Finally got navigation
 

I hate the idea of it, and love the clean handlebar look but after moving so often as a contract employee, I’m always in exploring mode.

The last several rides finally convinced me.

Every intersection or fork. Stop, remove gloves, grab phone, scroll around, zoom in, zoom out, try to remember the next turn. Repeat.

I sure hope this helps with all that pesky stopping. I went with the Edge 530 specifically to be able to hit buttons with my gloves on. Hopefully I don’t regret it.

Im kinda sad to lose the simplicity of a watch but excited to go on unfamiliar rides without constantly stopping. Fortunately in my area, ride with gps is pretty well loaded.

I went to the 530 when a touch-screen quadrant on my 800 gave out. Works well for gloved, cold-weather riding. It may take a few weeks to figure out the pattern of the buttons, though.

Yeah, the 530 is what Ive used for the last 18mo and that is after moving from a Lezyne I had for 5 years. The 530 has been flawless, but the UI and process to do things does not align with my brain so I sometimes have to fiddle around to find where a field/selection is.
Downloade a RWGPS route to your phone, then use Garmin Connect to upload the route and push it to your gps unit. Its the fastest and easiest way since no cables are needed.

So I’ll probably answer all these questions when it shows up but do I need a RWGPS subscription to use it? I’m not opposed but I’m already paying for trail forks, and some yoga app I don’t use, and pet insurance, and peacock, and probably 3 more things I can’t remember.

If anyone else is looking for the 530 there is a seller on ebay with factory refurbed units w/1 year Garmin warranty for $150.

That’s who I bought mine from. At $300 I was never going to make up my mind since there are quite a few well regarded models close to that price.

At $150, I couldn’t buy anything with those features for the same price.

I had bad luck with a factory refurbished phone once but it only had a 30 day warranty, it lasted 32 I believe. The 1 year warranty should be better.

I can definitely update on my experience once it shows up (2-3 days).

I'm very tempted, as I currently use an Edge 130 (not the + version). I was holding out for the 540 since i'm out of commission for a while due to rotator cuff surgery and figured I can wait until spring to upgrade, but $150 is a really good price.

Rwgps has a few more bells and whistles, but you can create a route on the free Garmin Connect page. Or, probably, anything else that will give you a .gpx or .fit file.

No, the free option is enough. You can also use Garmin Connect (it's free) to create routes.

Yes. All of the route planners do basically the same thing*. RWGPS is probably the most popular and it's also a good source for finding routes (so, regardless of what one prefers, being familiar with RWGPS should be useful).. Garmin Connect is popular too.

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* The Edges want a "track" file (FIT, TCX, or GPX). A "track" traces the curves and turns of the path you want to follow.

Is there a good YouTube video or step by step tutorial to using the navigation and linking to pre existing routes from home?

So far, I’m pretty much lost on the use of this thing.

I am a paid member of Trailforks and I’ve put the app on this unit, twice. I cannot find it anywhere.

The Garmin saved routes are kind of a nightmare. 1 mile ride here, 3 mile ride there, hundreds of them. I can’t seem to zoom out and get to anything useful.

My rides encompass roads, gravel, and a large system of modest single track trails.

So aside from paying for RWGPS, I don’t see any way to actually get this be more than an exercise watch for my handlebars.

And where TF is Trailforks!!

Ok, it’s sorted out now.

Just had to do about a billion uninstalls and reinstalls, power on and off several times. A little tantrum. And voila.

I broke down and paid for RWGPS, the other maps seem like tits on a bull to me. I spent more on gas today than the subscription will cost me all year.

Busy week, I don’t think I’ll be able to play with it for a while.

you can create routes for free on RWGPS and transfer them to your device. Just saying, in case you find you dont want to pay the subscription.

Ah, yes, I'd forgotten about that. I was ready to send my latest GPS (the 530) back after two nights of pfaffing with the darn thing, until the "one more try before I pack it and mail it" took. I don't think I've had that much problem with any other electronic device I've bought. The nice part is, a couple years later, and it still just works. (Finally!)

As noted above, you can use the free version of RWGPS to load routes into your Edge. One feature of RWGPS that I like is the ability to choose among different maps. I generally use the OSM-Cycle map for rides where I live.

I also have the RWGPS app on my phone. I find it useful when I am exploring and get lost. I can use the app and change maps until I find one with the road or trail I am on and use it to plot my escape. It works much better than Google or Apple maps.

This may turn into the Edge 530 use thread. Mods feel free to move if you feel it’s necessary. I’m mostly happy with it in this subheading since most of my plans for it involve gravel.

Is there a way to get it to recalculate forward? If I miss a turn intentionally, it works so hard to get me to do a U turn and return to my last spot that was on the map. For example, if time is short and I know road 7 is paved and parallels road 8 that’s more of a trail, it beeps and blurps at every crossroads to get me back to 8. A driving gps would not, it would just reroute based on the road I’m on. There have even been instances where I’ve missed short section and got back on, and it wants me to do a U-turn to return to the 1/4 mile I missed. That doesn’t make sense.

If I change my mind mid ride as to what I’m riding, can I turn off the loaded and running RWGPS route without stopping the current ride?

How do I zoom in and out? I’m still resorting to my phone to see real detail if I’m unsure.

Let’s say that my ride is 10% road, 60% gravel, and 30% single track. An extremely common ride type here, what mode to put it in?

And I swear my first ride, the gps spent a lot of time telling me turn off the loaded route. Almost like it was being a bad tour guide “if you take a right in 300ft, you’ll be lost” . Pretty tough to know what it means when I’m riding bumpy and steep stuff.

I haven’t tried it on the mtn bike, I don’t know if I will. So no questions about Trailforks yet.

@the OP, be aware that following single track mt. bike trails is hit and miss, even using TrailForks. TF is a collection of rides that have been tracked by others (similar to road routes on RWGPS), then uploaded to TF. As such there can be trails existing in a park that have not been documented and uploaded, thus trying to get turn-by-turn can be incorrect as the TF database may not show many trails. As opposed to road routes, mostly based on Google maps, that pretty much has a complete data base of road infrastructure. Just heads up.