9 responses so far ↓

• 1 Ehrenberg

  Product arrived on-time. Excellent price on Amazon (through Warehouse Deals versus current market price). Fairly easy to install. Have used on aggressive mountain bike trails (mounting method is solid) and on the road. Have also used it to navigate with – this is not going to give you Car GPS functionality. Any route you want to follow you will need to pre-load and use BikeRouteToaster or other application to make a .crs file – some fiddling required – the result is a black line you will need to follow (no map / other roads shown). I used it for Bike to Work week and followed a route through the center of Baltimore on quiet back streets – no problem – 1st time I used the unit out of the box. Happy so far.

• 2 Valle

  I returned to cycling after a 20-year hiatus last year. Being a dyed-in-the-wool sucker for gadgets, I had to get the Garmin 305 as my bike computer. Cyclist friends of mine made fun of its size, made fun of my desire to map my rides afterward, and generally mocked the device. I ignored them, and I’m glad I did.

  The 305 has been a great training partner. Thanks to its data recording ability, I can really easily correlate perceived effort on a day’s ride with my actual performance in terms of speed, heart rate, and cadence.

  Setting up all of the sensors on the bike was relatively straighforward (though the combined wheelspeed and cadence sensor setup was somewhat novel), and the directions were clear. You charge the 305 through its USB port. It comes with a separate power supply so that you can either charge it from a wall outlet, or from the USB cable connected to your computer.

  On the bike, the display is large and clear. I’ve found it readable in any of the lighting conditions in which I’d be willing to ride the bike. The interface is relatively easy to navigate, though a bit puzzling to set up. Garmin’s origins in navigation show in a couple of funny places. One of them is the default data fields displayed on the device: your heading is shown by default in the five data field configuration that I prefer, but your heart rate isn’t. I was able to reconfigure it to display the fields that I watned to see, but I found the choice surprising in a product that is ostensibly aimed at athletes.

  In use, I found that the GPS reception was generally good even in tree-shaded areas, but the startup process can sometimes be irritatingly slow. Data reception for the heart rate and cadence sensors has been glitch free.

  In terms of durability, I’ve banged the 305 around quite a bit and ridden it in conditions that left other electronics begging for mercy (don’t ride in the driving rain without putting your mobile phone in a plastic bag). The 305 still performs like a champ thousands of miles later.

  As a Mac user, I found the Mac support lame at first, but it has been steadily improving with Garmin’s release of their Training Center software for the Mac, a Mac version of their Web Updater tool, and improvements they’ve made to Mac support [...]. It’s still not perfect, but it’s very useful.

  The ultimate endorsement of the 305 is that I’ll be replacing it soon. Garmin has announced their upcoming new generation of Edge cycling units, and the 705 looks too good to pass up. I’m hooked on the capabilities and insight that the 305 has given me, and I’m looking forward to even more with Garmin’s next generation.

• 3 Anderson

  I had my Edge 305 for less than a year before it started having problems. The unit just simply powers itself off during high speed descents and rough road patches. I thought this might be due to excessive vibration…so I tried to come up with some different mounts to remedy the problem. The next spring the power issue became overwhelming and I contacted service for repair. To their credit, even though I was about 3 months past warranty, they agreed to cover the repair. I FedEx’d my unit and was told there would be a 10-day turnaround. After 3 weeks I called to find out the status of my RMA…at which point I found out Garmin had LOST my unit. They sent me a refurbished unit. The refurbished unit arrived on a monday. It worked that first day. On Tuesday, the GPS would not acquire any satellites and was worthless. I called Garmin the very next morning and they have agreed to send me a new “in the box” unit. However there will be another 10 day lead time.

• 4 Qasimi

  I recently purchased the Garmin Edge 305, w/cadence, plus I added the heart monitor a couple weeks later. I commute daily on my bike and I do 350 – 450 miles per week, with weekend centuries. This is a great tool for anyone who wants to have a better understanding of their effort and cadence. I have found very quickly that by focusing on my cadence and heart rate, I have improved my overall times and have become even more efficient on my bike. The ability to, customize the display, set up interval trainings, upload rides to the computer, analyze the ride as a whole or part and compare to other days is outstanding. I would recommend the Garmin to anyone who wants to become serious about cycling, get the most out of their time on the bike, and improve their performance. A little expensive but worth every cent. It has even helped me find my way home when I have gotten out in an area I am not as familiar with. Must have for anyone who really wants to track results, understand effort, maintain data and improve performance. One negative is the battery life is truly only about 6 -6.5 hours, so for the longer rides I have left my Cateye on my bike so I have some reference for speed, mileage etc… another is the unit will go to “sleep” if left for more than a couple of days, but by holding both the Mode and Reset button for 30 seconds it will “wake” the unit back up. Still awesome!!! Ride Strong!!!

