Gear of the Year

Dec. 7th, 2024 08:12 pm

Sorry this post is so late in coming. I’ve been sitting on it for months, but the slow holiday season gave me the time to compile the output you’ll see at the bottom of the page. So I’m really happy to finally be able to share it with you!

In the early days of my cycling career, despite thousands of hours in the saddle, cyclists rarely got images of themselves riding. Maybe a fellow rider with a compact digital camera might catch you in a blurry, blocky photo, or you might take part in an organized event that happened to have a competent film photographer on-course. But these were pretty rare opportunities.

That started to change around 2010. Cellphone cameras finally improved to the point where they produced tolerable images. But more important was the 2012 release of the GoPro Hero3 action camera, whose tiny form factor allowed riders to capture usable still images – and even video! – while riding. I still remember the eye-popping wow factor when GoPro first let you take broadcast-quality video from a device the size of a deck of cards, that was easily carried in a jersey pocket.

With the rise in popularity of selfie sticks, you could easily stop and take a quick static portrait. But if you wanted video footage of yourself riding, you still needed to have someone else operating the camera…

Until now. Imagine having an automated camera that has the ability to follow you around, taking professional-grade video from various angles, distances, and heights, without requiring anyone else to operate it. And best of all: it still fits in a jersey pocket!

My Friend, Buzz

My Friend, Buzz

Get ready to surpass the sense of awe you felt when you saw your first GoPro action clip, because last year a company called Zero Zero Robotics blazed the trail with the world’s first and best pocket-sized autonomous-tracking flying selfie drone!

I first heard about their original HoverAir X1 model last March and immediately snagged one. If you read this blog, or follow my Strava feed, or saw my 2024 PMC Ride Report, you’ve already seen what it can do. The drone folds up to the size of a paperback book. Whip it out, select a flight pattern, give it a second to lock onto you visually, and it’ll do its thing – hover in place while keeping you in frame, zoom away from you and back in, zoom high above you and back down, fly in an orbit around you, follow you from behind, float alongside you as you move, or look back from ahead of you as you move toward it – all the while taking pretty usable video (2.7K @ 30 fps). And best of all: you mostly don’t have to worry about the governmental airspace restrictions that apply to larger drones.

When I started using it, I was totally blown away, but at the same time I still wanted more. The usability was great, but it took time to set up some of the shot parameters using their phone app. Once programmed, the drone struggled in windy conditions, and couldn’t keep pace with me above 20 km/h, which is a pretty pedestrian pace on a bike. And it would get fatally confused if you flew it in low light, over a body of water, or above terrain with sharp ups and downs.

Of course, that didn’t stop me from using it to capture various shots of myself and my rides. I used it for half the shots in my 2024 PMC ride video, plus my 2024 PMC jersey reveal, and several clips attached to the ride logs I posted on Strava.

But I also didn’t use it as often as I’d anticipated. See, you really don’t want to fly this thing when there are other people (or riders) around, or if there are cars nearby. So it’s kinda relegated to solo rides on quiet bike paths or completely empty roads. It’s just not safe to let it fly around autonomously on mass participation events or typical roadways.

Soon after I purchased my X1, I started hearing rumors about a potential new model. Of course, I dismissed those as just hopeful speculation, given that until recently Zero Zero Robotics was nothing more than a couple PhD students building prototypes.

But right after I published my PMC ride video in August, we learned that the rumored update – actually two new models – were coming, and a crowdfunding campaign opened for early adopters. I was curious but not that invested, since I already had an X1. I didn’t need a new drone unless they completely addressed all the shortcomings that limited its usefulness to me as a cyclist.

But then I read the spec sheet on their new models, especially the consumer-level X1 PRO, which blew the original X1 away in every respect. Instead of shooting 2.7K video @ 30 fps, it can shoot 4K @ 60 fps and 1080p at 120 fps. Battery duration jumped from 11 minutes to 16. Follow speed jumped from 20 km/h to 42 km/h, with short bursts up to 60 km/h! Instead of programming flight parameters on the phone, you can now do so right on the device. It can now fly against 40 km/h winds, in low light, above water and snow, or over high elevation changes like balconies or cliffs! A new handheld beacon improves how effectively it can track you, while also allowing you to see what its camera sees in real time, and use voice commands to control the drone! They also improved collision avoidance, the distance it can go from the user, and slightly reduced the noise level. And the X1 PRO MAX model is even more capable!

