pause turned on so I hit start and then ride without worry. At the end of the ride I hit stop. You won’t “accidentally” clear your data because you have to press and hold the clear button for 3 seconds and it shows you a countdown.
Computer Interface
One of the big features of a unit like this is the ability to download and examine your exercise data. The unit doesn’t ship with any software but Garmin provides two utilities for free. There is the Garmin Training Center…
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