Paring an SRM with a Garmin 500

Triathlon Forum
1

Who does it, and how happy are you with the setup? Does the Garmin ever lose its paring with the SRM? How frequently? Are there any frustrating or annoying glitches with data transfer? Other frustrations?

I’m asking, because I have just about had it with Saris and its Joule products. For several years, I used a Joule 2.0. Finally gave up, when their firmware updates prevented me from obtaining accurate speed or distance while riding, and from uploading to Power Agent when I was done riding. Customer support had nothing for me, other than the statement that “it should work” and “your data files must be corrupt.”

However, when I was able to get my hands on a Joule at no cost (not Joule GPS, not Joule 2.0, just a Joule), I figured I’d give it a try. No point in buying something new, if the Joule would give me what I needed. I didn’t much like the data field choices or the size of the number display, but it was giving me accurate speed and distance, and it uploaded to Power Agent. Then, over this past week, I did two rides where the Joule lost its zero mid-ride, with no warning. My power numbers became wildly inaccurate, and stayed that way, until I re-zeroed the unit. Sure enough, when I reviewed my data in Power Agent, you can see consistent power, then an obvious jump where it lost its zero, then consistent power again, after I rezeroed it. At this point during the season, I’m just riding for fitness, so it was just annoying, but if I’m racing, I don’t want my head unit displaying widlly inaccurate power data and skewing my ride averages. Simply put, if I can’t trust the Joule, I don’t want to use the Joule.

A Garmin 500 appears to be the answer to the problems I’m having with Joules. At least the Garmin will accurately measure speed and distance, and it appears to have a display that I can actually read (most of the Joule’s display is extremely hard to read). But if all I’ll be doing is trading one set of frustrating problems for another, I’ll stick with the devil I know.

How do people like their Garmin 500/SRM setups? I’m asking specifically about SRMs and Garmins, because my search of this forum seems to suggest that SRMs have more pairing problems with Garmins than PowerTaps do. But I haven’t found specific threads on Garmin 500s and SRMs.

2

I paired my Edge 500 to a Dura Ace SRM back March and haven’t had a single issue with it despite swapping the crank/computer back and forth from my tri bike to my road bike more times than I can count. I used to use a wired SRM with PCV and was worried about switching to the Edge 500, but I think I might prefer it over a PowerControl at this point.

3

I have a Quarq and had a Joule 2.0 for a brief stint last winter and suffered from the same things you described with yours. The pairing was always getting messed up, nothing seemed to work right, and it was always “well, it works fine with a PT”, which it did, but that’s not an acceptable solution for me. I got a Garmin Edge 500 and have not had the pairing issues since. Once paired it stays paired. My only complaint is getting to the calibration menu for the power meter requires going into way too many sub screens, but the actual functionality works as its supposed to. I would imagine the SRM functions almost identically with the 500, and I’ve seen many a pro bike with SRM’s and Garmin 500s, so if there was a reliability issue I cant imagine they would be using that combo.

4

Like dmorris I paired my Garmin with my SRM once back in June of 2011 and have had no issues since in that regard. I also swap back and forth from my TT setup to my road race rig. The one issue I have found that has crept up maybe a half dozen times since I have been using the two together is dropouts near routers. I have a teammate that has had a similar issue and that is all we can come up with. On outdoor rides I have never dropped data and none of my files have ever been corrupt. With all the parameters that the 500 now has in terms of power, I don’t think I would go anywhere else for my data acquisition.