Garmin Ride Out

6:45am meet at Dave's house down the road felt proper wintery for the first time. Loaded up and drove across to pick up the Pheasant from darkest Sutton. Much grumbling from him before navigating us cross-country along a route which neither Dave nor I would ever be able to retrace on a map and before we knew it, we were half way down the M3, nearly at our destination -the New Forest.


The purpose of the Garmin Ride Out was to preview and test out the new Edge 800 over a 20mile road loop with members of the Garmin Transitions pro road team. Fresh off the back of the Tour Of Britain, the 6 man squad looked somewhat shell-shocked at the 260 blood-thirsty members of the general public who were champing at the bit to sock-it to the pro's.

Anyway, the ride turned predictably into some kind of 4th Cat World Champs with choppers shoaling past us as Dave & I tried to hold a civilised conversation with one of the riders.

Dave had an 800 on his bike and was suitably impressed, while Ellis and I were disappointed to find that we both immediately tried 'swooshing' the screen like an iPhone -not a function on the 800.

There are no additional functions to the Edge 800 over a 705 but the software is better so it is faster and the mapping is eon's better. The touch-screen is larger and although it feels a bit 'clunky' (compared to a smartphone) the interface is relatively intuative.


The Pheasant and Dave will be aquiring a unit for their upcoming tour of the South West of England for which, despite much badgering, I will not be joining them...