I've been using a Dakota 20 for a couple of years, generally just loading a gpx file onto it & following the line.
I've just bought a Garmin 800 to use for more structured training rides on & off road, and with a Powertap on the road. It seems that Garmin are really pushing their "courses" file format. Any thoughts on the benefits of going with something other than a simple gpx? Once set up, I'll be uploading post-ride files to Trainingpeaks WKO+ as well. Cheers!
You can race yourself on a course, whilst a GPX is better to navigate (on road at least - you get turn by turn directions).
I use WKO 3 and it's really good software, all sorts of exciting power analysis stuff!
AFAIK the edge automatically changes your files to .FIT files, so doesnt really matter what you save them as, .tcx .gpx .trx etc etc...i think anyways, the course ones i just save directly from garmin connect to race against myself, not sure if they end up getting converted to .FIT files though....
njee whats wko3? free software? does it require the accessories fitted to the garmin to get the intersting readings etc/
Thanks chaps. WKO looks a bit scary (never trained with power before), but I'm looking forward to having lots of numbers to play with. Was hoping the 800 could display map and some numbers at the same time, unlike the Dakota. I think it can do this..?
njee whats wko3? free software? does it require the accessories fitted to the garmin to get the intersting readings etc/
Not free sadly, and requires a power meter of some sort.
My Edge 705 will certainly let me have TCX and GPX files - I've saved rides as courses and as routes separately.
Was hoping the 800 could display map and some numbers at the same time, unlike the Dakota. I think it can do this
Pass, as above, I've got a 705, but I'm fairly sure you can have choose a number of data fields to display with the map. If you have a Route it will interupt whatever screen you're on to give you directions, not so with a course.
WKO looks a bit scary (never trained with power before)
It's pretty user friendly, the TSS stuff is good, although if you do a lot of mountain biking you end up guessing a stress score. Garmin are going to do a big power update for the Edge 800 when their Vector power meter comes out, so it'll display more metrics on the head unit. Dunno if it'll work with other power meters though.
ahh right, thought it sound like it may need the additional hardware stuff....
im pretty sure on the edge you can have maps and some form of fields (think 2 max maybe - speed, distance etc etc) if thats what you mean....
hmm slightly regretting paying the extra for the OS mapping. The screen is a bit low res to make it useful. Gonna stick some 3rd party mapping on there instead I think.
Mark, are you saying the OS 1:50k Garmin mapping isn't good enough to navigate by on their small screens?
I was looking at an Etrex 30 with the additional £200 OS UK maps for bivvy duties where I don't want to be carrying several paper maps.
I've been playing a bit more & my initial impression was probably a little unkind on the OS maps. So long as you're not zoomed in any more than 800ft it doesn't look too bad. Doing my first ride with the 800 tomorrow & I'll see how it goes. £200 does sound rather a lot for the maps on top of the unit...I just paid a bit over £300 for the 800 with full mapping.
My 3 month old 800 packed up in the rain and waiting for it to be fixed or replaced. V underwhelmed i must say. Big altitude and some distance variations when doing laps that is not what i expected. Too easily confused by trees as well.