Buy Garmin Edge 305 Bicycle GPS Navigator with Heart Rate Monitor and Speed/Cadence SensorGarmin Edge 305 Bicycle GPS Navigator with Heart Rate Monitor and Speed/Cadence Sensor Product Description:
- High-sensitivity GPS receiver
- Heart rate monitor and speed/cadence sensor
- Automatically records up to 1000 laps. Download to your PC
- Look up and navigate to stored locations
- Virtual Partner lets you "race" a virtual competitor, making training fun
Product Description
The Garmin edge is based on the highly sensitive SiRFStarIII chipset and is a GPS system dedicated to the sport of cycling.
Customer Reviews
Most helpful customer reviews
90 of 93 people found the following review helpful.
By Torv Carlsen
Simply put, I love this product. It's kind of like the Swiss Army Knife of bike computers, employing every metric the serious cyclist needs to tailor and hone their workouts. The only piece of data missing is wattage (you reading this Garmin!) which would be great, but probably very costly to integrate.I love the customization and the complete wirelessness of the computer. It basically makes all other bicycle computers obsolete by comparison. Installation is a breeze without any of the pain in the ass calibration required from virtually every other bike computer on the market. It just works right out of the box.The Edge 305 has a Virtual Training partner that will make you a stronger, faster rider. It also includes interval training and which is a blast to use and for the real tweaks, an advanced training feature where you can set up your own grueling workouts -- a real bonus for the masochists among us!One thing to note is that there are mounts for two bicycles in the box, so there is no need to order an additional bike mount if you intend to make the Edge 305 a duel use computer for your road and mountain bike. This kind of mitigates the relatively high price the computer goes for in that you can have one computer for two different bikes.I haven't experienced any of the battery issues mentioned in some of the other reviews, which I suppose is a testament to my wussy 4 -5 hour rides, so that shouldn't be an issue for most people.And finally, after years of ignoring a huge market, Garmin wised up and is implementing Macintosh OSX support which while not included in the box, will be available on-line within the next couple of months (Thank you Garmin!!).
76 of 78 people found the following review helpful.
By Steve
I read a bunch of reviews before buying my Edge. I was prepared for it to not be perfect but went ahead. My impressions are:-Surprised (for good)- Following a pre-loaded course is a really useful navigation feature. I recently did a 60 mile loop on unknown roads without stopping once to look at a map (I downloaded the route from motionbased.com and converted it to a CRS using some software I found on the motionbased forum).- Heart-rate monitor suffers from far less interference than my Polar did. Particularly I found the Polar got thrown by bus power cables overhead and other things. Haven't had an issue with the Edge losing the signal like this.- I really like the ability to customize the screen to show as little or as much data as you like. Also to have multiple setups you can switch between.- I was impressed by just how small the unit is.Bad side- Software is nowhere near as good as the Polar software for recording training activities. Particularly I could find no way to correct bad data points without going in and editing the XML files from the device. Also the Polar software gives week by week graphs showing aggregate training time in different zones, etc which is not so clear with the Garmin software and non-existent in motionbased (as far as I've found).- The calorie calculator seems pretty dubious based on feedback I've read elsewhere. I've ignored it.- Creating new courses / routes is a pain. It's fine if you want to ride a course you've ridden before, using exactly the same directions. For new courses though I had to create a route on GoogleEarth Plus and then convert it to a GPX (using freeware) and then convert it to CRS (using more freeware). The end result was excellent but it took a lot of fiddling. There is also a CRS creator out there but it didn't seem easy to edit / save courses mid-creation with that.On a side note, make sure you use the speed/cadence sensor. Before I mounted it I tried using just the Edge unit for speed. It's fine until you ride through an area with tall buildings and your speed drops to 0 mph.All in all I'm impressed.
59 of 61 people found the following review helpful.
By Christoher O'keefe
Took it out for my first real ride that was 5 hours total and 4 hours riding time. By the end, I had 1 bar left on the battery meter. This is a real ;problem if your into long rides like Centuries and Double Centuries. There is no way you can take this device on a 12-18 hour without it shutting off on you.I would rate it a 5 out of 5 as a bike computer. Love the fact you can populate the fields with whichever element you choose; heart rate, speed, etc. The heart rate monitor was good as well.It weight less than the Ciclosport HAC4 for those weight weenies who might imagine this device as a boat anchor.The lousy battery life relegates this a toy for me however, as I really want need this device to stay on for the 12 hour+ rides.
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