New GPS

Almost 2 years ago my Garmin 820 died and I bought a Lezyne MegaXL GPS unit to replace it. It’s been a solid bit of kit for the past couple of years. It’s not perfect, it has it’s nuances and annoying features but the battery life has been superb and the basic routing never a problem, when it worked, which is why I’ve decided to replace it

But before I tell you what I’ve gone for, what was wrong with my Lezyne unit?

From a size, screen and battery perspective, I can’t really fault it. It’s very simple, basic, quite configurable and the battery literally lasts days so no quibble there. My main gripes are the mapping and loading saved routes. For some reason, unlike other major GPS brands it doesn’t come pre-loaded with maps. Don’t know why but you have to use the Lezyne software/app to create your own custom maps that cover the area you intend to ride. It’s easy enough to do. You just crop a big chunk of map and let it save but the issue is how long. It’s painful and can take upto 10 mins for bigger more complex areas. That I could just about live with as I usually planned ahead and made sure they were ready in good time but the biggest issue is loading a saved route and starting a ride. There are a couple of ways to do this. Open the Lezyne app, and either find a saved route or the route on Komoot and send it to the head unit via Bluetooth but this has invariably got worse over time requiring multiple attempts sometimes to get it to work. I can’t tell you how many Gravelton Events rides have started and everyone has left me behind while I’m fettling with my GPS just to get my own route to load! And then to make matters worse the route has failed part way around or most recently on The Winchcombe Wanderer the screen froze and sent me off course. At that point I’d had eneough and decided to find something else.

I had a look at Garmin and Wahoo units. Nice but too expensive for me so I’ve plumbed for a Bryton Rider 650. A chinese brand which have improved their GPS products quite considerably over the years and offer a feature-rich unit without paying Garmin or Wahoo prices.

I tried it for the first time last weekend at The Cannock Chaser and the mapping was spot on, the screen/map refresh as I moved was pretty fast. The only thing I didn’t like were the live climb segments. Great idea in principle, you get a popup screen telling you the gradient and how far to go etc but you lose the map so you are blind. I kept having to swipe off the screen to get the map back. It’s a feature I can turn off so no drama. It’s touch screen and has buttons too around its 2.8 inch colour screen. Touch screens can be unpredictable in the rain so a nice feature is the screen lock. A quick press of the power button locks the current screen so no other button or screen swipe can move it. Ideal in wet conditions. Other than that its, pretty light, not really any bigger than a Garmin and uses a Garmin mount too. It comes with a basic app which allows you to program the screens and data-fields you want but I don’t have power meters or HR monitors, my needs are pretty basic. Just a good map thats accurate and works.

So far, so good.