Basically, they addressed almost every complaint anyone had about the original X1. The only downside is that the new model is slightly heavier, slightly larger, and more-than-slightly higher priced… but it still fits in a cycling jersey pocket!

I was so impressed – both with the original X1 as well as the new units’ specs – that I jumped in on the early bird crowdfunding campaign as one of their first 2,400 customers, and received my new drone in early October.

Unfortunately, it arrived the day I came home from the hospital following a minor stroke, so it has sat on a shelf while I recuperated and rode my indoor trainer exclusively. But that was probably a good thing, because the original, hurried software and firmware have received numerous updates to ensure they delivered the functionality they’d promised.

I look forward to sharing the improved video I’ll be able to take on the new X1 PRO when I return to the roads in the spring. But in the meantime, here’s a painless 2-minute compilation of footage I took with the original X1 to demonstrate what even the older unit can do:

And I have every intention of sharing many more – and much better – videos from the new X1 PRO in the coming year. Be on the lookout ferum!

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The Edge of the Sun

Sep. 19th, 2023 12:29 pm

In addition to the HUI-VUI, I’ve discovered another thing that happens every six years: I purchase a new GPS bike computer. In this case, we’re talking the Garmin Edge 840 Solar, which I picked up last month after it came out back in April. A new GPS head unit is a really big deal for someone who spends as much time in the saddle as I do.

The Garmin Edge 840 Solar

Before diving into the new unit, let’s look at how far we’ve come. I first used a GPS to log bike rides waay back in 2000, using Garmin’s original yellow eTrex handheld, but the tech back then was so primitive that it didn’t have maps or routes or points of interest; just a blank monochrome 64 x 128 pixel LCD with a breadcrumb trail of where you had gone, and even that initially suffered from “Selective Availability”: an intentional inaccuracy imposed by the government on civilian GPS signals. Six years later I grabbed an eTrex Vista (my review), which had finally added color and some very rudimentary maps. In 2011 Garmin released the cycling-specific Edge 800, then 2017’s Edge 820 (my review), and this year’s Edge 840.

Along the way, I’ve watched these units evolve into incredibly useful and sophisticated navigational and analytical tools. Garmin updates their cycling products about every three years, so I’ve usually skipped a generation (e.g., the Edge 810 and Edge 830). So when I buy a new unit, there are some substantial improvements and compelling new features to check out.

And by that point, my old unit is usually pretty worn out. That was certainly true of my loyal old Edge 820. To begin with, its touch screen – a novelty at the time – was very sluggish, and the processor took forever to calculate routes or pan and zoom the map display. And the Micro USB connector was outdated technology from the start. After a few years the screen faded significantly, leaving a prominent grid of its LCD guts showing through its faint display. And its battery life – originally billed as lasting 15 hours – had shrunk to about 90 minutes. These were the shortcomings that I expected the new Edge 840 to fix.

With that, let’s look at the new beast. As always, I’ll divide this review into four sections: things I’m neutral about; features I don’t know much about because I didn’t test them; features I’m excited about; and the things that already disappoint me. With an executive summary at the end.

The Neutrals

My main display: speed, distance, with power and heart rate charts

My main display: speed, distance, with power and heart rate charts

One of the most noticeable changes is a revamped UI. It works fine. Its organization of functions isn’t 100% intuitive. And it’s still based on “activity profiles” rather than gear, which has always seemed a bit clunky to me.

The unit also supports phone-based configuration. I really don’t see a ton of value in that over configuring the unit on a computer or the device itself.

Potentially useful features include alerts for upcoming sharp turns and high-speed roads. But the high-speed road alerts arrive way too late to be actionable (e.g. navigating to avoid them). And the last thing you want when speeding around a sharp turn is having to read and dismiss an alert popping up on your head unit. They’re nice ideas, but not practical (at least not with the current implementation).

An unexpected surprise was that when following a route, the GPS can now have your phone verbally announce navigational cues as you approach them. “In fifty meters turn right on Mesa Drive.” Another cool idea, but they’re just not intelligible when your phone is stuffed into a jersey pocket on your back.

The unit can also walk you through a heart rate variability stress test. This isn’t for general health purposes, but for telling you how well or poorly you have recovered from your previous rides. That’s not something I need to wait around for three minutes for a device to tell me.

