Garmin Edge® Explore 2 GPS Cycling Navigator

Despite my initial disappointment with this item (see below), I decided to try it for a few more days before returning it and ended up keeping it. Here’s why.

I tried to use it in a dense city and was expecting Google maps-like navigation. That isn’t what this is for and if that’s what you need, use Google maps. This device needs a relatively good view of the sky, and doesn’t update your position as much as a phone does (it seems).

I decided to trust it to navigate a ~35 mile ride outside of the city. I designed the route on gpx.studio and uploaded it to the device through the garmin connect website. It’s a little buggy but I got it to work. From there it becomes available on my phone, then syncs to the unit. On this ride, navigation was much better. Still took some getting used to, but it was functional.

My recommendation is to spend some time learning how to use this thing, and learning how it gives instructions. Updating from 2 to 4 stars; I like it, and don’t ride without it now.

—Original Review—

I’ve been serious about cycling for about a year now and after riding with some friends who had bike computers and seeing how much easier it was to do long, complex rides, decided it was time to get one. I compared options from wahoo, hammerhead, and garmin, and ultimately settled on this one.

I mostly wanted a computer to help me navigate, don’t really care about advanced fitness tracking. The reviews I found said this was great for navigation. With a large screen and plenty of ways to search for desitnations, it seemed good. Upon receiving the unit I took it out for a quick 5 mile ride. The fitness tracking features worked well; it was neat to see my (GPS-estimated) speed, total distance, time, and a trace of my route.

The issues started when I tried to do some navigation. There are a few ways to configure the device in terms of routing. You can choose short routes, easy routes, and routes based on popularity (from data garmin collects). I live in a large bike friendly city on the east coast in the US, and the edge explore 2 had a lot of problems even picking a route to get me where I wanted to go. In one instance, it told me to cross a river using a bridge, cross the street, the take the bridge back over to where I started, albeit on the other side of the road. I could have just crossed the road.

In general, the navigation lags behind my actual position significantly enough that I missed turns. This especially matters when riding in a city where turns come up fast and cars are not patient. It also gave me a few directions to go the wrong way down one-way streets and to ride in very pedestrian-heavy areas. I kept missing turns because of the lag and got so frustrated with it that I gave up trying to navigate with it and found my own way home.

Though I was able to tune the route planning algorithm to give me more desirable routes, its abysmal live navigation renders them ineffective. When you inevitably miss a turn, it will try to reroute you back onto the course it already has, rather than adjust the entire route accordingly as google maps would. I understand that this is more appropriate for the computational abilities of the device, but its still annoying.

The final straw for me came when I tried to update the maps using my computer. I thought that this might solve some of the navigation issues I was having. I downloaded the software from the garmin website, plugged in the edge explore 2, and found a 6GB map update ready for installation. Perfect. Except…I made numerous attempts to install the update and all of them failed with a non-descriptive error message. At this point I had no interest in coddling this device any more and decided to return it.

——

I do want to speak briefly about the ecosystem around this device for those that are still considering it. You can install an app on your phone, which your rides sync to over bluetooth. The app will then estimate how many calories you burn per day and stuff. Neat if you’re into it. I was mostly interested in the ability to create a route on the app (or garmin connect website) and load it onto the computer. The route designer worked just okay, both on mobile and web. What surprised me, though, was the inability to export routes from garmin connect. This includes both routes ridden and routes planned. As someone who likes to play with data myself, I was disappointed that I could not export a .gpx file or something.

One last comment, because I had this question and could not find the answer anywhere. Yes this unit has a compass screen, but it only displays heading. There is no magnetometer. So if you get confused by “ride to trail” instructions and don’t know which way to head when starting your ride, you might get frustrated with this unit as I did. If you want a true digital compass, go for the edge 530 or edge 830.

I used this whole bike touring across Europe for 3 months. Good interface, decent display with color. The maps and GPS work and the battery would last me 3-4 days while riding 9+ hours a day. The little clip dongle with the elastics that keeps the GPS bolted to the bike was surprisingly good and has remained tough and solid after all these months. Worth every penny for the good maps and navigation.

The online manual is huge. There are many non intuitive steps in order to view a map. You must tap the screen in an extremely controlled manner on a small icon. Impossible to do while on a bike. A downloaded century bike ride is called a course, not a route.you swipe right to view your ride stats. Supposedly the course will supply audible tones, preturn. I will know In a week.each simple step for usage requires about 4 unrelated menu taps.there is no logical step progression to be able to navigate between tasks or views. The side and outer top button will not be accessible if the computer is mounted on a bike. I needed a course since Jack Henry Street arrows r no longer allowed in NH.

I had the 840 edge, and lost it 2 years ago. Decided I wanted another, this is better for as I did not all the bells and whistles, just the basics. This does that and does a great job.

Just came back from a 1000 mile European bike tour with this evil little device and had the following problems:
-Every time I changed my navigation (ie took a diff route or went off therein tour to the grocery store etc) I had to finish my ride and the mileage/other stats were reset
-Plastic mount on device to OEM Garmin mount broke off
-touch screen was finicky especially swiping between screens, using the back buttons etc
-hard to see screen with polarized sun glasses especially the magenta course line
– I went through many diff countries and was required to find a desktop with Garmin Express installed to change country/geographic maps due to limited storage on device (this was impossible and rode through the entire country of Germany and Switzerland with no maps (France and Netherlands showed up)
-on screen buttons are tiny and hard to push when riding (ie changing map range size with + and -, back button when in sub menus, etc
-hard to tell when screen is locked or unlocked since the lock icons look almost identical

I cursed this thing all day/everyday. Maybe good for a daily ride but not a longer tour which I believe this was made for as its main capability is navigation vs the more expensive Garmin computers with shows power meter etc stuff

very good display and easy to use and setup. Setting up to my phone was a breeeze. Navigation feature works really well and you seem to be getting 1050 performance for a fraction of the cost, GPS seems very accurate. I cant believe the price.