The ability to explore on a bike is behind our desire to pedal.
Exploration takes us to places we didn’t know exist, sites of immense natural beauty, and mental spaces of enormous satisfaction.
Because exploring is not just taking a new road or a new trail that we’ve previously never been down, exploring is also about pushing our limits on a bike, riding faster and stronger than ever before.
As cyclists who take enormous pride in how smooth our action is, how we dance on our pedals as we go head-to-head with the laws of gravity, even how we dress, exploration is the fundamental component that gets us on a bike.
The last thing we want to encounter, however, is the rapid onset of frustration encountered by getting lost, when exploring goes wrong.
(Image credit: Garmin)
Built to counter such happenings were the Garmin Edge devices that have established themselves as a cyclist’s best friend, even if our closest ride partners from our clubs are accompanying us on our ride. Sorry, guys.
Mapping-enabled Edge devices allow users to choose the best A-B, round-trip or import routes from Garmin Connect, Strava and Komoot in order to suit the wants of a cyclist. The Edge devices are naturally ready to select the best route based on our riding preferences and how we route-plan. If you like to plan out your routes at home on a computer and study the parcours, the Edge devices permit this. If you want the Edge to do all the work, a few finger presses on the device and you’re away in no time. Functionality and adaptability are key.
What’s more, they rely on data from fellow cyclists to give us the best riding experience. With a feature called Trendline Popularity Routing, the Edge devices – including the 530, 830, 1030, 1030 Plus, and Edge Explore - also take into account billions of miles of ride data from other cyclists to suggest and choose the best and most popular routes for us.
That means no annoying diversion onto a busy dual carriageway that has us sticking to the nails and dirt of the road’s extremities in a desperate attempt to avoid danger, because the Edge devices recognise that such a piece of road is not our preferred stretch of tarmac.
It also means that a cyclist aboard a shiny, new carbon road bike can eschew the gravel tracks that cut across fields, but the adventurous rider who is riding a bike more suited to the dirt and pebbles can take the desired track.
With the Edge, directions are a responsibility willfully handed over to the bike computer expert, which helpfully also aides us up the climbs.
Coming with the ClimbPro feature that helpfully shows the remaining ascent and grade of a climb, riding up an ascent is that bit mentally easier, even if the physical difficulty remains.
(Image credit: Garmin)
Knowing the gradient that we’re currently on and what awaits us in 200m allows us to measure our efforts better, picking out the time to take is easier and the moment to jump out of our saddle and attack, thinking we really are rolling back to when we were 22 and had the legs of Tadej Pogačar (we don’t kid ourselves).
Cycling brings us pleasures and happiness that are hard to encounter in other walks of life, and the Edge works to make our experience as stress-free as it can be, with turn-by-turn directions notifying us in advance of upcoming turns.
Should we fancy a break from computer assistance and simply want to roll back the years to our infancy when our two wheels took us to places out of pure curiosity, we can pause notifications. When we’re ready to know the way out and or the way home, the Edge 1030 Plus points the way back.
Where the Edge devices thrive is and isn’t in their clever, technical offerings. Their features are exciting - so much so we can go out with the enthusiasm of a child operating a remote-controlled car for the first time just to play with its functions – but its astuteness is in reducing the mental clutter of planning a ride that makes it a cyclist’s best companion.
There isn’t a cyclist on Planet Earth that hasn’t experienced irritations caused by getting lost, whether through a wrong turn of their own or the inappropriate advice of an app that doesn’t take into account the wants of a cyclist.
(Image credit: Garmin)
Sorry, phone, but actually this rough road pockmarked with potholes isn’t to our liking.
Edge devices remove all such frustrations because they know what we as cyclists want, whether that’s the small, backcountry lane that includes a surprising 15 percent gradient, or the narrow, single-track of gravel recommended by users of Trailforks.
Garmin’s products do all the hard work for us, allowing us to enjoy the road and the trail and focus on our performance and sensations.
We’re much happier staring face-on at an intimidating climb than we are at our phone, enraged with being lost and not knowing how to get back.
The glorious simplicity of the Edge devices allows us as cyclists to do a little bit more, free of route stresses and content in the knowledge that the little screen in front of us has our best riding interests at heart.
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A freelance sports journalist and podcaster, you'll mostly find Chris's byline attached to news scoops, profile interviews and long reads across a variety of different publications. He has been writing regularly for Cycling Weekly since 2013. In 2024 he released a seven-part podcast documentary, Ghost in the Machine, about motor doping in cycling.
Previously a ski, hiking and cycling guide in the Canadian Rockies and Spanish Pyrenees, he almost certainly holds the record for the most number of interviews conducted from snowy mountains. He lives in Valencia, Spain.
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