The Cycling Ability feature can tell you what your general cycling strengths and weaknesses are, as a very gross training aid. Garmin doesn’t add much value by telling me that I’m an endurance specialist.

Same with their measurement of heat acclimation. A simple percentage is way too simplistic to be of any actionable value.

Another hamstrung feature is showing the battery status for all your sensors (e.g. heart rate monitor, electronic shifters, power meter), where you really need more discrete battery levels than “okay” and “dead”.

There’s also a ton of features that I don’t really care much about, but you might. But to be honest I really don’t have any opinion about things like incident detection, structured training plans, mountain biking metrics, hydration alerts, an integrated bike alarm, lost device finder, etc.

The Unknowns

It might surprise you that I didn’t bother testing the unit’s integration with my indoor trainer. But the only useful function that provides would be the ability to simulate the gradients of riding a known real-world course, which isn’t as engaging as riding in the richer worlds on Zwift.

The Power Guide feature gives you a plan for specific power numbers to match when following a particular route. Just not something I’m likely to want.

Same story with the Event Training Plan feature. I hate structured training and already know how to build and taper for a major event. Not something I need, and not something I’d look to a head unit to provide.

There’s also the new and very promising Group Ride feature, which lets groups of riders share their route, in-ride messages, and live map with everyone’s location. This sounds like a really awesome feature if a critical number of rides and riders adopt it, although it’s limited to Garmin’s most recent units. It’s only in my “Unknowns” section because I haven’t had any opportunity to test it out.

The Positives

My customized boot screen

My customized boot screen

Solar power gain, showing 71 minutes gained over a 9-hour ride

Solar power gain, showing 71 minutes gained over a 9-hour ride

ClimbPro displaying map, elevation profile, current grade and power

ClimbPro displaying map, elevation profile, current grade and power

Real-Time Stamina, estimating 21% or 17km remaining before bonking

Real-Time Stamina, estimating 21% or 17km remaining before bonking

Let’s start with the basics: critical things my Edge 820 did that the 840 still does. I can still download my activity FIT data files to my laptop, as mentioned above. It still communicates with my Di2 electronic shifting and displays what gear combination I’m in. I can still capture screen shots, as you can see at right. I can still set the text that appears on the startup screen. And you can still charge it from a portable USB battery while using it. Good!

Then there’s things that aren’t new, but are features the Edge 840 has improved upon. Starting with the most important improvement: battery duration is now listed at 32 to 60 hours! The touch screen is so much more responsive that it’s actually usable now! Panning and zooming maps is reasonably quick! Calculating and re-calculating routes takes a second or two instead of five to ten minutes! Adding the GNSS GPS system improves GPS accuracy in cities and other challenging areas! And while my old unit would show alerts when calls or text messages came in, the 840 also shows email and all other phone notifications! Very nice!

The passive solar receiver adds around 8 to 10 minutes of extra power per hour in Texas sun, which might not be a huge deal for folks in cloudier locales, and there’s a data page showing the unit’s solar efficiency. Even I debated buying the non-solar model when I learned that the special glass makes the solar screen a little less bright, but it seems fine, and way better than my old, faded Edge 820.

On the topic of charging, we’ve finally made the transition from a MicroUSB to a USB-C charging & data port!

One of the highlights of the new interface is a home screen with “Glances”, little UI widgets that summarize important information and link to the most frequently-used functions. For example, there’s a Weather Glance that shows current conditions and clicks through to a dedicated weather page. And the Navigation Glance will show and give you one-touch access to the route you most recently downloaded onto the unit.

But by far the most massive UI enhancement is the widespread addition of graphical data fields! Heart rate and power are no longer a single number, but also time-series charts that are color-coded for intensity. Solar power, route elevation and gradient, and several other data fields can be shown as color graphs that encapsulate a ton of information in a small screen factor. Very cool!

One special application of charts is the new Climb Pro page. When you begin a climb, a new page pops up to show your current power, how much longer the hill is, its current slope, and a chart that shows where you are on the climb, and color-coded undulations of how steep it gets over its entire duration. It’s a very handy little tool for managing your effort, especially on long or steep ascents.

