A Garmin Edge 830 had purchased 2-Jan-2020 just prior to delivery of the Argon 18. It has logged at least 30,000 miles including sub-freezing full moon rides, rain soaked centuries and group rides where the heat of the Deep South melted the tread off the tires. Its been up and down the Georgia, Tennessee and North Carolina mountains on a Niner RLT 9 RDO gravel bike, recorded a fixed gear century at 17.8 MPH and climbed to the top of Mt. Mitchell. Alas!
NGL. Longer life had been expected and it had been giving me trouble for a while. The pause button had become difficult to press and it randomly shuts down on its own, mostly in very cold weather. Its final ride was downright balmy but it repeatedly crashed and booted into diagnostic mode. The bottom line is end of life.
The 830’s battery life was never that great. I like to keep the screen on and have had to carry an Anker battery to prevent it from running out of juice on remote gravel rides. An Edge 1050 was considered but battery life is reportedly similar. A 1050 is also 4.6″ long and given the mounts currently on the bike, will likely hit the stem.
The result; an Edge 840 Solar is now in hand. REI dividend money helped. If Garmin’s battery life specs are accurate then solar probably isn’t necessary but every little bit helps. Did I mention that my daughter is a material scientist for a solar cell research and manufacturing company?
The new 840 had 51% charge out of the box. Boot time is long – over 60 seconds. First boot launched a wizard which quickly paired it with the phone and ported both activity profiles and sensors from the defunct 830. Wasn’t really expecting it to port sensors. It was super easy.
The 840 was further configured in a quiet corner of Cool Beans Coffee Roasters over a cup of caffè americano (con leche). HRV during activity was turned on and I’m looking forward to seeing that data. Auto brightness was turned off, perpetual backlight enabled and some other setting which I’m sure will chew through the battery were tweaked. All things considered, it was much less work than imagined. Kudos to Garmin for streamlining the setup process significantly.
On the road, a feature I’d not seen before – road hazard alerts – was extremely distracting. Every crack in the road, leaf and acorn causes an alert and after a few moments, it asks if the harzard was still present. There must have been a dozen such alerts in the first five miles. It was disabled and the rest of the first ride was uneventful. I found the 840’s screen much easier to read than the 830’s.
27 MPH! Woo-hoo!!!
2020 Argon 18 Gallium Pro Disk 