Attention: Garmin Cycle Maps will no longer be available for Edge bike computers

thomass001
18 days ago

I just installed the new 2025.10 maps via Garmin Express.

Attention:

Cycling Maps Starting May 7, 2025, Garmin Cycle Maps will no longer be available for Edge® bike computers and Garmin watches. The same map content will be included in our TopoActive maps and can be purchased or downloaded on compatible devices. For more information about Garmin TopoActive maps, see TopoActive maps on Garmin watches or Checking the maps installed on an Edge bike computer.

  • 0 14 days ago in reply to L.Rouge

    The above change log is rubbish, I have installed the Topoactive maps and for the areas I frequent the road colors are worse and less contrasting than the previous (uncustomised) Cycle maps, I will go back to my customised colors via a MapTheme .

    Also watch out that the install actually deletes the old versions, my install left some 2024.10 Dem & Geocode files even though it put new 2025.10 versions, couple of GB, had to manually delete.

    And, while my 1040 is offered a full set of TropoActive Maps in place of the Cycle maps my 530 does not seem to be offered anything to update its 2024.10 map, there is a "You can pay" section lower down but it keeps getting a error when it attempts to display the $$$$ but looking at my regional Garmin site the TropoActive map for my region is listed with a cost which is about 40% of what I paid for the 530 originally and about 30% of what a new 540 is selling for in the shops? I think there might be a bit of outrage when pople catch up with their x30s not being on the outer?

  • 0 9 days ago

    It looks like if you had a map you didn’t pay for, you won’t have to pay for an equivalent new map.

    The newer Edges (starting with the 1030+) provided world-wide maps free (as part of the original purchase). So, it would appear you’d get new world-wide for no extra cost. These units have enough internal memory.

    The older units came with one regional map. It looks like you’d get the new map for the same region free.

    For older these units, you had to purchase maps for other regions in the past. So, it would be consistent that you’d have to purchase topoactive maps for these regions. Given the limited memory in these units, you have to delete existing maps to make space (which is a fair amount of work/fussing).

    Note that you didn’t get free updates to previously-purchased maps (if you paid for a map, you’d have to pay for updates to the same map).

    It (usually) doesn’t make sense to purchase maps from Garmin.

    The main reason not to buy maps is that you’ll be stuck having to pay for updates. (As someone who updates OSM, it would be particularly annoying to have to repeatedly pay for updates.)


    You can get perfectly-serviceable maps free.

    You can also create custom maps for just the region you need. These custom maps are generally small enough that they will fit without needing to remove your home-region map, which means they are easier to manage.

  • 0 9 days ago in reply to L.Rouge

    @dpawlyk is correct, a few days after my post above Garmin express sorted itself out and I was able to install a Topoactive 2025.10 for my region on my 530 and as it said above multiple regions on my 1040

  • 0 8 days ago

    One additional issue unrelated to price is that the TopoActive maps are huge. The TopoActive Europe is 17.9GB, for example.  I cannot load both the TopoActive North America and TopoActive Europe maps into my 1040, which has 32GBof memory (has no external memory slot).  When I bought my 1040 originally,, it had both CycleMaps Europe and CycleMaps North America loaded, which still left tons of space for my history, courses, other regional maps, etc…. Now if I want to travel outside my hope region, I will probably need to install my hope region maps and install the destination maps. Kinda sucks.  Anyone else experience this?  Any suggestions?  I am using map manager right on the 1040 to manage the maps and download over wifi.  CAN this be part of my problem?  Yes, it is slower than Garmin Express with a cable, but I have not seen any other reason to go back to Garmin Express so far, I have been managing fine with Garmin Connect and wifi.

  • 0 8 days ago in reply to 7814216

    As I suggested earlier, install custom maps (which can be free) for the region you are traveling too. These maps, for most people, will tend to be very small. 

    Installing these entails copying the img file to the Garmin folder. (Note that the name of the file doesn’t matter.)

    Given how maps work, it’s possible you can only have one of these enabled on the device. You probably want to be sure the internal name is different. 

  • 0 7 days ago in reply to 7814216

    Garmin Express offers TopoActive Europe as three separate regions (East, Central, West) so depending on what area you are visiting one of those regions could be sufficient.

  • 0 7 days ago in reply to dpawlyk

    Thank you dpawlyk, that is a good suggestion.  That is how I used to manage maps on my Garmin 800 which had much less memory.  When I bought my 1040, I was attracted by the ease of use of being able to stay Withings the Garmin ecosystem at no cost, without having to find and learn to use new 3rd party software and tools.  Sure, it is kinda fun to fiddle with OSM files, but I was hoping those days were over. 

  • 0 7 days ago in reply to JungleJim

    Thanks JungleJim.  That is quite interesting and a very good suggestion.  These are not available as separate maps using the Map manager built into the 1040 for wifi download. So this is an additional good reason to use Garmin Express for map downloads. I will look into that.