And if you need to manage your effort over an entire long ride, the Real-Time Stamina page is a great new feature. It uses your history to estimate what percentage of your total endurance you’ve used up – and therefore how much you still have left in the tank – and what that translates to in terms of time or distance until you hit the wall and your performance plummets. This sounds like a gimmicky pseudo-feature, but on my recent 100-mile Livestrong ride, it accurately foretold that I’d run out of juice about 30 km before the finish.

I could have included this in my “enhanced features” above, but it deserves its own paragraph: enhanced text message functionality. On my old Edge 820, when replying to someone’s text message, I could only pick from a pre-set list of 8-10 basic canned responses. Now there’s about three times as many canned responses. And you can customize them in their mobile app. And you can add emoji. And the Holy Grail: you can even compose your own responses on the fly, using the on-device keyboard! Finally Garmin no longer artificially limits me to replying with “Yes”, “No”, or “Almost there”!

The Negatives

The most obvious and glaring negative is that the meager screen resolution (246 x 322 pixels) hasn’t increased. It’s not a huge issue, but a higher resolution display would improve my perception of the unit a great deal.

Garmin advertises a cool feature that will tell you your “fitness age” based on your measured physiology. Why is that a negative? Because you don’t get that piece of data unless you buy both a connected scale and wear a 24-hour fitness watch that’s paired to their central database. Garmin advertising this feature as available on their bike computer is completely misleading.

While I haven’t sussed out exactly which features require it, the bike computer will nag the user to not only install but keep Garmin’s smartphone app open and running in order to take advantage of certain online features (IIRC things like current weather, voice navigation, text messages, and phone notifications).

The only true malfunction I’ve experienced is that a distance alert I set failed to trigger on my recent 100-mile Livestrong ride. Unfortunately, I’ve only done one century ride, so this isn’t something I can test very often!

Finally, the unit often hangs whenever I disconnect it from a cable connection to my laptop. It’s recoverable, and most people probably don’t do this very often, but I download my activity data file after every ride, so it’s a big annoyance for me. Aside from the fact that the unit shouldn’t hang under normal operating conditions to begin with!

The Bottom Line

Six years ago, I was disappointed after buying Garmin’s Edge 820. After defining and owning the GPS bike computer market, they released an underwhelming product that was unimaginative, behind the times, and deeply flawed. As a result, more agile competitors like Wahoo and Hammerhead eagerly and justifiably took major chunks out of Garmin’s once-dominant market share.

Garmin seems to have learned their lesson. The Edge 840 has improved on several old features and introduced a raft of new functions. I’m genuinely excited by the improved UI and graphical data fields, the passive solar charging, ClimbPro, Real-Time Stamina, the enhanced SMS capabilities, and the potential of the Group Ride features. Assuming they figure out the missing distance alert, my only knock on it is the meager screen resolution; but that’s still markedly brighter and more responsive than my old, fading 820’s terrible display.

Am I happy with it? I’m delighted! While it’s not perfect, the Edge 840 is a tremendous improvement over my old 820, with far fewer built-in flaws.

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The Edge of Usability

Jun. 16th, 2017 10:13 am

Three months ago, I replaced my aging Garmin Edge 800 GPS cycling computer with the new Garmin Edge 820. After 52 rides and 1,400 miles, it’s time for an in-depth review.

I’m a data weenie. I was logging my weekly miles all the way back in 2000, and saving GPS tracks of significant rides using a handheld GPS long before GPS tracking was integrated into bike computers. So I’m sensitive to the features, usability, and reliability of my bike computer.

Edge 820 Di2 gearing & Strava Suffer Score page

I was really happy with the Edge 800, which I bought when they first came out in 2011. Over the years, Garmin introduced the newer Edge 810 and the larger Edge 1000, plus the smaller Edge 500 and 510, but the 800 was so good that I never felt the need to upgrade.

However, after six years, my Edge 800’s battery had begun to flag, and I was tempted by all the improved features and functions of the new units. Last July, when Garmin released a new unit in the 800 series, I read the reviews like a hawk, and finally picked up my unit in February, after I returned from my five-month stay up in Maine.

I’ll divide this review up into four sections: basic features and things I’m neutral about; features I don’t know much about because I didn’t test them; features I like and am excited about; and the things that disappoint me about the unit. Then the executive summary is at the end.

The Neutral

My biggest problem with my aging Edge 800 was battery life. I need a device that will record GPS data and provide navigational cues through at least a 9-hour 200k ride. I recently completed a 7-hour century ride, and had over 40 percent charge left, which means the Edge 820 can be expected to live up to its spec of 12-hour battery life.