• 5 Frances

  Very pleased with my Garmin. Biggest disappointment is that I thought it had a standard heart rate sensor, so I was very disappointed to find it did not.Very easy to install & woks great on my road bike & while hiking. Not sure of its accuracy as the assent & decent do not match over the same route.

• 6 Raya

  I had spent many nights looking for a bike computer and I finally decided on the Edge 305. It tracks very accurately, can list a ton of information on the display and you can even customize a second screen with more information. I mainly got this so I can load my rides up to mapmyride with the Garmin import feature to keep a log of my rides. The map of my ride is dead on also. The altimeter is a plus, I’ve noticed that Google maps and the altimeter accumulated feet do not match all the time and sometimes they are really off. I would tend to believe the altimeter over Google maps. I just make a note of the reading in the notes field on my log.
  Battery life is good on Smart Recording mode (haven’t tried the every second mode). I’ve been on two century rides and the battery only went down approximately 1/2 each time.
  Cadence sensor, I haven’t used this yet because my frame has a unique shape and doesn’t sit exactly snug. However the speed does show well from only the GPS signal.
  Heart Rate monitor works really well, I’ve used this on just about all the rides and syncs with no problem, it’s a good piece of information to gauge your ride exertion.
  Hands down this is one fine bike computer. I’ve been using this for about 2 months now and have logged about 400 miles so far with no complaints.
  I highly suggest this device!

• 7 O'Brian

  I’ve been using this product for a little over a month now biking an average of 100 miles a week and love it. I really like the programmable screens where I can choose how many fields of data I want displayed. I like one screen with current data and another with average data, but you can set it up in any combination. Very easy to set up on my Serotta and worked perfectly. I also like the pause feature….you can set in a threshold speed where if you stop the device will auto pause and not count time/averages against your workout….set mine for 0.5mph and it works great. Computer download of workouts is a snap. I read several complaints about archaic graphics. While the computer map used to download could definitely be better, I was impressed with the amount of data that can be obtained from a workout as well as keeping your weekly averages for review. The device does have a few features that have no real function for me…but that’s me…the virtual racing partner for example where you can race your own previous route/time. I also notice that on my typical roundtrip routes that it always shows more ascent than descent…GPS altitude data is a bit suspect. As for the heart rate monitor…it works great and is one of the more comfortable ones I’ve worn. Cadence sensor works great too. Agree with other posts that calorie burn seems high. For a 2.5 hr ride I’d expect around 1500 and it usually shows about 2500. Oh….amazed too that the GPS rang in (found satellites) inside my home in seconds. Drove 100 miles to ride with a friend and it rang in inside a home in seconds there too. Great little gadget! Highly recommend! Paid $250 for it on here through Target!

• 8 Othman

  I can only add to what others have said about lack of reliability. My unit worked REASONABLY well for a few months, but then started shutting off randomly. This started happening more and more often until it was every couple of minutes. At that point the unit became essentially useless.

  It should work better than this in any case, but especially considering the price.

  Given what others have said about repeated failures with replacement units, and having to pay shipping costs, I am not highly motivated to try to replace the unit.

  So, money lost.

• 9 Tesh

  I have had an Edge 305 since June, 2007. (it was replaced once) The first unit worked very well and was a wonderful addition to my cycling. However, the cadence counter never worked reliable and I finally just quit using it. THe HRM was always perfect and I used it even for my indoor spinning just to keep up with my HR. It took a little tweaking of settings to get it to work for that but it did fine and I was able to upload the data to Training Center.

  The battery life was not particularly good on it but I managed to get about 6 or 7 hours on it. Then last summer, I took a 2000 mile supported ride on the Underground RR route and had a rainy day. It quit working after that, even though I was careful to have the mini USB on the back of it closed carefully. They are supposed to be water resistant but I always put mine in a plastic bag now if it is raining when I ride. It was really a pain not to have it on the long ride, since the cue sheets relied on my having an odometer. I was glad to have a backup Cateye, and I do not leave home without it!

  After several months of back and forth with Garmin regarding the guarantee, they finally sent me a refurbished model. It worked from July, 2008 until mid August, 2009. It had much better battery life than the first unit and worked well until the unit went blank. If I held it JUST right, I could see the screen, and I can still take the data off it while recharging on my computer. However, while riding, there is no visible screen.

  Will I buy another one? Yes, I am addicted to all its functions, and really am a data person, so I miss it alot. Now that my husband lost his on a cross state ride recently, we will both get another one!

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