I was a little concerned that the 820 has a smaller screen than the 800. On the other hand, it has better resolution. So far, reading the screen has not been a problem at all.

At a minimum, I need to be able to import GPX-formatted route data from the computer to the unit. No problem with the 820.

I also download all my raw GPS data (Garmin .FIT files) to my computer for archival. Thankfully, the 820 still supports this type of access.

Rather than coming with an SD card slot, this device has a fixed memory capacity of 8 GB. So far that hasn’t been an issue, and I can only see it becoming so if you were to load multiple continents’ worth of map data. Activity .FIT files don’t take up very much space at all.

Sometimes, if you were following a course and deviated from the path, my 800 would simply give up trying to navigate for you. The 820 hasn’t been bad, in that it tries to get you back onto the course.

Some folks have complained about the altimeter being off, or drifting during rides. I haven’t noticed a problem, given the understanding that barometric altimeters have limited accuracy by definition.

One new feature on the 820 is real-time weather alerts. This would be a cool feature, except it only receives major alerts like flash floods. Useful, but only rarely. Given that the device has a live Internet connection through a Bluetooth link to your cellphone, I’d rather see live local radar and notices of impending rain. There’s an app for that in Garmin’s ConnectIQ Store, but I haven’t tried it out yet.

Another new feature is the display of “recovery time” at the end of each ride. Basically, it’s a gratuitous, dumb feature. Recovery varies from person to person, and even a novice rider can sense how long they’ll take to recover from any given effort. I’ve turned that feature off.

One undocumented feature on the Edge 800 was the ability to set the boot screen text that displays when the unit powers up. I had set that to an inspirational message—“Always lead, never follow”—plus my phone number in case the unit was lost. I was happy to learn that the feature still works on the 820.

One evening, I learned that the Edge 820 automatically switches to an inverted-color display at night for better visibility. I’d love to say that’s an improvement, but it’s a feature that was also available on the 800; I had merely turned it off at some point!

The Unknowns

The Edge 820 comes with a power saving mode that comes on when the battery reserves start getting low. I haven’t tested it yet.

It also introduces an “incident detection” feature, where it’ll alert a contact if it thinks you’ve crashed. So many other users reported false positives that I have never turned the feature on.

Presumably you can load your own maps onto the unit. That’s a feature that existed on the Edge 800, but I’ve never felt any desire to mess with the maps that it came with. Though it might be a handy thing if you traveled or moved to a different continent…

Although Garmin did away with the idea of bike profiles, you can still set odometer values based on the sensors that are on each bike. Seems like a lot of work, and I don’t need total odometer readings while riding. I can just get that from the laptop.

The most exciting and useful feature that I haven’t had the opportunity to test is the Edge 820’s FE-C indoor trainer integration, which should allow the computer to set the trainer’s resistance level. In addition to using the Zwift social training app, theoretically you can follow a real-world course that you rode, and the unit will alter resistance to simulate the terrain. I’m looking forward to that, but that’ll require a very expensive trainer purchase, which I’ve been delaying.

The Positives

Edge 820 map page
Edge 820 Strava Live Segment page
Edge 820 Profile page
Di2stats.com gearing pie chart

Let’s start with the obvious. Coming from a seven year old model, the Edge 820 has updated maps, and lots of software updates, both built-in as well as regular firmware updates going forward. It’s nice to be back on a supported platform!

In addition to GPS satellites, the new unit also has the ability to receive signal from the Russian GLONASS constellation, making GPS locks faster, more accurate, and stable. I suspect this is also the reason why the regular signal stops/dropouts/starts I used to have near heavy infrastructure (e.g. bridges, railways) on the Edge 800 are almost completely gone.

With a Bluetooth connection to my phone, the Edge 820 will display incoming SMS messages, and notifications for incoming calls. It works well, and has been a nice convenience, given how many hours I’m on the bike.

For ultra distance rides, you can plug the Edge 820 into a portable battery pack and it’ll charge itself, while continuing to record ride data. To be honest, I think my Edge 800 could do this, but I never bothered to test it. However, I tested the 820 for this review, and it worked well.

With my Edge 800, after a ride I had to connect the device to my laptop and manually kick off a synchronization job to upload my data to Garmin Connect, then manually upload to Strava, as well. The 820 will use Bluetooth or Wifi to automatically upload ride data to both sites without a wired connection. Very convenient, especially when you’re away from home at a multi-day event.

Garmin has created an open API called ConnectIQ for developers to add their own apps and custom data fields to the unit. A favorite is the Strava Live Suffer Score data field, which displays how hard your ride is. I’ve got a great idea for my own custom data field, but setting up the required Windows dev environment is a huge bother.

The Edge 820 also will store your favorite Strava road segments and display a countdown and timer when you are on them, allowing you to measure your effort against your PR or the KoM holder in real time. It’s a cool feature, except for the discouraging Sad Trombone sound it makes when the record-holding time finishes before you do…

With an extra bit of hardware, the Edge 820 will communicate with your Shimano Di2 electronic shifting groupset. That allows me to display which chainring and cog I’m in (both numerically and graphically), as well as the system’s current battery level. It’ll beep when you’re at your absolute highest and lowest gears, and give you a text alert if the Di2 battery goes below 25 percent charge. On top of all that, all your shifting data gets added to your ride logs, which you can analyze later through sites like di2stats.com.

The Negatives

The touch screen is really poor… nearly unusable. Every interaction with the unit must be very deliberate, and often repeated. My unit is barely tolerable, but many people have simply given up and returned theirs for a refund. It’s terrible.

Scrolling and zooming the map are incredibly slow. Like, almost unusably slow. If there’s one thing a mapping GPS should get right…

Loading and calculating routes is even worse! If I have a stored GPS breadcrumb track, it shouldn’t take upwards of five minutes for the unit to begin offering navigation cues. Why would it take even longer than the Edge 800?

When I first started using the unit, it spontaneously turned itself off several times. Fortunately, after a little while, that stopped happening.

Along with SMS and incoming call notifications, it would be nice if the unit offered incoming email notifications, as well. Missed opportunity.

I had a lot of trouble setting my Max Heart Rate. By default, the unit will override any number you specify with whatever it gets from a heart rate sensor. But since HRM straps are notorious for occasionally giving ludicrously high readings (e.g. above 220 BPM), it kept resetting itself until I shut off the auto setting and entered a fixed HR max.

Presumably, the Edge 820 supports Live Track, where you can send a URL to a friend, and they can visit a site that shows where you are in real time. In my experience, the data connection to the phone is too fragile, and I’ve never gotten Live Track to work… not even once. Both Google Maps’ Location Sharing feature and the Glympse app work far better.

Then there’s Group Track, where you and your riding buddies can presumably “Live Track” each other, with the head unit displaying the locations of your other riding buddies in real time. Even if I had other riding buddies with compatible head units (not very likely), the fact that it depends entirely on the utterly non-functional Live Track feature means I can’t use it anyways.

That cool Shimano Di2 integration I talked about above took *way* more time, effort, and money than it should have. First, to get the Di2 to talk to the Garmin, I knew I had to order and add a tiny wireless transmitter and a cable to my Di2 system, plus the special tool to connect the cable. When that didn’t work, I learned that I also had to order and replace my old battery mount. Tiring of the runaround when that didn’t work, I brought it in to the bike shop, where they individually updated the firmware on every piece of my Di2 setup. That didn’t work, either, so I ordered a new front junction box, plus two more new cables. When those came in, we installed them and did two more whole rounds of firmware updates during several phone calls with Shimano support. Then we finally had to pair the Di2 transmitter with the Garmin, and iron out a few minor bugs in the system (not reading battery level, thinking it had 11 sprockets rather than 10). In the end, it took a couple months, three trips to the LBS, a few calls to Shimano support, seven new parts from four separate orders, and an extra $450 in parts and labor to set up, just for my head unit to display what gear I’m in. Had I known that at the beginning, I never would have bothered.

The Bottom Line

Ultimately, the unit mostly works, and is generally okay. It’s a good step up from my aging Edge 800. I like the auto-upload, custom data fields, Di2 integration, phone and text message notifications, and Strava Live Segments. And I’m hoping that the FE-C trainer integration works well. But none of those are must-haves, so I wouldn’t say I’m blown away by the new features.

On the other hand, a lot of people really hate the unit, and I can understand why. The touch interface is terrible, basic functions such as loading routes and map data are ridiculously slow, and key features like Live Track, Group Track, and incident detection simply don’t work.

While Garmin enjoyed a market-leadership position in GPS cycling computers for several years, riders who are frustrated with Garmin’s lack of responsiveness are turning to other vendors, now that quality alternatives are available like the Wahoo Element Bolt.

By all measures, the Edge 820 should have continued Garmin’s domination of the GPS cyclocomputer market. I really hope they have learned the drawbacks of releasing such a flawed product and do a better job next time. In the meantime, hopefully they’ll keep issuing firmware updates that fix the Edge 820’s broken features and provide more compelling functionality.

It’s still a good unit, but it’s definitely not the category-redefining product that I had hoped it would be.

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Massive Robots Save Earth From Humans!

Apr. 17th, 2017 01:30 pm

Last month, BikePGH—Pittsburgh’s main cycling advocacy group—conducted a survey of cyclists’ attitudes toward self-driving autonomous vehicles (AVs).

That action wasn’t arbitrary. Carnegie-Mellon University has developed their own AVs and tested them locally on the open roads. Ford’s AV unit employs a couple hundred people locally, mostly software engineers. And two years ago Uber deployed a score of robotic vehicles, using Pittsburgh as a development center and testbed for their own fleet. On any given trip through the city, you’re more likely to see an AV than not.

Bikers prefer AVs

With so many of them on the road, BikePGH wanted to know how cyclists felt about sharing the public streets with two-ton robots driving around at speed, and whether they, as an advocacy group, should oppose AV deployment or support it. So they conducted a survey.

You can read the survey results here. Although the survey questions were formulated with an obvious bias toward opposing autonomous vehicles, both BikePGH members and the general public responded that they overwhelmingly support the idea.

Naturally, I provided my own experiences. I’ve had many interactions with AVs while cycling; as I said, I’ve been seeing them all over town since moving here 18 months ago. All those interactions have been positive, with no issues whatsoever.

I suppose it’s human nature to mistrust automation. We find it difficult to believe that a machine can be put into a complex environment and make decisions that are better than—or even equal to—those made by a human.

The shibboleth that machines cannot handle the complexity of real-world situations has been addressed by recent advances in sensors, big data, and machine learning.

In fact, given proper programming and training, a robot will process more sensory data and consider more decisionmaking criteria than humanly possible in order to arrive at an optimal response, and do it in a fraction the time it would take you or I.

Does that mean I trust them enough to put my life in their hands? As with GPS navigation and routing, there are bound to be bugs and other challenges which will only be discovered with mass deployment. So far, all those AVs have had attentive “Safety Engineers” in the front seat, supervising their decisions and ready to intervene if anything goes amiss.

I do think it’s important that the government get involved to establish standard behavior and decisionmaking protocols and verify compliance with rigorous testing. I wouldn’t trust private enterprise to willingly bear the expense of testing and putting out a truly safe product. And someone needs to figure out liability concerns and how to insure them.

So I might not fully trust them, but I don’t fully trust any human operator on the road, either. While AVs might suffer from shortsighted programming, I know they won’t be intoxicated, fatigued, distracted, or aggressive. Taking those factors into account, I trust them more than I trust human operators, and I said as much in my survey response.

Amusingly, BikePGH chose to (anonymously) quote one of my comments in their survey’s summary. Here’s their writeup:

In general, people’s disdain for rude and aggressive human drivers overshadowed any negative perception, if not even welcomed autonomous vehicles. “Their novelty should not obscure the fact that they are neither distracted, intoxicated, nor aggressive, unlike the far more numerous human operators I encounter on the roads.” This commenter followed with “if [BikePGH] truly cares about cyclists’ safety, you would work to minimize the latter, rather than the former.”

That quote also got picked up as the closing kicker in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette’s article that covered the survey:

The general attitude toward self-driving cars in the survey could be summed up in one respondent’s comment: “Their novelty should not obscure the fact that they are neither distracted, intoxicated, nor aggressive, unlike the far more numerous human operators I encounter on the roads.”

Although I’m amused that I was quoted, I very much stand by those words. In my years of experience on the road, humans have conclusively proven themselves unable to operate motor vehicles without killing one another. Although autonomous vehicles might not be perfect, they’re unquestionably better than the self-important, homicidal monkeys I see on the roads every day.

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